I was wrong, and it's overdue that I say so.
This has been bugging me for awhile--me, and, I'm sure, no one else. But on Dec. 2, 2006, I posted a diary entitled "Obama is the New Chauncey Gardner". In it, I argued that Democrats were being buffaloed by the mainstream media into making terrible candidate choices in the most important election of our lifetimes.
Obviously, I was flat wrong, and I am delighted to be so. But thinking about why I was wrong led to a realization on my part.
(flip)
What I realized--even though I've been involved in politics (mostly professionally) for more than two decades, I have not in my lifetime seen anyone with the kind of leadership ability and charisma that blesses Barack Obama. And I don't think I really believed in it.
In my life--I'm in my mid-40s--I have only seen film or read accounts of people with the kind of persuasive power, ability to draw others to a cause and seriousness of purpose that Obama has now revealed, especially in his acceptance speech. The Kennedys and MLK died when I was young, and film from a bygone time doesn't communicate what that kind of leadership does in context, the feeling it inspires and the aspiration it can invoke. I was certain that the way people like Washington and Lincoln and FDR were described by their contemporaries was the hyperbole of historians and the golden memory of the nostalgic.
So even in a tidal wave Democratic year, I simply did not believe that there existed a quality of character and experience which would enable a black man to overcome the racism of this country and be elected President of the United States. It had been so long since our national politics had devolved to gotcha moments and soundbites and cynical, empty gestures that I didn't believe the country could once again be rallied to believe in something, by anyone, and certainly not by a black person with a funny name.
In my years of cynical strategizing--all in the name of progressive and inspiring causes, ironically--I had simply had a failure of imagination. As the national politics of my entire adulthood have failed to imagine, failed to aspire, failed to chart a course to a better future.
I was wrong. I was completely wrong. Praise the sweet green Earth, I was wrong.