The Barack Obama we saw on Tuesday was, to borrow a phrase he has often used during this campaign, the one we’ve been waiting for.
Senator Obama could have given a cookie-cutter, template speech on race relations in America. Like other politicians in the past, including ones I worked for, he could have talked about the challenges still confronting black America, casting a brief eye towards the past, while emphasizing the progress made over the past decades—the rise of the black middle class, increased black homeownership, reductions in poverty, better educational opportunities, etc. Senator Obama could have delivered a sermon similar to the one Bill Clinton gave in Memphis in 1993, and because of Obama’s oratorical skills, the media still would have declared that speech to be successful, he still would have been heralded as visionary and presidential, and he would have easily righted his campaign’s wayward ship.
That is not the speech which Senator Obama delivered. His was the exact opposite. Entitled, “A More Perfect Union,” the speech—which was really more than just a speech and more like a sermon, a lecture, a homily, and political address all wrapped into one—contradicted the media’s predictions, confounded many, angered some, and not completely solved his political problems. In fact, some have even argued, perhaps correctly, that his political standing has only worsened, for he has further aggravated the uber-important middle-class, blue collar, high-school educated, mostly exurban and rural white voters in big swing states that truly matter, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. The media has claimed that Obama himself has been marginalized as “the black candidate,” to no fault of their own or to say the least of Senator Clinton’s campaign, either.
If the purpose of Senator Obama’s speech was to quell the controversy swirling around his former pastor, if it was intended to change the media narrative, if was supposed to reassure this niche voter—then it failed. Reverend Wright is still the Senator’s former pastor, the media are still talking about race and will continue to do so, and preliminary reports and polls suggest that the Senator has not completely regained his former standing. Those were not his objectives, however.
The Senator’s speech on March 18, 2008 revealed to the American people just how a President Obama would handle his duties as Commander-in-Chief starting on January 20, 2009. How would he confront the problems facing this country, how would he tackle the difficult and complex issues around the world? To use a Clinton campaign analogy, how would Senator Obama answer the red phone at three o’clock in the morning? The answer: he would be many things: thoughtful, inspirational, powerful, considerate, passionate, dynamic, historical, responsible, nonjudgmental, and sometimes even controversial.
His acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was supposed to be when voters viewed him as the future Forty-fourth President of the United States. Not so. This past Tuesday, Senator Obama revealed himself in full to the American people as their president. Instead of delivering the “race speech,” as everyone in the media, and perhaps some in his inner circle, were predicting and hoping for him to give, he delivered his very first State of the Union. It was about our country’s challenges and its opportunities. It was about race and history, hope and prosperity, divisions and generations. He revealed that the state of our union for far too long has been in a “racial stalemate,” which has hindered progress on multiple levels, from the economy to education and health care. To overcome these challenges, he told the American people, we need to actually begin addressing them. Unlike in the past when we talked about race, where we merely presented a laundry list of wrongs and then accomplishments, we forgot to mention what still needed to be done. The penultimate message of his speech: electing him would be a monumental first step towards confronting and resolving these problems.
Great presidents of the past have not told us what we’ve wanted to hear, but what we’ve needed to hear. We needed to hear Senator Obama’s speech. Americans, old and young, of all races and ethnicities, upper and middle class and poor alike, needed to hear for the first time an honest assessment of the issues that have plagued this country for centuries. Du Bois famously predicated in 1903 that the problem of the twentieth century would be “the problem of the color line.” In his speech, Obama argued that this problem is still with us in this new century and that “race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.” If past Tuesday’s speech is any indication, Obama is picking up where Du Bois left off. As he put it, this “is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger.”
On a lighter, more gleeful note, Senator Obama’s speech was also a huge middle-finger to the elite press corps, right-wing talk radio, and the beltway chattering class. The days leading up to his speech, these card-carrying members of the Know-It-All Country Club had all been clamoring over him like vultures on a corpse. Their righteous indignation over Jeremiah Wright’s condemnation of America’s foreign entanglements was almost as apocalyptic and nihilistic as the Reverend’s Sunday sermons. With the speech’s first sentence, a recitation of the introduction to the Declaration of Independence, Senator Obama was signaling that this time something very different. It was as though he was saying to all them, “Fuck you. I’m my own man, and I run my own campaign the way I want to. And if you want me to talk about race, we’re going to talk about race in a way that has never been discussed before in this country.”
