Her first name is Pat. I don't know her last name; I tuned in just before she completed her introduction of President-Elect Obama at his Philadelphia whistle-stop.
Her voice choked up as she introduced "MY President . . . -elect." Those words crystallized some thoughts that were floating through my mind this morning.
One strand of thoughts had been about my very conservative father, who during the campaign had been very negative about Obama. When I cited facts to challenge his assertion that Obama had never actually accomplished anything, my father's response was to accuse me of being one of those mindless Obama-worshippers. This morning, I wondered what his views are about the transition.
Another strand of my thoughts centered on an e-mail from a colleague yesterday. Our middle school staff has been all a-flurry for the past few days, working out the scheduling issues and technological glitches to allow all our students to watch the Inauguration live on Tuesday. One of our staff, a gen-X Chinese-American social studies teacher, is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. Yesterday he sent an all-staff e-mail expressing some of his concerns about the upcoming festivities.
Pat's reference to "MY President" wove these strands together and gave them some context.
My father and I share some core characteristics, but our worldviews have always been . . . well, worlds apart. My father is a heardheaded, no-nonsense engineer who grew up in the Depression and emobodies the cliche of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. He has no patience for idealistic dreaming, and he believes that education that does not further one's career is a waste of time and money. His highest values are responsibility, independence, hard work, thrift, and respect for authority.
Ahem.
I'm afraid I have spent much of my life being a disappointment to him. I have always been a dreamer (for Christmas one year my mother gave me a music box that plays "The Impossible Dream"), and my idea of heaven would be to spend my whole life as a full-time student in the humanities. In politics as in all other aspects of life, I have always been one who, along with Bobby Kennedy, looks at things that have never been and asks, "Why not?"
So my father and I don't often agree about political issues, and disagreement about Obama was inevitable. Since that initial conversation described above, my solution has been simply to avoid discussing the subject with him.
But this morning I was imagining how I would explain to him my strong support for Obama, if I ever chose to broach the subject again. I have long realized that, more than any specific issue, my support for Obama derives from commanlities in our view of how government should operate:
* Honestly.
* With respect for the principles on which the nation was founded -- principles which were impossibly idealistic at the time of the American Revolution, and which are too often sacrificed to pragmatic goals.
* With a priority on open and comprehensive communication. One of the most powerful tools of the Presidency is the bully pulpit. Presidents in my lifetime have largely ignored or misused this tool. I want a President who will inspire all of us to higher levels of citizenship and collaboration, will tell us the truth about the challenges we face, and will offer creative ideas for meeting those challenges.
* With an orientation toward resolving conflicts rather than battling them out. Whether in the day-to-day mechanics of two-party politics, or in interpersonal relations, or in international conflicts, I want our nation to be led by someone who believes in, is knowledgeable about, and will model cooperative problemsolving.
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These principles have characterized my political philosophy for as long as I've had anything that could be described by that phrase. They were the same things that came to mind as I was thinking about my colleague's e-mail.
My colleague is a principled conservative in a public school in the Seattle area, and he is also a social studies teacher. So his e-mail was probably motivated by a combination of feeling outnumbered, and also legitimate concerns about our role as public school teachers.
He expressed the desire that all of us be careful to avoid partisanship in our celebratory zeal, and instead celebrate the nonpartisan aspects of this remarkable event: the fact that by electing an African-American, we have come much closer to realizing the ideals that our country represents, and the fact that, unlike many past and present societies, we in this country have, every few years, a peaceful transition of power.
He expressed the hope that the election of the first African-American, or female, President would have been met with the same excitement regardless of whether the word Democrat or Republican had been appended after their name. I pondered this, examining my own motivations for working to ensure that my students are able to watch the event.
I acknowledged to myself that part of the reason is that so many of the students themselves are so excited about Obama. Last night another colleague commented that one of the great things about Obama is how he has engaged the younger generation in politics.
But I knew it was more complicated than that. I knew that, had John McCain been black and won the election, I would not be celebrating; instead I would be feverishly trying to find a way to leave the country. And if he had enlisted broad participation of the younger generation in his brand of politics, I would be not thrilled, but terrified.
I pursued this line of thought further. Are there circumstances in which I would have celebrated the election of a conservative African-American? I realized that there were. Colin Powell doesn't count, because even though he is offically a Republican, he really isn't a strong conservative. But JC Watts is, and as much as I may disagree with him on the issues, I think he is honest, principled, and rational. Whether this view of him is correct is not really relevant to this discussion; the point is that that is my perception of him, and because of that perception, I would have felt celebratory about our national progress on racial issues if he, rather than Obama, had been elected this year.
So what it came down to was that, once again, what mattered to me was that list I wrote above, the intangibles. These have been the constants in my general approach to life. And they have also been the constants in my personal political history, ever since that day at age 15 when I heard John Dean turn the earth on its head by testifying that Nixon had lied to us.
:: ::
But what I realized this morning was that my absolute, uncompromising, bedrock belief in these principles, in the face of what so many others choose to call "reality" -- my refusal to accept that "reality" as inevitable -- has always caused me to feel like I'm marching to a different drummer. This was especially true growing up in Oklahoma, but it is even true today. Sometimes it is even true here on DKos.
For the first time, I have encountered a politician who seems to (mostly) march to that same drummer. Although he had mud feces thrown at him in the primary and general campaigns, he nevertheless took the high road. In the face of ridicule by "experts" of all political persuasions, he insisted that he will talk with our enemies. Despite criticism by revered black leaders, he demanded that we grow beyond racial politics. To the consternation of many on the left, he has shown -- in the Warren choice, in his bipartisan appointments, in dining at the home of George Will -- that he meant it when he promised to make a place at the table even for those with whom we disagree.
For the first time, the White House will be occupied by someone who sees the world, and life, the way I do. Politically, as has often been noted here, he is a centrist, a pragmatist. But philosophically, he is an idealist, a dreamer, just like me. He doesn't accept that he has to compromise his core principles in order to appease the shabby "reality" that has for so long ruled supreme in our politics.
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I know that many here, who are motivated by different priorities, will violently disagree with me. But for me, what I am seeing is change I can believe in.
That is why, along with Pat Last-Name-Unknown, I am so . . . I don't know; proud? relieved? inspired? to be able to call this man "MY President."