The latest outbreak of Obama flame-wars has spurred me to read up on him a bit more and re-evaluate. I voted for him enthusiastically in 2004, have been disappointed in him for most of the time since, and have said I don’t support him for ’08.
What I’m thinking now is that the man who said this in 2002:
"I don't oppose all wars ... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
"What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Roves to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income ... to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone thru the worst month since the Great Depression.
and who wrote this in 1996:
My stepfather Lolo said, "Men take advantage of weakness in other men. They're just like countries in that way. The strong man takes the weak man's land. He makes the weak man work in his fields. If the weak man's woman is pretty, the strong man will take her. Which would you rather be? Better to be strong. If you can't be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who's strong. But always better to be strong yourself. Always."
is a formidable figure who won’t truly show us what he’s capable of until he’s in a position of strength. He’s said as much himself:
"There’s no doubt that I will be staking out more public positions on more issues as time goes on."
I think it’s quite significant that after the midterms, with Democrats now in a majority, pro-choice Obama took up the contentious invitation to address evangelicals at the Saddleback Church World AIDS Day summit and used it not just to insist "this is my house too" but to "respectfully but unequivocally" disagree with evangelicals by taking a courageous stand on the approach to AIDS:
[H]e called the dispute over condoms a "false argument," saying that abstinence and fidelity, "although the ideal, may not always be the reality, that we're dealing with flesh-and-blood men and women and not abstractions, and that if condoms and potentially things like microbicides can prevent millions of deaths, then they should be made more widely available..."
Significantly, he also called on evangelicals to shift their focus toward the other historical strand in American evangelicalism, the more authentically Christian social-gospel movement, as opposed to the right-wing political and anti-modernist strand the Republicans have so successfully exploited for the past few decades:
"God sent his only Son to Earth ... to heal the sick and comfort the weary; to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked; to befriend the outcast and to redeem those who strayed from righteousness."
There’s a lot at stake:
Generation Y, defined by the census as those Americans born between 1977 and 1994, is the largest American generation since the Baby Boomers. In fact, it is almost exactly the same size as the Baby Boom generation, and may soon be the largest of all. It also now forms the entire 18-29 year voting demographic that we see on exit polls. In 2006, Generation Y made up 12% of the electorate, and broke for Democrats 60%-39%. Democrats also hold an enormous, double-digit lead in partisan identification among this age group. In 2004, that advantage was 39%-28%. In 2006, it had increased further to 41%--28%.
This is important because if someone develops a voting pattern at a young age, that person is likely to continue voting that way throughout her or his life:
Given its enormous size, if Generation Y grows to voting and political maturity with the same ideological and partisan tendencies it currently displays, it will entirely transform the national political environment by serving as the backbone of by far the most progressive governing majority America has ever experienced. How do we make that happen? The battle can actually be nearly won in less than two years time, if Democrats nominate a candidate loved by young people, and if that nominee becomes President.
I suggest that instead of bashing Obama we watch him very closely in this new environment where he’ll be able to be strong and clever instead of just clever. Give him a little more time and a little more trust, and our encouragement to move in the right direction instead of our vitriol. He hasn’t abandoned the "politics of contrast" – he never embraced it in the first place. He’s aware of it, and he’s not pursuing it because he thinks there’s a better way. And maybe, just maybe, he has the ability to pull off something new and better.
If he fails, there’s plenty of time to bash him. I just find it impossible to believe that the person who’s made the kinds of choices he has in his life, written what he’s written, and who says he wants to "chang[e] our politics and our civic life" is going to give up and retreat to the bubble or be satisfied with a vision no bigger than the aggrandizement of Barack Obama.
That change he’s seeking is part of the ongoing movement to remold liberalism and shed the 1960s baggage for a broader, more sustainable, more inclusive view based on the common good. If he can do that, and be the charismatic leader for a rising progressive generation, the possibilities are for a long progressive wave beyond anything America has seen for a long, long time. And I’m not willing to let the chance of that go.