there has been a good deal of public head-scratching about the passionate response some people have to obama and his campaign, often accompanied by an underlying skeptism that paints obama support as not-quite-reasoned, insubstantial, or superficial. the worst examples of this, of course, are the assertions that equate obama supporters with cult members, children following the pied piper, etc.
this hadn't touched my life personally until i had a conversation with a friend the other day, who asked me "what exactly do people think they are signing up for, as obama supporters?" she didn't say it, but there seemed to be some question in her mind as to whether obama supporters can really justify their support, or if they are just caught up in a (mindless) "obamamania." (this is conflated, of course, with the misapprehension that he only offers inspiring messages but not substantial policy prescriptions)
i tried to "be the change i want to see" and, instead of responding to her sharply and in the moment, i took a few days to consider her question seriously rather than dismissing it.
here is the email i wrote to her:
"you asked me "what exactly do people think they are signing up for, when they support obama?"
i think it's complicated because there are so many different people who support him, and for so many different reasons. it might be possible, though, to discern some rough categories, which i have sketched out below. it's important to realize that people in all of the categories below would find obama "inspiring" would characterize having a feeling of "hope"--albeit for different, sometimes overlapping, reasons. these are not simply catch-words; they accurately reflect the motivations and feelings of people drawn to obama from a wide range of positions...
a) there are people in every election who vote for who they "like", as in popularity contests, and obama's got a lot of gut-level supporters. see this newsweek article. in this category i would put people who are attracted to the movement-like aspects of this, the feeling that there's something happening, and they want to join in. i would imagine that some of these folks probably have a vague explanation of why they are for obama. they may just say he's inspiring, and perhaps this more diffuse form of support might feed some critics' skepticism. but this is how many voters choose their candidate, in every election.
b) there are "issue" voters who are most concerned about iraq and war in general, and they see obama's early opposition to iraq supported by his work on non-proliferation issues, his vote against the kyl/lieberman amendment (declaring the iranian revolutionary guard a "terrorist" organization, which hillary voted for) and his vote to ban the use of cluster bombs (which hillary voted against); they are probably also swayed by the idea of talking with our enemies, since ignoring them doesn't seem to work very well. another major area for issue-motivated voters is good government--those folks are truly impressed, as i am, with his work on ethics and transparency.
c) and there are people who really are just so sick of negativity, and they respond to him and his general refusal thus far to fight that way. he lays out why in his book The Audacity of Hope and my take is that it's a genuine way of being in the world, not a campaign strategy. especially after nearly 20 years of really divisive politics, his approach to politics is refreshing. he seeks to find common ground, identifying the common value people hold from different sides of a problem...rather than demonizing the other side. i think that his work to make mandatory the videotaping of interrogations in illinois is an important example of the kind of leader he is.
d) a variation of that is that for many reasons, people are motivated by the desire to show themselves and the world that this country is better than its racist past. this may also motivate some hillary supporters, around gender, as well. jack cafferty on CNN got an email yesterday that said something to the effect of: "i'm a white man and i voted for obama and i want to show the world that we're not all rednecks" and things like that.
e) and then there's the strategic thinkers, who see the 47% percent negatives against hillary, and think that is too big a hurdle to jump. some of them are 50-state strategists, who believe that we have to build the progressive movement everywhere, and that it is folly to rely just on winning in the big blue states anymore (i agree!). and some of them imply want to avoid the inevitable rehashing of the clinton scandals. which i honestly would rather skip, as well.
f) and then there's the people who are, often for the first time, embracing and getting involved in people-powered politics, largely because they simply want to believe in democracy. i am most interested in and inspired by this group--all those who never voted in a primary before, who never volunteered before, who never gave money before--i think they are doing it not only because they want obama to win for one or more of the above reasons, but because they are discovering how damned good it feels to work to build an active democracy.
i read over and over again on the blogs about people who have just now become activists...and this is an essential message of obama's campaign--to encourage everyone to believe that it's important for everyone to get involved. that we are all in this together. that it can't change unless we all do something. and that is the most compelling political statements that anyone on the national stage has made in my lifetime. he is encouraging action--not just asking people for their votes, but for them to sacrifice. one of the biggest reactions he gets in speeches, time after time, is when he talks about service in exchange for tax credits for college.
what i am sensing, profoundly, is that so many people desperately want to give...and he has been talking about the need for everyone to give for a long, long time...i have to say, it's amazing to read the blogs, and to witness the joy people express when reporting back about making phone calls or holding a sign or going door to door for the first time...they are almost ecstatic, because they feel that they are actually contributing, making something happen...and that is a sentiment, and an action, that i want to see happen all across this country!
so that's how i understand the many reasons that people support obama. i understand that there is also a lot of hillary-hating and misogyny out there, and that some people may be voting mostly against hillary...but the people who are out there, going to rallies, talking about obama, getting so excited, those folks are being motivated by obama, not by antipathy toward hillary.
for me, the (often negligible) policy differences between the two are less important in distinguishing the candidates than their leadership style and their overall political philosophy. hillary has great plans, but i disagree with her votes on a number of issues, with the DLC's strategy and their rejection of Dean's chairmanship and the 50-state strategy, and with her posture of fighting. i don't think that's going to get us the policy changes we want, and i think it will make us lose the white house in four years.
in the end, i think that people have a lot of substantial reasons to support obama, and that they truly do involve "hope". obama supporters hope that the person they have a gut-level response to won't disappoint them, they hope for our leaders to exercise better judgment on issues that matter to them, they hope that civility can return to politics and get things done, they hope that america is actually the country they want it to be, they hope that we can build an actual progressive movement and win in electoral politics across the nation and in the white house, they hope that democracy is alive and well in this country. more importantly, they are not keeping these hopes to themselves--they are expressing their hopes by talking to other citizens, volunteering, raising money, and turning out to rallies and primaries. this is not cult-like behavior--this is the behavior of millions of people who have banded together to try to improve not just the policies of this country, but the politics of this country. and i'm proud to be one of them.