Obama, The Next President?
Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 03:33:48 PM PDT
I keep trying to figure out why I like Obama so much. I'm a regular reader of DKos, and well aware of the many arguments against Obama's candidacy. I can even agree with most of them. He's inexperienced, unproven. He's opportunistic. He voted for the bankruptcy bill. He sucks up to the corporatist Dems. And so on.
But I just can't help it - every time this guy opens his mouth, I find myself agreeing with what he says. This is perhaps due not so much to the substance of what he says, as it is to HOW he says it. Obama speaks (it seems to me) with grace, sincerity, and deep intelligence.
These are qualities that have been sorely lacking in American leadership, for quite a long time now. They are particularly, and obviously, and almost gruesomely absent from our current leadership.
OK, call me superficial. It may well be that I appreciate style over substance. I am a painter by profession. But being a painter, it has occurred to me that HOW something is done, is often more significant than WHAT is done. I don't mean to get all metaphysical here, but I mean to say that very often, what you see is what you get.
Obama is transparently a humanist, as none of the other Democratic candidates are. He positively REEKS of idealistic humanism, and he expresses his idealism so well, that he is able to inspire even his opponents. To me, this looks a lot like the kind of leadership that the USA is going to need, once Bush is gone and somebody is going to need to pick up the pieces of our Republic, that Bush leaves behind.
We cannot afford a divisive next-President. Much as I love Kucinich, and Feingold, and much as I admire Edwards for his domestic vision, none of them will be able to pull the nation together, and to move it in a new direction, as it needs to be moved. Wesley Clark might also be able to do it, and I think Clark would make an excellent candidate. But Clark's abilities as a public speaker pale in comparison to Obama's.
It seems to me that the Democrats (and the nation as a whole) have been given an extraordinary gift, in the person of Barack Obama, and we would be well advised to take advantage of it. A man like this does not come along every day, and at just the right time.
Let's face it, our country is metaphysically divided right now, as almost never before. If we are to have any hope of bridging the formidable gulfs that divide us, we will need a President of extraordinary persuasive ability. I think that Barack Obama is that man. And I also believe that he is, essentially, on our side.
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