For Obama, it has always been about the next election

“The next election is more important than doing what's right for the country.”

Those words came from the mouth of House Speaker John Boehner on Sunday, in describing what he believes has motivated the White House during ongoing talks to prevent national default.

Although it was Boehner's statement, President Obama could have been just as right to make the accusation against Republican leaders.

If you are a politician and want to remain one, the next election is always the straw that stirs the drink of those who are intoxicated by power. Those who disagree with that proposition are known as runners-up.

Back in the day when Barack Obama was just a lowly state senator from Chicago, he became a keen practitioner of “next-election governance.”

The training ground was Springfield. It was July 2004. Illinois was in the middle of a pitched budget battle, a small-scale model of what has been happening this summer in Washington.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Pre-Felony) had been unable to reach a budget agreement with the leadership of the General Assembly, so he called the legislature into special session. Few state legislators even bothered to show for the special sessions, even though they were being paid to be there. Then-Sen. Barack Obama was giving a speech down the street from the state capitol during one of the sessions. “By the time I was done, they had adjourned,” Obama told reporters at the time.

The state budget was worked out and Illinois survived that summer of 2004, and just in the nick of time for then state Sen. Barack H. Obama.

He had a very important speech to give.

Exactly seven years ago Wednesday the unknown politician from Illinois — with an unusual name and ears to match — was to deliver the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

It would be the beginning of the Obama Age.

At the time, he was running for the United States senate seat from Illinois. But the speech put Mr. Obama on the road to the presidency by making him a household name.

The 2,297-word speech took him 17 minutes to read off Teleprompters.

As Mr. Obama is struggling today to keep his hands on the wheel and the U.S. afloat, it is worthy to look at the speech that launched his national ship — and how it has held up over time.

The speech — which some at the time seemed willing to place in the same category as the Gettysburg Address and the Sermon on the Mount — was largely a political speech aimed at getting Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards elected president and vice-president.

“Our party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer. And that man is John Kerry,” said Obama.

The speech plugged Kerry's record, positions and personality. Obama said “John Kerry understands...” this and that. “John Kerry believes...” something or the other. “John Kerry knows...” a thing or two.

“John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope,” Mr. Obama told the crowd. This was, after all, long before John Edwards was hopelessly caught up in a sex, adultery and paternity scandal that wrecked his political career.

If you were to ask people what they recall about the speech — even those who were in the arena when Obama recited it — few would remember the Chicago-style get-out-the-vote-for-my-guys aspects. Most people, including me until I reread it, remember just the inspirational, Kumbaya, we're-all-in-this-together parts.

“I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

“Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you: They don't want their tax money wasted by the welfare agency or by the Pentagon.

“People don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all.

“Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

“Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.

“There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.

“The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.”

Then, came the finale. What you might call inspirational politics.

“The people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as president. And John Edwards will be sworn in as vice president. And this country will reclaim it's promise. And out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.”

Ÿ Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com and followed at twitter.com/ChuckGoudie