Senator Obama used words that make traditional politicians stutter and most voters cringe. Slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, discrimination, black, white, bussing, affirmative action—these were all in one speech! It was striking to hear a major presidential candidate say that our Constitution “was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery.” It was even more shocking to hear him quote a major American literary figure, William Faulkner, who is not exactly a household name. Some in the press, most notably the dodo heads on cable, concluded that the speech was not successful because it didn’t speak to the “average” American. To which I responded, “Halleluiah! I don’t want a president who speaks down to people. I want one who lifts us up and challenges us.” As Peggy Noon put it in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Senator Obama delivered “a thinking man’s speech.” She was clearly not criticizing him, either.
Given his name, background, and biography, his lack of political, military, and foreign policy experience, and that his campaign has not centered around specific policy proposals—like health care, education, or the war—but instead one-syllable symbols—such as change and hope—Senator Obama’s candidacy has proven to be anything but conventional, textbook, or predictable. Provided the disadvantages inherit with this campaign—the fact that he has had to run against not one of greatest political minds of the past quarter century but two of the best, his other worthy opponents being current chairmen of major committees in the Senate, one past Vice-Presidential nominee, and the other a former congressman, United Nations Ambassador, Secretary of the Energy, and current governor—Senator Obama’s candidacy has hardly seemed cliché, a slam dunk or a shoe-in. If there is one lesson that we can already take away from the Senator’s campaign, particularly after Tuesday’s speech, it is this: unlike his opponents, Senator Obama has demonstrated exactly how he would carry out his duties as President of the United States.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Dinner with Dad and Obama's Speech
While at the end of dinner, my father and I said we loved each other, this time our words sounded remote and robotic, almost fake and phony. Just a few minutes prior, I had called him out as an old, ignorant, white guy, too afraid to admit his own prejudices, too timid to challenge his own beliefs, and too afraid to face reality: for the first time in our country’s history, we have the potential of electing the first black president, an achievement hardly fathomed by his generation and only recently conceived by my own.
My father and I had engaged in a serious political discussion, which is in itself an achievement, since most of our conversations revolve around the weather, sports, work, and anything but politics. We sat in a packed restaurant, our fellow diners pawned off as audience members watching the tragedy unfold in front of them. It didn’t help that we had each drank way too much: I alone had a bottle of wine and he at least several beers. The exact genesis of our conservation is a mystery—like all major disagreements, major conflicts, even wars, you never remember how it commences, how it starts, who pulls the trigger, only how it ends, what silence sounds like after a series of successive rounds. There was no victor or no one waving the white flag. The dénouement was peaceful and civil, unlike the actual battle.
If it is not already abundantly clear, let me state unequivocally that my father and I rarely agree on anything. We are very different. And that is why we rarely—if ever—discuss politics or other controversial issues with each other. While we are different, we have not allowed our differences to divide us. Our familial bond has united us for a quarter century, and nothing that happened last night will evaporate our relationship. We will always be bound together, through blood and personality, whether we like it or not.
For the first time in my life, however, I had told my father what I had long felt about him. I didn’t immediately regret my remarks. To a certain extent, I still believe in what I said. Yes, I had gotten caught up in my anger and indignation. Sparks flared, fires erupted, blows landed—we didn’t actually engage in fisticuffs, but after I spoke truth to power, after my father witnessed my indignation and frustration over him, his face grimaced, his eyes lowered, and he looked deflated, defeated, and he knew it.
Reading, listening, and watching Senator Obama’s speech today, I could not help but wonder: Was my father watching this? Would he be viewing it later? How would he react? Would he find it offensive or not enough to alter his opinion? Would it suffice and calm his fears? Would it ease his discomfort over voting for someone whose name doesn’t resemble those of the previous forty-three presidents? Or, would it merely confirm his initial suspicions and verify his bigoted attitudes and opinions?
