Let me start off with a quote:

We've all seen that politics in this town is no longer a mission - it's a business. Our politics has never been pure, but there's a sense that in the last several years, the race for money, and influence, and power has left the hopes and concerns of most Americans in the dust.

You're worried about how you'll pay for college, or health care, or save for retirement, but when you turn on the TV or open the newspaper, all you see from Washington is another scandal, or a petty argument, or the persistent stubbornness of a President who refuses to end this war in Iraq.

Obama is talking about returning a sense of idealism to politics, a sense of mission and purpose, but it is firmly based on a return to a progressive agenda.  The complaint is that government isn't addressing our needs anymore.

Populism2008 is exactly right.  This is a new politics newly re-centered around a progressive agenda. This is about restoring an activist role to government in public life, an argument he is making constantly throughout his speeches in an often subtle way.

Obama is not a Mark Penn DLCer trying to find the golden middle, he's a progressive Democrat trying to pull the middle over to where he is on issues like health care and poverty.  

Why has government failed in Washington?  Listen to Obama's answer:

The cynicism we feel about what politics can achieve today is no accident. It has to do with a failure of leadership. It has to do with the philosophy they've peddled in this town for the last six years - a philosophy of trickle-down and on-your-own that says government has no role in solving the challenges we face and so it shouldn't even try.

It's a theory that's easy to talk about when you're playing politics in Washington, but harder to defend when you actually see what it does to average Americans.

I met a family in Iowa City with a small business of fifteen years who is now facing bankruptcy because of their medical bills. Try telling them they're on their own.

I spoke with workers in Newton who were watching their Maytag plant close down and their shops get shipped overseas. Try telling them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Try saying "tough luck" to the families who still don't have homes in New Orleans, or the 45 million Americans without health care, or the 15 million children born into poverty in the richest nation on Earth.

This is not who we are. This is not how America has persevered through war and depression, through struggles for civil rights and women's rights and worker's rights. We have come this far as a nation because we believe in a different kind of politics - because we believe in a different vision for America.

Obama couldn't possibly be more explicit here about what he means about a new kind of politics.  He goes further:

We believe that we rise or fall as one people. We believe that we each have a stake in one another - that I am my brother's keeper; that I am my sister's keeper. We believe that what happens to that family in Iowa, or to those Maytag workers - that matters to us, even if it's not our family, or our job.

Obama is laying out a series of progressive beliefs but in language that should appeal to all Americans.  These are not just progressive values, they are American values.  

From Obama's 2006 Take Back America speech:

You know, we all remember that George Bush said in 2000 campaign that he was against nation-building. We just didn't know he was talking about this one.

Now, let me say this - I don't think that George Bush is a bad man. I think he loves his country. I don't think this administration is full of stupid people [Laughter] - I think there are a lot of smart folks in there. The problem isn't that their philosophy isn't working the way it's supposed to - the problem is that it is working exactly the way it's supposed to.

The reason they don't believe government has a role in solving national problems is because they think government is the problem. That we're better off if we dismantle it - if we divvy it up into individual tax breaks, hand 'em out, and encourage everyone to go buy your own health care, your own retirement security, your own child care, their own schools, your own private security force, your own roads, their own levees... [Laughter]

It's called the Ownership Society in Washington. But in our past there has been another term for it - Social Darwinism - every man or women for him or herself.

I have already argued that Obama makes the most powerful argument for the activist role of government of any speaker now in the party and that this explains a lot of his support among Democrats tired of leaders unable to articulate our values.  But it is also crucial to understanding what he means by a new politics, a new area of government activism.  

And even more importantly, Obama is not describing a new politics devoid of political parties.  Far from it, here's Obama at Take Back America in 2006:

Yes, our greatness as a nation has depended on individual initiative, on a belief in the free market. But it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, of mutual responsibility. The idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we're all in it together and everybody's got a shot at opportunity.

Americans know this. We know that government can't solve all our problems - and we don't want it to.

But we also know that there are some things we can't do on our own. We know that there are some things we do better together.

We know that we've been called in churches and mosques, synagogues and Sunday schools to love our neighbors as ourselves; to be our brother's keeper; to be our sister's keeper. That we have individual responsibility, but we also have collective responsibility to each other.

That's what America is.

And so I am eager to have this argument not just with the President, but the entire Republican Party over what this country is about.

Because I think that this is our moment to lead.

The time for our party's identity crisis is over. Don't let anyone tell you we don't know what we stand for and don't doubt it yourselves. We know who we are. And in the end, we know that it isn't enough to just say that you've had enough.

We know that we are the party of opportunity. That in a global economy that's more connected and more competitive - we're the party that will guarantee every American an affordable, world-class, top-notch, life-long education - from early childhood to high school, from college to on-the-job training.

We know that as progressives we believe in affordable, accessible health care for all Americans. The party that won't make Americans choose between a health care plan that bankrupts the government and one that bankrupts families. The party that won't just throw a few tax breaks at families who can't afford their insurance, but modernizes our health care system and gives every family a chance to buy insurance at a price they can afford.

Let it be said that we are the party of an energy independent America.  The party that's not bought and paid for by the oil companies. The party that will harness homegrown, alternative fuels and spur the production of fuel-efficient, hybrid cars to break our dependence on the world's most dangerous regimes.

Let it be said that we will conduct a smart foreign policy that battles the forces of terrorism and fundamentalism wherever they may exist by matching the might of our military with the power of our diplomacy and the strength of our alliances. And when we do go to war, let us always be honest with the American people about why we are there and how we will win.

And let it be said that we are the party of open, honest government that doesn't peddle the agenda of whichever lobbyist or special interest can write the biggest check. The party who believes that in this democracy, influence and access should begin and end with the power of the ballot.

If we do all this, if we can be trusted to lead, this will not be a Democratic Agenda, it will be an American agenda. Because in the end, we may be proud Democrats, but we are prouder Americans. We're tired of being divided, tired of running into ideological walls and partisan roadblocks, tired of appeals to our worst instincts and greatest fears.

Obama is talking about a new American agenda focused on progressive issues, a re-centered political debate, focused on a newly energized but responsible government.  If Democrats are going to be the future majority in this country, it has to be on the grounds of making an argument based on the values of all Americans.

Don't get me wrong.  There are serious hurdles in our politics.  But it is a cop-out to argue that American politics has always been this way, that the influence of special interests and lobbyists can never be curbed, that no amount of ethics legislation would really serve to change Washington.  

Obama proposed the most aggressive packet of ethics reforms, closing the revolving door by forbidding officials leaving the administration in order to take high-paying jobs lobbying it and preventing newly-hired officials to work on legislation dealing with previous employers for two years; restricting the no-bid contracts and the earmarks that have been the recipe for corruption; banning gifts to any executive branch employee, engaging the public through greater transparency by presenting legislation on the internet for three days before signing and creating new opportunities for public comment, ending the manipulation of the executive branch for political ends by requiring each and every employee sign a pledge that they were not hired solely for political reasons,  and signing an executive order requiring political appointees to have relevant professional experience.

Yes, Obama argues for greater civility in politics and for a crack-down on corruption and influencing-peddling, but most of all what he means by the term "new politics" is the return of some sense of perspective and mission: Our government should be re-focused on doing what it can to extend the benefits of health insurance, alleviate poverty, and work to improve the lives of everyday Americans.  A new politics --- appealing to American values and working for a progressive agenda.