Three syllables

I promised an entry comparing Obama to Lincoln today, and I still intend to do so. But that will have to come later. Today it seems more appropriate to compare Obama to another president: John F. Kennedy.

As Caroline Kennedy wrote in yesterday's Op-Ed for the New York Times, "A President Like My Father,"

"I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved."

And then today, Ted Kennedy jumped into the race, endorsing Obama with a stirring speech that answered every one of Senator Clinton's talking points: he is experienced, he will be ready to lead from day one, and he represents a politics of hope over division.

"There was another time, when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a new frontier. He faced criticism from the preceding Democratic president, who was widely respected in the party," Kennedy said.
"And John Kennedy replied, 'The world is changing. The old ways will not do. ... It is time for a new generation of leadership.'
"So it is with Barack Obama."

As the students at American University chanted "Ken-ne-dy!" and "O-bam-a!" I reflected on the similarities between the two candidates. They were both young, both bright, both dedicated public servants. Both were willing to envision an America not as it is, but as it could be. Hell, they both even have names with three syllables, making them easy to chant.

There's another three-syllable word I considered today.

Momentum.

We need to keep it. We need to use it. And we need to approach February 5th with all our strength and speed and tenacity. But we face it now with the wind ever more at our backs.

see, I told you, a surprise!

Conclusion #1 of the South Carolina Primary: This year's polls are brought to you by Agents Of Chaos Dot Com. What can we say, the suspense is fun.

Conclusion #2 of the South Carolina Primary: Faith pays off.

Conclusion #3 of the South Carolina Primary: Hope is contagious.


Instead of rambling about what this means, I'll let Obama say it far better than I could and leave with the one question I'd most like to ask him. It's not a policy question, or a biography question, or a vision for America question, because in many cases other people have asked them already. The question that's eating me up inside is 99% frivolous, and it is whether the beginning of chapter 5 of Dreams from My Father is deliberate in its echoes of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. I'd just like to know.

Never fear, help is on the way

I received an email today from a friend. This was all it said:

"I think I might be a Hillary supporter. Please help."

He, of course, knew of my support for Obama, and wanted a deeper discussion. I pushed him for more information, and he replied that he was worried about Obama's experience, or rather, his perceived lack thereof.

Here's my response, in a slightly edited form (typos are okay for friends, but I like the Internet to think I'm smarter than that):


Okay, so. You say that we need an experienced politician to get us out of the mess we're in, right? I respect that, and I agree. We need someone who can work within the system to create real change.

Well, you know as well as I do what the system is. The system is set up such that a president needs compromise. He or she needs unity. We need a leader who can listen to the opposition and work with them, especially if low Congressional approval ratings mean the Republicans gain control of Congress again.

In that way, Obama will definitely be better at working within the system. Clinton inspires polarity, you don't need me to tell you that. She was even disrespectful toward some Republicans came to support her in Iowa, saying "they've seen the light." People who are willing to vote for you to be the highest elected official in the land deserve a little more respect than a comment about how they have previously been in the dark. This is what Obama said instead: "...you came together as Democrats, Republicans and Independents to stand up and say that we are one nation; we are one people; and our time for change has come."

Do you see that difference? In Obama's mind, people are coming together to stand up for a greater cause. Clinton has instead divided the world into a dark side and a light side, and told people on which side she has placed them.

Let's talk about policy, too. How about health care? Everyone wants better health care, right? Well, we look at what Obama accomplished during the 1990s: granting access to health care for 150,000 Illinois constituents. He wanted to make it universal, but it was unrealistic in Illinois. In the end he was willing to compromise to improve the health care system for thousands and thousands of people. Now let's look at what Clinton accomplished when it came to health care in the 1990s.

::cricket::

The fact of 1994's health care debacle was not why I don't support Senator Clinton. I believe that we can all learn from our mistakes and make better decisions and choices for next time. But look at where Clinton's money comes from. She's got a lot of health insurance lobbyists giving her a lot of money. And they're going to want favors. Yeah, maybe she'll stand up to them once she's in office, but look at who's not taking money from lobbyists at all.

And when we talk experience, let's remember who has more years in elected office than any other major candidate: Obama. Sure, he didn't live in the White House, but Clinton's only been in elected office office since 2000. Edwards has six years in the Senate under his belt, but he has spent the last four years campaigning in Iowa.

And before the years in the US Senate, before the years in the Illinois State Senate, Obama was out on the streets, working with poor folks on the South Side of Chicago. He graduated from Harvard, able to take a job anywhere he pleased, this black editor of the Harvard Law Review, but instead chose to go and organize where he felt he was needed most. He helped out people whose jobs had been transferred overseas.