At this Sunday’s Easter supper, when we all hold hands at the dinner table, rejoicing in grace and sacrifice, what will he be thinking then? I know what I will be praying for.
My father and I had engaged in a serious political discussion, which is in itself an achievement, since most of our conversations revolve around the weather, sports, work, and anything but politics. We sat in a packed restaurant, our fellow diners pawned off as audience members watching the tragedy unfold in front of them. It didn’t help that we had each drank way too much: I alone had a bottle of wine and he at least several beers. The exact genesis of our conservation is a mystery—like all major disagreements, major conflicts, even wars, you never remember how it commences, how it starts, who pulls the trigger, only how it ends, what silence sounds like after a series of successive rounds. There was no victor or no one waving the white flag. The dénouement was peaceful and civil, unlike the actual battle.
If it is not already abundantly clear, let me state unequivocally that my father and I rarely agree on anything. We are very different. And that is why we rarely—if ever—discuss politics or other controversial issues with each other. While we are different, we have not allowed our differences to divide us. Our familial bond has united us for a quarter century, and nothing that happened last night will evaporate our relationship. We will always be bound together, through blood and personality, whether we like it or not.
For the first time in my life, however, I had told my father what I had long felt about him. I didn’t immediately regret my remarks. To a certain extent, I still believe in what I said. Yes, I had gotten caught up in my anger and indignation. Sparks flared, fires erupted, blows landed—we didn’t actually engage in fisticuffs, but after I spoke truth to power, after my father witnessed my indignation and frustration over him, his face grimaced, his eyes lowered, and he looked deflated, defeated, and he knew it.
Reading, listening, and watching Senator Obama’s speech today, I could not help but wonder: Was my father watching this? Would he be viewing it later? How would he react? Would he find it offensive or not enough to alter his opinion? Would it suffice and calm his fears? Would it ease his discomfort over voting for someone whose name doesn’t resemble those of the previous forty-three presidents? Or, would it merely confirm his initial suspicions and verify his bigoted attitudes and opinions?
At this Sunday’s Easter supper, when we all hold hands at the dinner table, rejoicing in grace and sacrifice, what will he be thinking then? I know what I will be praying for.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Pilot
“The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.” Now, Hillary, it’s a vast left-wing conspiracy that is against you and your husband. Where do I sign up?
Lost in the fury in the controversy swirling around Geraldine Ferraro’s comments regarding Senator Barack Obama was the timing of her remarks. Her interview to that bastion of superior journalism The Daily Breeze was given on the weekend before the Texas and Ohio primaries. The day after, when the media anointed Clinton the next comeback kid, Ferraro’s comments caused ire. Everyone naturally assumed that Ferraro’s remarks were a continued extension of the Clinton campaign’s “kitchen sink” strategy; sliming Obama with anything they had, including tagging him as the “black candidate.” Actually, since they were made at a desperate and despondent time for the Clinton campaign, Ferraro’s feelings reveal a bitter, angry, frustrated, and even resentful supporter, who ardently believed that perhaps her only chance of ever seeing a female politician elected president was slinking down that very same kitchen sink.
What Ms. Ferraro said wasn’t racist; she didn’t claim, for instance, that Obama was inferior because of his ethnicity. Her comments were really bigoted. She believes—as she told us over and over again in the days after—that because of his race he is receiving preferential treatment from the media and even some voters. Her claim is that Obama’s success, as luck would have it, is because everyone is “caught up in the concept” of cleansing America’s sins by electing our country’s first non-white president. Ferraro was only one step shy from calling out Senator Obama as little more than an Affirmative Action candidate: he’s not qualified to be president, he’s not up to the job, and he does not deserve the presidency. She was practically shouting on various TV talk shows that he’s taking the one and only spot that has been historically held by white men.
The Clinton campaign mantra has been: experience trumps change and party longevity surpasses bipartisan naïveté. Ferraro had the audacity to argue the hidden gem of the Clinton campaign’s strategy: gender trumps race. So why did Geraldine Ferraro get into a fit? Because Barack Obama had the audacity to jump ahead of the line. “Didn’t he get the memo?” she seemed to be asking. It’s not supposed to be his turn! The Clintons are the most able, effective, and successful Democratic politicians of the past twenty years. How dare he, a neophyte, Junior Senator from a smaller, less important state, whose only claim to fame is a speech, declare himself to be the next Kennedy or Roosevelt!
