Campaign 2008From The Trail
NBC/National Journal embed reporters file regular dispatches on their experiences from the trail.

Previously in this series:
• Free Trade-Off (07/08/08)
• All Economy, All The Time (07/07/08)

Read The Entire Series

CHICAGO -- The way Barack Obama sees it, he has a unique opportunity to tell Americans things they may not want to hear.

As the first black presidential nominee of a major party -- a designation expected to become official at next month's Democratic National Convention in Denver -- Obama has a powerful podium that he says he intends to use to begin shaping the kind of country he hopes to lead.

That means continuing the national conversation on race that he called for during the Philadelphia speech in which he addressed the incendiary remarks of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and amplified in his Father's Day speech at a black church on Chicago's South Side.

"Look, I think that a president can set the tone," Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane Saturday night on the flight from Chicago to San Diego. "I've got something of a bully pulpit now. Obviously, I've sparked a conversation as a consequence of my speech, and I do think part of the role of president is to offer his or her opinions about critical issues, not all of which can be solved by government but make a big difference in the quality of our society. That doesn't mean that we're going to solve these problems overnight, but I'd like to think that if a president says that something's important, that some people might pay some attention."

Asked if he thought he might come off as "too lecture-y," Obama said, "No."

The senator from Illinois has shown a touch for keeping his message light at times. His audience in Powder Springs, Ga., last week roared with laughter for this riff: "You can't find a job, unless you are a really, really good basketball player -- which most of you brothas are not. I know you think you are, but you're not. You are overrated in your own mind. You will not play in the NBA. You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Lil Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school."

Obama's Father's Day's speech, delivered to an audience packed into the Apostolic Church of God, amplified his themes.

"If we are honest with ourselves, we'll admit that too many fathers are also missing. Too many fathers are M.I.A. Too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes," he said, departing from his script. "They've abandoned their responsibilities; they're acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our family have suffered because of it. You and I know this is true everywhere, but nowhere is it more true than in the African-American community."

He went on to say that the problems the black community faces cannot be blamed solely on the government.

"There's a reason why our families are in disrepair, and some of it has to do with a tragic history. But we can't keep on using that as an excuse," he said. "Some of it has to do with the failures of our government, and those failures are real. But we can't keep on using that as an excuse."

Perhaps ironically, the presidential speech that echoed loudest was delivered by the husband of vanquished primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton. In 1993, Bill Clinton spoke at the church in Memphis where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his final sermon. He said that had the civil rights icon been there, he might have said, "I did not live and die to see the American family destroyed" or violence and drugs ruin lives. This point is hardly the only similarity between Obama and the former president, who was also a relative unknown when he began his quest for the nation's highest office.

The message is similar to arguments made, notably, by Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint in their 2007 book on lifting up black America, Come On, People: On The Path From Victims To Victors. It is one that some in the black community have found controversial and even offensive but that others have embraced.

Last week, it emerged that civil rights leader and former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson had used crude language to accuse Obama of "talking down to black people" -- comments heard over a microphone that he did not know was on.

Obama told reporters on the plane Saturday that he had spoken with Jackson before news of his remarks had come out and that, while the two had discussed Jackson's concerns, Obama would not "back up one bit" in talking about the problem absent fathers present in the black community.

In the end, the dust-up may have helped the senator by giving him an opportunity to show voters -- especially white voters wary of Jackson's brand of identity politics -- that he is different, not steeped in the old rhetoric but ready to acknowledge a community's own responsibility to lift itself up.

The conversation took yet another turn this week in the wake of a provocative New Yorker magazine cover that depicts the Obamas as fist-bumping militants, with an afro-coiffed Michelle Obama carrying an AK-47 and the candidate shown in a turban, an American flag burning in the fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden hanging on the wall.

Where the conversation goes from here is anyone's guess. The only sure thing is that we haven't heard the last word.