Barack Obama: The right message at the right time
Mon Feb 04, 2008 at 01:58:16 PM PDT
I first got actively engaged in the political process during the last presidential election. Although I have followed politics on the national level since I was 9 years old (I started paying attention during the 1995 budget showdown), it wasn't until I arrived on my university's campus in the fall of 2004 that I became politically active beyond being informed. The first time I went canvassing was in October of 2004, heading out to the suburbs of Philadelphia to walk the streets for the Kerry/Edwards ticket.
While it wasn't a particularly notable canvassing session, I do remember what one person derisively told me from his porch. "Kerry's going to lose, and you're going to be back here in four years talking to me about Hillary," he said.
But that was a long time ago. That was then; this is now.
Today is my 22nd birthday, so relatively speaking, I haven't had the opportunity to be as engaged in politics as many of you have been. Nevertheless, over the past 4 years, I've witnessed a remarkable transformation in what the Democratic Party has come to stand for. When I canvassed for Kerry, it was much more about getting George W. Bush out of office than it was for electing John Kerry because he was a transformational figure who could reform a moribund political party. That's not to put the good senator down - I came to greatly admire him as that election progressed - but his campaign was less about what he would do as president than what we would be stopping by removing Bush from the White House. In canvassing and phonebanking for Kerry/Edwards throughout the fall of 2004, this came to be my problem: fashioning a coherent statement for why people should have voted for him.
Since then, that hasn't been the case. In 2006, I volunteered my time to Ned Lamont's campaign during the hotly contested CT-Sen primary and to Patrick Murphy, who was (at the time) a political neophyte running for office against a Republican incumbent in Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District. Both of them had a clear message that made it very easy to campaign for them: for Lamont, the focus was directly on Joe Lieberman's unwavering hawkishness on foreign policy. With Murphy, currently the only elected official to Congress who has served in the current debacle in Iraq, the message was again on getting us out of Iraq, along with focus on ethics and corruption. Both won those respective contests (although Lamont later lost the general election to Lieberman) because they had clearly-defined messages that resonated with their constituencies.
In the Democratic primary presidential, we face a choice. Despite the arguments that may be made in the traditional media or in the blogosphere, there is no doubt that our two remaining candidates - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - are eminently qualified to be president. Similarly, there is no question that either one of them will be markedly better on every scale than John McCain or Mitt Romney, the two remaining Republicans with a realistic shot at their party's nomination.
But that doesn't mean that our choices are equally good. In fact, each campaign has attempted to campaign on the platform of 'change', but only one candidate can truly claim that mantle: Barack Obama.
No matter how much Hillary Clinton talks about being a 'change agent' for 35 years, it rings hollow. The nomination of Clinton to the top of the Democratic ticket is a step backwards to the 1990s for the party. She chaired the 'American Dream Initiative', a milquetoast pamphlet of incremental domestic policy changes outlined by the Democratic Leadership Council (I reviewed it back in August 2006). She has yet to sponsor any noticeable legislation during her tenure as an elected official. Furthermore, the use of 'change' in her campaign verbiage is largely a result of Obama's victory in Iowa. It's reflective of the fact that her campaign has constantly been shifting its message - a trademark of poll-testing strategy by her chief strategist, Mark Penn. In the end, it's difficult for Clinton to stand out for much of anything. Her signature issue - health care - is one that she claims an advantage to, even though her secretive effort crashed and burned despite a favorable political environment in the first 2 years of Bill Clinton's administration.
Already during this campaign, her campaign has done a great deal of damage to their historically good relationship with African-Americans, a vital component of a potential governing Democratic majority. Furthermore, the 'scorched earth' strategy that was employed against Obama during the Nevada caucuses and the South Carolina primary revealed that the Clinton campaign would use any and all tactics available to tear down a fellow Democrat if it would benefit her candidacy. While her supporters may claim that it's part of the 'vetting' process that Obama may endure if he becomes the nominee, it is a disingenuous way of doing such an examination.
In opposition to a campaign that is operating using old rhetoric and had used old, underhanded tactics (and may still be doing so via robocalls), Barack Obama is running a truly revolutionary campaign. It's true that his policies don't stray much from mainstream liberalism, but it's his message that is different: don't settle for less, but shoot for the stars. Furthermore, in a partisan primary, he is running on a message of conciliation between the stark divide that has enveloped much of this country since Bill Clinton became president. It's not a message that may resonate with the hardcore Democratic grassroots base, but it has connected with many voters who would previously not have participated in the primary process.
It shows - whether it's the fact that Obama is raising historic amounts of money through historic amounts of donors (now somewhere over 650,000), or if it's people being inspired from around the nation to work or volunteer for his campaign. I spent a week in New Hampshire before the primary helping out, and I met people from near and far - from New York and Massachusetts to as far away as Georgia, Texas, and Washington - to give their time and their energy to making a difference. The people who are a part of his campaign are from all across the spectrum in terms of ethnicity, race, age, geographic area - and it bears out not only from the volunteers and staffers, but at these huge rallies that have been happening across the country. From the reddest of red states (Idaho) to the purple states (Missouri), to states of the bluest hue (California), he has at least piqued the interest of, if not energized, tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of people across the nation.
And it is because he is a change from the Democratic Party of the past. He will say what may not be popular to everyone - whether it's disabusing the notion that immigrants are taking away jobs, or it's telling Detroit that they have to fix their crumbling infrastructure to produce more energy-efficient cars - but what is right. He did it with Iraq back in 2002, and he's continued to do that since. It may not satisfy the deeply partisan nature of a great deal of us that he doesn't use more aggressive language, but that is not what Barack Obama is selling to us. It's not just the notion that we have to defeat the other side to institute change. It's that we can coax the other side to make that change happen with us.
In December 2006, I wrote:
I think that for many youth, it won't necessarily be the definitive record of the past 2-4 years of legislation under Obama's belt (2 of which were in the Senate minority). Instead, it will be the potential that the senator brings to the table that will inspire many. When RFK ran for president, he had only been a senator for 4 years. But it was the possibility of what could be done, the hope that he brought out in Americans back in 1968 - it was that passion that drove his campaign. For many of my peers, it's the same passion that exists now for Barack Obama. To us, he represents the best of the next generation of America.
Indeed, this has been borne out. He has had the capacity to inspire a movement and to bring a sense of hope to a political process that has decayed into crusted cynicism since RFK left us almost 40 years ago. Obama's message, crystallized into three simple words - "Yes, we can" - emphasizes the positive message of change that his campaign has embodied.
Yes, we can proudly support progressive policies that make people's lives better.
Yes, we can boldly take a step towards the future instead of a timid step back to the past.
Yes, we can all be proud to say we live in the United States of America again.
This is the right message for the right time, and Barack Obama is our messenger.