Geraldine Ferraro’s comments and the Clinton camp’s kitchen sink strategy underscore a sense of entitlement and arrogance. For example, they have recently argued that if nominated Senator Clinton would select Senator Obama as her running mate. They are arguing that Obama is getting ahead of himself. Clearly someone of his stature is not ready to be president on Day One. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? The pro training the rookie?
Except the voters have something else in mind. Barring a major misstep on the part of the Obama campaign and the seemingly insurmountable lead he has on pledged delegates and the popular vote, the Clinton campaign and their supporters know that, in all likelihood, they’re going to lose the nomination—the very nomination which they have been mapping out for decades, the very prize which was supposed to be theirs, the very history-making event which was supposed to endear the Clintons for generations to come and rewrite their legacy in the history books. Except, instead of the rookie making all of the mistakes, he has made the pros look like amateurs.
Geraldine Ferraro’s comments were not truly directed at Barack Obama. Her frustrations and bitterness underscore the pent-up disappointment that many supporters feel towards Clinton’s flailing campaign. They can’t publicly express these exact sentiments. The Clintons have made plenty of examples out of those who have betrayed them in the past. Instead, Ferraro turned to the most primal and vile emotion which one feels when their well-laid plans disintegrate into thin air. She blamed it all on the other guy’s race.
Ferraro exploited Obama’s ethnicity as an excuse and a cover up for what has been perhaps the most poorly run and mismanaged presidential campaign in modern political history. Her gut instinct was to call out Obama’s race and use that as justification for Clinton’s failures. Her sentiment is not any different than when one feels they have been passed over, or not even considered, for a job because of they are white and the successful applicant is black. Opponents of affirmative action have beaten this fallacy into the minds of Americans for the past quarter century or more. On issues ranging from the economy to education, they have argued that affirmative action, or preferential treatment, allows for those less-deserving and those less-experienced the right to take away a position that is rightfully yours.
Coincidentally or not, the Clintons have used this argument, repeatedly pointing out that picking a president is akin to a job interview. On paper, they argue, Obama is less experienced, less qualified, and less knowledgeable on national and global affairs. How then does he deserve the job? Why should they be passed over for someone who clearly does not meet the job description’s requirements? To do so would mean you were giving preferential treatment. Electing, let along nominating, Barack Obama would be filling a quota, not picking a president.
If this is what remains of the Clinton’s kitchen sink strategy, they are in an even worse off position than before Ohio and Texas. Of the ten remaining contests, few favor Clinton; Obama is expected to win a majority of the outstanding primaries and caucuses, further padding his lead in pledged delegates and popular vote. However, the Clintons are not ones to think short-term. They have been ruminating over the presidency for over three decades—and they will not relinquish power or the chance to regain it. Their only hope is to damage Obama enough so that he loses in November and then they can claim that they were right all along. However, Obama has confounded the Clintons, and so too he probably will prove to be masterful in his campaign against McCain. After all, the American people are picking a president, not a resume.
Lost in the fury in the controversy swirling around Geraldine Ferraro’s comments regarding Senator Barack Obama was the timing of her remarks. Her interview to that bastion of superior journalism The Daily Breeze was given on the weekend before the Texas and Ohio primaries. The day after, when the media anointed Clinton the next comeback kid, Ferraro’s comments caused ire. Everyone naturally assumed that Ferraro’s remarks were a continued extension of the Clinton campaign’s “kitchen sink” strategy; sliming Obama with anything they had, including tagging him as the “black candidate.” Actually, since they were made at a desperate and despondent time for the Clinton campaign, Ferraro’s feelings reveal a bitter, angry, frustrated, and even resentful supporter, who ardently believed that perhaps her only chance of ever seeing a female politician elected president was slinking down that very same kitchen sink.
