2 posts tagged “obama”

I'm getting more than a little weary of hearing this election being described as "historic."  I think the Clinton campaign was the first to set this particular word-ball in motion, HRC's own inflated sense of self-importance and entitlement woven with her desire to harness what remains of second wave feminist energy in this country as the first viable woman running for President of the United States.  So in her own PC way, not wanting the hog the "historic" limelight, Hillary was also quick to acknowledge the "historic" status of Barack Obama as the first viable African-American candidate for the presidency.  Obama, for his own part, tends to down-play that.  He so totally is of a different sort of rhetorical bent, one grounded in the classical liberal idea of the meritocracy.  He does not play up identity politics, instead relying on his inate gift for appealing to the masses who are fed up with GWB (apparently 80% of us, according to recent approval rating polls). 

Now that Obama has been officially selected as the Democratic nominee, McCain's camp has attempted to rally it's base by angling for a piece of the "historic" pie, selecting ultra-conservative, anti-Choice, Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.  Some were worried that this gambit was meant to lure hysterical Clinton supporters who in their defeat were declaring their votes for McCain, just to spite Obama (and their faces for their noses).  But any self-respecting Democrat who could possibly vote for McCain solely on the grounds that 1) he is not Barack "swooped in and 'stole' the nomination from Hillary" Obama and 2) that he's chosen a woman for his running mate is beyond disgruntled; they're irrational and dangerous denizens of our democracy and not unlike the short-sighted knee-jerk reactors we've been held hostage to by the Bush II administration, lo these eight long years.

In a recent New York magazine article John Heilemann recalls the election of 1980 when, "In Ronald Reagan, the country confronted a charismatic, potimistic, oratorically gifted alternative running on the twin themes of hope and change, who had led a grassroots insurgency to defeeat the Recpublican Establishment's candidate, George H.W. Bush."  Sounds familiar, right?  Substitute Democratic for Republican and it's Obama-mania to a tee.

Heilemann goes on to recall voters' uneasiness with Reagan who "seemed risky, inexperienced, extreme," right up until the final days before the election when Reagan appeared in a presidential debate.  "Reagan assuaged those naggign fears by appearing presidential in his debate [...] with Jimmy Carter and then sprinted to a ten-point rout.  And thus it will be with Obama and John McCain, you just wait and see," says Heilemann. 

When this article first appeared back on August 18th, I would have totally agreed with Heilemann that McCain would self-destruct over the course of the fall campaign.  But this was before the two party conventions.  I don't know how we could perceive Barack Obama as any more "presidential" than he has always appeared from the day he threw his hat in the ring, to his tour of European leaders this summer and finally to the speech in front of the (much-maligned) columns on that state at Invesco Field in Denver literally bursting with 80,000 supporters.  He's just got "it," like Reagan did back in the '80s, in terms of charisma before the camera.  McCain, on the other hand is more of a go-with-your-gut sort of fellow, prone to hasty decisions based on his own moral compass that more often than not finds its true north with Republican policy (according to his voting record in the Senate), even though he's managed to paint himself as some kind of party outsider or, as he likes to say, "maverick." I guess that's his attempt to harness some of that rough-rider western appeal that Reagan had with the American public in the 1980 election -- not an officer and a gentleman, but a cowboy and a president.

While people liken McCain to Bush because of his stance on the so-called "War on Terror," universal health care, gay rights, women's rights, and the economy (to name only a few key issues), which is distressing enough, I am frankly more unnerved by his tendency toward hasty decisions and bad temper.  OK, fine - let's give him credit for serving honorably in Viet Nam and surviving the years of torture as a prisoner of war there.  But his service in the military does not translate automatically to effective leadership skills in the highest office in the land.  He's not reflective; he's not diplomatic.  Those are two qualities I want in my next president to counter some of the damage that has been done to the people of this country and our image in the eyes of the international community under the "leadership" of Dubya and Co.

And but, I've already heard members of the media sound pleasantly surprised by how "even-tempered" and "presidential" McCain appeared during his acceptance speech at the RNC last night.  But people, it's an act!  And look at the person he's chosen as a running mate, whose own speech was filled with a level of sarcasm and bold-faced lying the like of which I've never heard in such a venue.  Sure, convention speechifying is meant to rally the troops.  But, for all that Sarah Palin seems to have injected some life-force into the republican faithful, I really think she rallied the Obama supporters more.  A collective, "Oh hell no!" as thousands rushed to www.barackobama.com  to give another donation and maybe even sign up to do some telephone campaigning on the ticket's behalf.  Of course, the Republicans were charmed by her poise, and her breeder "hockey-mom" folksy delivery of anti-Obama conservative invective dripping with sarcasm and belittling remarks.  They also like that she wears skirt suits, shows a little leg and in her spare time from raising five kids and extracting federal funds for Alaskans, hunts carribou and likes to chow down on mooseburgers.  Can I see Sarah Palin as a star on "The Real Wives of Juneau, Alaska" or her whole family living next door to "The Osbournes"?  Heck yeah!  Can I envision her representing our country to foreign leaders in McCain's stead - hell, in my stead, in your stead. Not a chance.  This woman does not speak for me, but she certainly seemed to speak for those convention-goes in St. Paul on Wednesday night.  Again, scary and depressing.

I'm afraid that Heilemann's pre-RNC "just you wait and see" might be more applicable to McCain at this point.  The election of '04 changed me; I couldn't fathom Bush II winning a second term - it seemed obvious that he'd set us on the wrong path, gotten us embroiled in a pointless war on illegal grounds - and then it happened.  So today, I'm braced for the worst even as I hope against hope that we can actually vote the better of the two candidates into office.  I guess I'm a disillusioned optimist, a realist romantic.

I still believe McCain will self-destruct - say something irreparably wrong before the election rather than afterwards when his words and petulance could have international consequences, were he elected into office.  See it's not a matter of looking presidential and it's not a matter of "historic" -- it's a question of character and leadership and restraint as much as decisiveness and action.  You can have all of that at once; none of those are mutually exclusive.  I think we've had enough rough riders for president in the last century.  How about someone with a good head on his shoulders for president, who thinks with his brain instead of his gut?  Now that would be historic.