As Kristof pointed out the other day, Clinton wrote her thesis on community organizing. Obama lived it.

Clinton was working as a corporate attorney in Arkansas. Obama was working as a civil rights attorney in Chicago.

And now let's travel in the way-back machine, way back to Obama's childhood. He was raised by his single mother, lived in Indonesia for four years, and lived with his grandparents for several more. His mom was on food stamps at one point. He knows, first hand, the problems that face middle America.

Clinton? Was hanging out in Illinois, then Yale, then in Arkansas, then in the White House. Working for Nixon and Goldwater, then for corporations, then for her husband.

I respect Clinton. I think she would make a decent president, certainly better than what we've got. But what we need right now is a great president, someone who has the ability to face tough times head-on. And I only see that in one candidate.

In closing, I say this. Lincoln. Lincoln was 50 when he was running for president that first term, and he had only had a few terms of relatively undistinguished experience in the Illinois Congressional delegation. He wasn't a newcomer in politics, by any means, but neither is Obama. And Lincoln faced hard times, harder than we've ever seen.

Obama probably won't be another Lincoln. But boy, if we can get a leader who is even a little bit close to the greatness of that man... we'd be in good shape.

Peaceful skies,
Sojourner

There it is. More on Lincoln/Obama similarities for the day after tomorrow. As for tomorrow... it will be a surprise!

Who Runs This Country, Anyway?

A brief rebuttal to the New York Times, which endorsed Hillary Clinton today (do they read their own columnists, I wonder?) with the claim that she was "better qualified" for the "Herculean" task of repairing the damage Bush has done to the country since the last time a Clinton was in the White House. "Herculean" I have no quibble with, particularly since a second President Clinton would be working against the legacy of inaction from her husband's tenure (we wouldn't be facing dramatic crises in health care, the environment, and political corruption if the 1990s had seen more decisive presidential commitment to solutions on these issues) as well as her own support, as a freshman senator, for some of President Bush's more devastating policies (NCLB and Iraq come to mind). Nor do I dispute their just criticisms of both Clintons' behavior on the campaign trail. And I can't argue with the statement that Hillary "overstates the importance of résumé."

Wait, which candidate were you supporting again?

Okay, okay, so for the premier establishment newspaper in the country, experience is the deciding card. While their lack of confidence in fresh blood is a little disappointing, the Times's endorsement is not what you could call surprising. They are a respectable pillar of the conventional East Coast political aristocracy, as invested in the standard top-down politics of the 20th century as any scion of the great lawmaking dynasties. Like the politicians who have run the country for 25 years by genteel wheeling and dealing among elites and their corporate allies, the Times is willing to accept a candidate with a history of embracing policies that are convenient and popular at the moment because she is the known quantity of the system they sell papers commenting on. For them to conceive of a system in which the actions of millions of rank-and-file citizens carried as much weight as the pocketbooks of a handful of lobbying interests would require a cognitive leap akin to putting a Red Sox victory on the front page. Obama's campaign, and the base of his political capital and the change he is leading in American society, is outside of this worldview. His supporters are breaking down the notion that policymaking is for politicians and passive complaining is for everybody else. Obama counters Clinton's Experience Card with the reminder that her experience is in a system that has been broken for years. If it's going to get fixed, it is going to take not just the leadership of a brilliant and pragmatic president, but the combined efforts of every one of the American people. Collectively we have over three hundred million lifetimes of experience making this country work for us: it's time we put that experience to work for our country.

The breadth and strength of this message and of Obama's grassroots coalition has challenged Clinton and every other candidate in the race--Republican as well as Democrat--to take ordinary and individual citizens more seriously than ever before. That the other hopefuls have taken up this strategy is a testament to Obama's astute connection with this historical moment, and it is changing the way national politics happen in ways that will leave the establishment scratching its head.

So stand back, New York Times, because there's a new system on the rise, and it belongs to us.

Ain't I a Woman?

Isn't it about time for a woman president?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. As you may have guessed from yesterday's entry, I am a woman. And yet I do not support Hillary Clinton.

That confuses some people. I once spoke with a man who supported Senator Clinton, and was very curious why I did not. He said "I believe every woman should be behind Clinton, one hundred percent." We spoke at length about policy differences between Clinton and Obama and at the end of the conversation, he mentioned that his wife was an Obama supporter. He was confused by her choice, too, but there it was. Another woman for Obama.

