The Case For Obama Is The Case For Everything

I’m all wound up about the race for the Democratic presidential nominee and am going to have to detour from city-country musings for a moment or two.

I’ve kept a distance from most media in the last few months, sorting out some things in my head and via observation/experience. Catching up on a few periodicals today, it’s weird to read analyses which articulate almost exactly what I’ve been thinking and saying ever since Obama joined the race. This is not to say that I am prescient or of particular high intelligence in any way; but rather to throw an “Amen” into the ring, affirming that something is happening in world politics and American leadership – that this is indeed a critical moment in history, of which we post baby-boomer, liberal-leaners in particular are a part – whether we like it, or acknowledge it, or not.

My draw to Obama, from the beginning, has been directly related to his biography. Meaning, my judgment of his leadership ability has everything to do with his person – how is this person shaped, what makes this person tick, what does this person most hate and most respect, with what inner capacities and outer strengths will this person approach the world’s greatest challenges and assets. In other words, HOW does this person think, not strictly WHAT does he think; and how does he understand his job vis-à-vis the individuals and groups over which he has power and influence. What a person thinks and does changes over time, in shifting circumstances – more so than ever in an increasingly complex world. But how a person thinks and acts is more deeply ingrained - a more fixed measure of character, effectiveness, and potential pitfalls as a leader.

All this is apparently getting some air time in the media now. Two recent articles about Obama – one in the New Yorker, and one in the NY Times Mag – speak to the strength of his experience as a human being. (“Experience” is the key word here, since Hillary is touting it as her advantage.) “[Obama] presents himself in all his cultural hybridity – African and American and Asian, black and white, infused with all-American hopefulness and with the reserve that comes of living on the receiving end of power.” Says Anthony Lake, one of Obama’s foreign policy advisors and former national-security adviser to Bill Clinton: “He has the kind of mind that works its way through complexities by listening and giving some edge of legitimacy to various points of view before he comes down on his, and that point of view embraces complexity.” Lake was first impressed “not so much by Obama’s policy prescriptions as by his temperament and intellectual habits.”

Complexities. Hybridity. Hopefulness and reserve. Something is happening. We are being asked to choose the long view over the short view. We are being asked to rediscover both our wild idealism and our belief in honest-to-goodness front-door problem-solving. “The security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people,” i.e. “what’s good for others is good for us, there is no contradiction between idealism and realism” (this, incidentally, is a traditional African belief – ubuntu).

Obama is committed to truthfulness, but he’s not stupid. He may be a little naïve, but not completely naïve; and a little naïve is I think exactly what a visionary leader must be. I think that Obama is savvy enough to know the difference between truth and self-sabotage; he is in for sustainability, not suicide, but he wants to do it with substantive conviction at the core. [See an earlier post which references Obama and sincerity.]

Here’s a thought that will surely get me lynched among traditional feminists and grassroots activists: when it comes to distribution of power, I have always believed in a democratic republic, as opposed to a pure democracy: some are fit to rule, some are fit to empower. I am not in favor of tyranny of the masses. This opinion is directly related to the above notion that biography is everything, that what drives us and shapes us as individuals is everything about how we lead (and you can be a perfectly admirable human without being the right person for broad-based leadership at a particular moment). Obama’s edge, I think, is that he stands on firmer personal ground than Hillary does; he has less to lose. As a woman, Hillary has to be reactive. She has to play to and against certain expectations. Her supposed “tough-mindedness” is more about crafting perceptions than it is about true leadership. Obama is less trapped in this way. He is freer to speak candidly, to lead transparently.

This is not to say that there is no woman out there who could lead in this candid, free, transparent way; but Hillary, I feel, is not that woman. She is the sort of powerful woman who has had to play the accomplished-woman game throughout her entire career in order to get to where she is; she is shaped and driven by these experiences and will approach a presidency in the same way, with “inspired cynicism.” She will cover her ass, she will look over her shoulder, she will rule her staff with an iron fist, she will act the part she must act in order to maintain her power base, she will manipulate and revise truth and position hubby Bill and do everything she has always had to do – with supreme skill and discipline – in order to keep what she’s got and continue building her “career” in politics. (Let me say here that I would not lay blame on Hillary for her path or her tactics; she has done something remarkable in a world wholly unfriendly to her success. I just don’t think her particular psyche vis-a-vis power management is the best thing for the world right now, not from the seat of the presidency.) Obama, on the other hand, for better or for worse, has more latitude to approach his presidency with an attitude and an ambition of true public service, fundamental changes for the greater good – and I believe that he does. He can use “soft power” without being accused of weak femininity. Simply put, I believe that Obama is strategizing his campaign, doggedly pursuing election, in order to pursue his public service vision; Hillary, on the other hand, is strategizing her campaign in order to get elected. To quote the character Josh Liman from my favorite prime-time drama, The West Wing (who is about to jump ship from the [Senator John] Hoynes campaign for the Jed Bartlet campaign): "Senator, I don't know what we're for. I don't know what we're for, I don't know what we're against. Except that we seem to be for winning, and against anyone else winning."

All this to say that there are some who will be more effective and fearless at the level of the US Presidency – who have less to lose, fewer personal agendas, less social baggage (Obama for his part has plenty of social baggage, but, as he’s demonstrated through his two memoirs, he’s pretty darn self-aware about all of it and has effectively channeled lessons learned into public service passions). NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg – the epitome of the unpolitical politician, who approaches his job with a genuine interest in effectiveness and change and public good, because he’s really got nothing much at stake personally – is a good example.

These presidential primaries are posing to us Democrats a fundamental question about what we fear and what we hope for. More than terrorism itself, what I fear is the voting public’s giving in to (short-term) fear: “This is Obama’s problem in a nutshell. Democratic voters seem to be torn between the hope of reshaping a frightening world and the fear of being terribly vulnerable to that world.”

Friends, there is much to be afraid of. Some threats are more obvious, more in our faces – and much of this has to do with media manipulation by a regime which has effectively used their version of the world order – scare tactics – to control us and push forward a childishly categorical and boys’ club-based, narrow-minded agenda. Let’s be more afraid of a world in which deception is the norm for the American presidency; where we expect little from our leaders as far as courage and vision; where fear and self-preservation translate into bullying force which ultimately only intensifies the threat of catastrophic violence. Obama is trying to do something new, something different; he is the post baby-boomer voice – finally – who is saying, Ok, time to get up off the mat, enough post-Vietnam cynicism. We can go that route – Iraq being our Vietnam, we are halfway there – or we can try something different. The fact that Obama is also friendly with corporate leaders, believes in free-market capitalism, raises money from the wealthy, is a student of history and an admirer of select “old guard” American and world political figures – all this should serve as reassurance that he’s not just some over-idealistic arrogant kid, throwing the baby out with the bath water. He’s shaped by no one thing, and he’s shaping something real, something truly contemporary; something based in deeply-held values and heterogeneous experience, working its way out via the political realm, expressing itself through power structures. C’mon, folks. Being brave and being self-interested truly are one in the same here.

Obama '08. Yeah.