What Ms. Ferraro said wasn’t racist; she didn’t claim, for instance, that Obama was inferior because of his ethnicity. Her comments were really bigoted. She believes—as she told us over and over again in the days after—that because of his race he is receiving preferential treatment from the media and even some voters. Her claim is that Obama’s success, as luck would have it, is because everyone is “caught up in the concept” of cleansing America’s sins by electing our country’s first non-white president. Ferraro was only one step shy from calling out Senator Obama as little more than an Affirmative Action candidate: he’s not qualified to be president, he’s not up to the job, and he does not deserve the presidency. She was practically shouting on various TV talk shows that he’s taking the one and only spot that has been historically held by white men.
The Clinton campaign mantra has been: experience trumps change and party longevity surpasses bipartisan naïveté. Ferraro had the audacity to argue the hidden gem of the Clinton campaign’s strategy: gender trumps race. So why did Geraldine Ferraro get into a fit? Because Barack Obama had the audacity to jump ahead of the line. “Didn’t he get the memo?” she seemed to be asking. It’s not supposed to be his turn! The Clintons are the most able, effective, and successful Democratic politicians of the past twenty years. How dare he, a neophyte, Junior Senator from a smaller, less important state, whose only claim to fame is a speech, declare himself to be the next Kennedy or Roosevelt!
Geraldine Ferraro’s comments and the Clinton camp’s kitchen sink strategy underscore a sense of entitlement and arrogance. For example, they have recently argued that if nominated Senator Clinton would select Senator Obama as her running mate. They are arguing that Obama is getting ahead of himself. Clearly someone of his stature is not ready to be president on Day One. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? The pro training the rookie?
Except the voters have something else in mind. Barring a major misstep on the part of the Obama campaign and the seemingly insurmountable lead he has on pledged delegates and the popular vote, the Clinton campaign and their supporters know that, in all likelihood, they’re going to lose the nomination—the very nomination which they have been mapping out for decades, the very prize which was supposed to be theirs, the very history-making event which was supposed to endear the Clintons for generations to come and rewrite their legacy in the history books. Except, instead of the rookie making all of the mistakes, he has made the pros look like amateurs.
Geraldine Ferraro’s comments were not truly directed at Barack Obama. Her frustrations and bitterness underscore the pent-up disappointment that many supporters feel towards Clinton’s flailing campaign. They can’t publicly express these exact sentiments. The Clintons have made plenty of examples out of those who have betrayed them in the past. Instead, Ferraro turned to the most primal and vile emotion which one feels when their well-laid plans disintegrate into thin air. She blamed it all on the other guy’s race.
Ferraro exploited Obama’s ethnicity as an excuse and a cover up for what has been perhaps the most poorly run and mismanaged presidential campaign in modern political history. Her gut instinct was to call out Obama’s race and use that as justification for Clinton’s failures. Her sentiment is not any different than when one feels they have been passed over, or not even considered, for a job because of they are white and the successful applicant is black. Opponents of affirmative action have beaten this fallacy into the minds of Americans for the past quarter century or more. On issues ranging from the economy to education, they have argued that affirmative action, or preferential treatment, allows for those less-deserving and those less-experienced the right to take away a position that is rightfully yours.
Coincidentally or not, the Clintons have used this argument, repeatedly pointing out that picking a president is akin to a job interview. On paper, they argue, Obama is less experienced, less qualified, and less knowledgeable on national and global affairs. How then does he deserve the job? Why should they be passed over for someone who clearly does not meet the job description’s requirements? To do so would mean you were giving preferential treatment. Electing, let along nominating, Barack Obama would be filling a quota, not picking a president.
If this is what remains of the Clinton’s kitchen sink strategy, they are in an even worse off position than before Ohio and Texas. Of the ten remaining contests, few favor Clinton; Obama is expected to win a majority of the outstanding primaries and caucuses, further padding his lead in pledged delegates and popular vote. However, the Clintons are not ones to think short-term. They have been ruminating over the presidency for over three decades—and they will not relinquish power or the chance to regain it. Their only hope is to damage Obama enough so that he loses in November and then they can claim that they were right all along. However, Obama has confounded the Clintons, and so too he probably will prove to be masterful in his campaign against McCain. After all, the American people are picking a president, not a resume.
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