The Maverick Tribe

Let's not pussyfoot around the fact that Barack Obama's appeal is basically emotional.  His soaring rhetoric, themes of hope, international flavor, youthful vigor, undeniable hotness, and kickass wife Michelle stir up a giddyness among the pundits and electorate alike that has a way of suppressing careful thought about his resume or policy prescriptions.  Should he be elected president, it's going to be JFK and Jackie all over again (with a happier ending, one hopes).

I'm a left-brained guy.  I generally try to avoid making decisions based on emotion, so this campaign season I've been trying to weigh Obama against his rivals based on the merits.  The main critique leveled against him - that he's simply too green to be given the keys to the Situation Room - is legitimate.  He simply does not have as much experience on the national stage, and this can be a bad thing.  But rarely in the press do you hear a real comparison on "experience":  his eleven years in elected office against her seven.  And I'm not sure who designated First Lady the entry-level position to the presidency.  Still, when Bill Clinton says that electing Obama is a "roll of the dice", he's got a point.

Another meme out there is that Obama is all style and no substance.  This particular allegation is without merit.  Clinton tends to emphasize policy particulars in her speeches whereas Obama tends to focus on political process and culture.  But his publicly available policy proposals are every bit as detailed as hers, in some cases more so.  He's been specific about what he would do about Social Security (raising the salary cap on payroll taxes), thereby leaving himself vulnerable to attacks that he's a tax-raiser.  Hillary refuses to be nailed down on what she would do, a tactic that is as cowardly as it is conventional.  The Clintons' contention that he's been inconsistent on some of the issues (health care, Iraq War) is silly.

By and large, there aren't significant policy differences between the Democrats.  The choice really comes down to temperament, character, and ability.  While his abilities as a chief executive are something of a question mark, the first two are where Obama really shines.  He has been called a "liberal with a conservative temperament".  I like that.  While his record is undeniably liberal, he's not bound by left wing orthodoxy.  He's willing to talk about merit pay in front of teachers unions, emissions standards in front of auto executives.  He bristles at the glib and the demagogic.  His articulation of the issues reflects a careful consideration of the opposing view.

Only Obama and McCain have any promise of leading our country out of the abyss of partisan rancor that we seem to have fallen into around sixteen years ago.  Electing the polarizing Hillary Clinton would be a major retreat to the trenches.  Sadly, this remains my prediction for November's outcome.

I haven't yet said anything about Barack Obama's race.  I think he would want it that way -- that race not be the first thing that comes to people's minds when they think Obama.  Not only does he have the potential to be a "post-partisan" leader, he also promises to be a "post-racial" one.  This alarms the Jesse Jackson Old Guard, who are unable or unwilling to engage in the campaign without wielding their sacred identity politics.  (Recent skirmishing over the role of MLK and how that relates to Obama has not been encouraging.)  With all this back and forth about Obama's background, whether he is or is not a Muslim, is he "black enough", etc., obscures the real conversation we ought to be having, which is what to do about recalcitrant racial inequality in America.  Race, as politically radioactive and subject to cynical baiting and maneuvering as it is, has not been a central theme of Obama's candidacy, which is a shame.  I would personally rank racial/urban inequality in the top five issues we ought to tackle in 2008, and if there's anyone who can lead us out of the darkness, it's Obama, who surely understands our circumstance with as much depth and objectivity as anyone.  Don't take my word for it - read his first book.

After listening to one of his speeches about bridging the divide between "red states" and "blue states" the other day, I flipped through the news channels on TV.  Bill O'Reilly was on, chest fully puffed, crowing about how he had "defended the Constitution" by pushing around a staffer at an Obama event.  Over on MSNBC, a couple of partisan apparatchiks were trying to shout over one another.  Somewhere else, Harry Reid was likely formulating his latest invective against President Bush. 

And it just struck me about Obama:  we need this guy.