The Obama attraction
Tuesday, May 8, 2007 at 2:09AM ARTICLE: "How Big a Stretch? For Barack Obama, Winning the White House Would Mean Bridging The Biggest Gap Of All," By Lynne Duke, Washington Post, May 7, 2007; Page C01
Seriously, for me, the attraction to Obama is: 1) generational, and 2) a sense of competency and vision.
As for the underlying question of "Is white America evolved enough to elect a black man president?" I find that sentence alone weirdly racial. Obama's half black and half white, so continuing to view him as "limited" somehow politically by his blackness seems so last century (the queer "one drop" rule).
If you want to go that route and make such arguments, then try this one on for size: Obama's the first black who's seriously qualified for the job. No one who ran before could be viewed so, either because the appeal was limited (Jordan was never believable, like electing your stern, lecturing aunt), the platform too narrow (Chisolm simply had no national standing, a la Kucinich she was a fanciful symbol), the candidate too weird (Jackson was and remains a Perot-like egomaniac without enough reliability) or the character too questionable (Brown was always the accidental candidate who lucked out).
Obama's serious because he covers all the bases, like any credible candidate does: great platform, great message, great appeal, great delivery, seems competent--the whole nine yards. His problem is that Hillary hits on all cylinders too, which makes the generational appeal perhaps the differential.
But I stick to some doubts on him, in that I still see him as JFK '56 and not quite yet JFK '60, so I think he'll run as Veep, like Kennedy almost did in 1956.
Reader Comments (4)
You may be right about the generational attraction. Hillary may be qualified, but the idea of her at 1600 Pennsylvania after 16 years of Bill I and George II leaves me with a sour spot in my belly. From my Left and Right friends, there's a sense that our nation has to set off in some new direction...that the rules are different now in a way that Hillary, Rudy, John and John can't grasp.
Of course, we also like the idea of Obama because he's black or half-black. Maybe he can move us beyond the sophmoric racial posturing that so surrounds every issue.
But the campaign is long. At some point people will want the policy of Barack Obama, then we'll see what becomes of the idea
Obama is good for relations with Africa, and with SE Asia, I think.
That said, not totally comfortable with his politics. Still prefer an "R" right now, at least on domestic matters (particularly the centrist Giuliani that's sure to come out if he wins the primaries) and on the Legislative/Executive split, but I could swallow Obama for 4 years. He seems like a stand-up guy.
In fact (drawing my second, and last, sports analogy of the day), a friend was telling me about some report ESPN ran about Barry Bonds. Apparently, "white people" don't want to see Barry Bonds break Aaron's record, but "black people" do. It's a lame attempt to create a racial divide that doesn't even exist...the issue that people have with Bonds is the steroid use, not the color of his skin. But people hear "steroids + baseball" and think "yaaaawn", but when it comes to creating and perpetuating social barriers...apparently that draws viewers.
Support for Obama is more of a generational thing than anything. 8 years of GWB has reinforced the sense that America is all about "politics as usual". People yearn for a better tomorrow, but are fed a false binary between "a better tomorrow" and "security today".