But when it comes down to voting day, you have to look at the candidate, not the gender or race of the candidate. Yes, gender and race are essential to the candidates' identities and characters. We must look beyond that, however, when seeking to elect our next president. No one candidate can win just because she's a woman, or just because he's black.

Isn't it about time for a woman president? Yes, but for me, the policies have to be there. And Clinton's policies just aren't. Is it time for Hillary Clinton to be president? No.

As Sojourner Truth herself said, back in 1851 when women were fighting for fundamental rights that we take for granted:

"If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them."

And that's what I'm trying to do, in supporting Obama. Trying to get the world right side up again.

"Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say."

--All quotes by Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I a Woman?", December 1851. Full text.

A bit more on unity

Gloria Steinem’s op-ed in the New York Times last week (Good Feminists Must Vote Clinton) did a pretty good job of getting my goat. It irritated me because she almost makes some very good points, because I recognize latent sexism as an insidious problem in our society (though not a greater one than racism, homophobia, and radical fundamentalism), and because Steinem chose, as Clinton herself has, to use the candidate’s identity to underscore the divisions in American society, instead of to bridge them and unite us.

Read Steinem's article:

Let’s put it this way: say a man was running for president with Hillary Clinton’s background. A smart man, thoughtful, strategic, determined, but cerebral and patrician, an exemplary member of the class who traditionally feels entitled to lead. He’s been a privileged insider in a former White House administration, but had no official policymaking authority and no electoral accountability, four years in the Senate over his chief rival, and less overall legislative experience. There’s not much remarkable about his policies in a field with substantial agreement on the big issues, and there’s little in his rhetoric that brings out the best hopes and inspirations of the people who hear him speak. Could he get elected?

I’m pretty sure the answer is no. In fact, I’m confident that a man running in Clinton’s shoes wouldn’t even have a chance at Gloria Steinem’s vote. Clinton’s gender is the overwhelming factor that sets her apart in her qualifications for the presidency. And that is not good enough.

Hillary Clinton does not represent a grand departure from the castes of the political establishment by any benchmark. Steinem proclaims that “this country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees.” She neglects the obvious addition of presidential husbands to that list. Clinton, by race, by class, by dynastic connection and by policy alignment, is squarely a representative of the old-school Washington elite, the late-20th century Democrats who have served America so poorly in recent years. Steinem claims that merely by her femininity Clinton can revolutionize this system. She is wrong, and damningly so if her logic becomes the prevailing one in this election.

Electing a woman president will make history. I’ll be first in line to acknowledge the significance of that symbol. But figurehead affirmative action is the slow way to go about empowering each of the marginalized categories of American society; if women must wait for a woman president to be taken seriously in politics either collectively or individually, then black men must wait for their own token leader, as must Mormons, and Jews, Latino women and Japanese men. I am one of those younger women that Steinem condemns for “hop[ing] to deny or escape the sexual caste system,” if that’s what it is to hold out for a candidate appeals to us to break down artificial distinctions and recognize that whatever our race or gender, we are all equal heirs and enactors of the American dream. If the lesson of Clinton’s candidacy is “women can” then the lesson of Obama’s is patently “we all can.”

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King

When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered…True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes necessary to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring…A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death…We are now faced with the fact , my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now… We must move past indecision to action.
--Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Beyond Vietnam, A Time to Break Silence," delivered April 4, 1967.
Full text.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a brilliant speaker, but he was so much more. He has become an beacon of hope in our world, and as we have worked to make his dream a reality, we have become a much better nation for it. His dream is far from realized, however. There are still great divisions in American society, those which are used to divide us, be they racial, cultural, or economic.

Yesterday, Barack Obama spoke at Dr. King's church, Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and pointed out another of Dr. King's prophetic statements that has relevance today:

Unity is the great need of the hour.

And so it is. We need unity not only in our society, not only between blacks and whites, but in our political system as well. We do not need to alienate people now, we need to bring people together. It is impossible to accomplish real change in the American political system without unity. This isn't a new development; the Founding Fathers thought it up this way. They knew that the best way to make lasting change would be to not only encourage compromise, but to demand it. Unity is the only way forward.

Now is not the time for polarizing politics that accomplishes nothing but gridlock in this time of great need. We need someone who can bring us together.

Dr. King did it. His vision of America as a place where people are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character is slowly becoming a reality. I know another person who can unify folks today. And we have the opportunity to elect him president, something unthinkable when King was marching on Selma.

Watch Obama's speech in Dr. King's church. You won't be disappointed.