January 2008 Archives

The Obama campaign continues to perplex the pundits and the politicians who insist on operating with an outdated political calculus based on fear, hatred and self-interest. Some in the press see Obama's dominant victory in South Carolina as an indication that Obama's candidacy will trigger huge racial divisions that will tear up the party and lead to disaster.  One passage from an AP article appearing in the Sun News of Myrtle Beach reads:

While blacks overwhelmingly favored Obama, the exit poll showed he got only about 25 percent of the white vote. The racial split raises fresh questions about whether Obama can win in states outside the South, despite his early victory in overwhelmingly white Iowa.

However, in his article, Opening Up a Can of Obama, John Dickerson of Slate.com  puts these numbers in context:

"Going into primary day, the national press and political class obsessed over whether Obama's victory would be diminished because he performed disproportionally well among African-Americans. Obama did in fact obliterate his opponents among black voters, winning 82 percent of the vote, but he also got a quarter of the white vote. Obama also did well among independents, who made up 23 percent of the primary electorate: He beat Clinton 40 percent to 23 percent, which helps his argument to Democrats voting in future states that he can capture those swing voters in a contest with Republicans in the fall."

Obama is a cross-over candidate the likes of which we have never seen.  He is motivating not only the blacks in South Carolina, but whites in Iowa and young people all over the country.  And if his speech last night is any indication, he may have just learned how to fend off the slash and burn politics of the Clintons without taking anything away from his own lofty vision.  The speech is posted below, but one of the most brilliant rhetorical moments was this one:

"The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.

It’s about the past versus the future.

It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation – a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity."

This is another indication that the Obama campaign is not operating with the old playbook.  They are thinking in a completely different way, one that sees possibility where so many see division and partisanship.  Just listen:

In his famous essay, What is Enlightenment?, Immanuel Kant writes:

In this video blog, Chloe and Hannah tell the stories of their birth as they understand it at their age.  Hannah, two, tells her story first, then Chloe, 3 and a half, tells hers.  It is posted to YouTube, click below, or you can download it by clicking here.  Those of you who have subscribed to The Long Road via iTunes will receive it automatically as an updated podcast.

Last October I wrote with some frustration about the limitations of my iPod Touch, three months later, it is perhaps fair to revisit the list of issues I had with the device to see what has been addressed and what remains to be done.  

Last year on the anniversary of hurricane Katrina I wrote about Martin Luther King and the content of our Nation's character. In that post, I embedded a YouTube video of about Barack Obama because I heard in his voice an empowering rhythm and in his message the hope of new possibilities.

Listen, now, to his victory speech in Iowa last night:

In hearing him speak, I was struck by the power of his political poetics. The poetics of politics names something different from the manipulative rhetoric politics has always deployed for propagandistic purposes. Rather, the poetics of politics resonates with that in us capable of actualizing our best selves. Its rhythm and cadence opens us to new possibilities of community, quickens our passions, not with irrational enthusiasm, but for deliberate action intent on bringing our values in line with our lives.

The United States has been blessed with a wealth of political poets. Think of Jefferson's "When in the course of human events ...", of Lincoln's "Four score and seven years ago...", of FDR's "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself", of JKF's "Ask not what your country can do for you..." or of King's "I have a dream..."

Obama's "They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned ..." does not yet rise to the level of these great poets, but only because the words mark a minor, albeit significant, victory. Even so, they give voice to the possibility that our highest ideals, when powerfully articulated, can give birth to transformative action.

I have always thought Obama's background as a community organizer would help his chances in Iowa. A few hours time will tell if this intuition was right. However, this article, entitled "A Tiny Iowa Paper and One Very Big Name: Obama" by Peter Slevin of the Washington Post, suggests that from its beginnings the Obama campaign has been assiduously focused on the personal dimension of national politics.

What seems most significant to me in this story is the degree to which it is reported that the Obama campaign operates in the mode of attentive listening. This sort of sensitivity to local concerns and local people is a hopeful sign that this candidate is committed to the real concerns of everyday people rather than to the business concerns of corporate lobbyists.

Although I remain too cynical to think that a politician could be elected in the US who turns a deaf ear to corporate interests, at least it would be nice to know that voices of traditionally less influence are also being heard.

This sort of personal politics need not be naive. In fact, there are signs that Obama's strong grass roots connections will allow him to succeed in Iowa because he has empowered his precinct captains to make deals with delegates committed to other candidates, like Kucinich, Biden and Richardson. This seems to be a powerful strategy for success in Iowa.

Success in the larger, richer states, however, will require that this grass roots approach take hold on a much broader scale. A victory in Iowa would be the first step in broadening the field of political participants in the United States.