Obama’s Politics of Hope
I’ve been on the Barack Obama bandwagon since an appearance on Oprah around this time last year. No, don’t ask why I was watching Oprah — I’m not sure I’ve actually seen an episode since that show — it was on, so I watched. Immediately following the show, I ran down to the bookstore and picked up a copy of “Audacity of Hope.” It didn’t take long for Obama to rocket to the top of my Presidential candidate list.What attracted me to Obama, and keeps me still energized about his campaign a year later, is his “Politics of Hope.”
Those who are involved in the church see something happening there, it’s been dubbed the Emerging Church. Similarly, those who follow international relations have noticed a flattening of the world — that while bad in the short term for some — has more promise and hope then fear and recession. We’re at a turning point in our world, and Obama is that needed change in politics. He’s the first to bring that breath of fresh air to something that has been detested by the American public since Nixon was taken down by Watergate.
On Sunday, New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote a column, “Who’s Afraid of Barack Obama?” It turns out, it may be everyone. Obama represents a change that takes the power-players of the last 30 years, and puts them on the sideline. This obviously upsets many in the political elite.
But there’s another, even more fascinating hidden story line in the 2008 campaign that speaks to the potential prowess of an Obama candidacy. Despite the thuggish name-calling of a few right-wing die-hards (e.g., Rush Limbaugh mocking “Barack Hussein Odumbo”), the dirty secret of a number of conservatives is that they are disarmed by Mr. Obama even though they know his record is more liberal than Mrs. Clinton’s.
The drumbeat of approval has been remarkably steady. Last year Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to both the 2000 and 2004 Bush campaigns, admiringly called Mr. Obama “a walking, talking hope machine” who “may reshape American politics.” Andrew Ferguson devoted pages in The Weekly Standard to raving about “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Obama’s memoir, before dismissing its political sequel, “The Audacity of Hope.” Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, keeps trying to write anti-Obama articles but they’re so mild that they never really contradict his judgment of a year ago that the senator from Illinois “is the only presidential candidate from either party about whom there is a palpable excitement.” Even Tom Tancredo, the most virulent immigration demagogue of the G.O.P. presidential field, has spoken warmly of Mr. Obama.
Perhaps most striking is the case of Shelby Steele, the archconservative scholar who shares Mr. Obama’s mixed-race heritage. Though he has just written an entire book, “A Bound Man,” to argue (unpersuasively, in my view) that Mr. Obama “can’t win,” he can’t stop himself from admiring the guy throughout. Peggy Noonan wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek when she wondered in The Wall Street Journal last month whether Mr. Obama “understands the kind of quiet cheering he is beginning to garner from some Republicans.” In her view “they see him as a Democrat who could cure the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sickness.”
Part of what makes Obama so intriguing is he doesn’t stoop to traditional political games. Sure, he’s refuted Hilary Clinton a few times with tough jabs, but they weren’t the typical political dirt throwing that presidential campaigns typically resort too — even if doing the dirt throwing would result in a much needed boost in the polls.
In fact, Obama’s politics of hope is beginning to show some hard data that it can beat the old political game. In Iowa, Obama is currently in a dead-heat with Clinton after months trailing by double-digits. All that without dirty politics.
Obama is far from being the first politician to promise some sort of variation of a Politics of Hope. Many before him have promised to change Washington D.C., to get rid of corruption, and to give politics back to the American public. But, Obama is the first, to this point, to actually hold up his word — and slowly, the world is starting to see that it’s not just talk, he really does believe the Politics of Hope can win the presidency, and so do I.
Some think it’s too soon for America. It’s not time to have this radical political shift. But if not now when? The President of the United States is among the most hated people in the world. Congressional approval rates are at their lowest in American history. It’s time to change the game — and Obama is the best person to do just that.
header photo credit: Jarrett Moffatt on Flickr.