Barack Obama spoke just before the Louisiana primary at Tulane University in New Orleans to an expectedly overflow crowd at Fogelman Arena. This was my first experience with an Obama rally, and while it was more energized than your typical political speech, it wasn’t precisely a moment of grand enmeshing. There are a few potential reasons for that: the close proximity to Super Tuesday, the early hour, or, most likely, the inclusion of more specific policy detail. If the popular wisdom holds that Hillary Clinton has a monopoly on  “…[w]omen, Latinos, and less-prosperous voters…” and that such voters are often more interested in “what have you done for me lately” policy, then it makes sense that we would see more specifics. In New Orleans, as one might imagine, there are a lot of people concerned with the bread-and-butter issues of reconstruction and streamlining of government red tape. Watching the video from his New Orleans rally (above and excerpted from the larger speech), there are clearly more numbers (grants, numbers of teachers, “Category 5 levees” among the most prominent) and more policy than uplift.

Whether that helped or not is impossible to tell, due to the dearth of polling in Louisiana prior to the primary, but clearly something lifted Obama to solid victories statewide, including Orleans and Jefferson Parishes.

The rest of the nation can probably assume that they will be seeing more speeches that model on the New Orleans speech, as evidenced by a recent stop at a General Motors plant in Wisconsin. And while it may not be enough to stop incoming attacks from Clinton and, increasingly, John McCain], perhaps it will be enough to still some of the no substance meme winding its way through the media.   

Read the whole New Orleans speech here .