I enjoy telling people that George W. Bush made a liberal out of me, but then I look around at so many liberals and I recoil at their certainty and intolerance for divergent viewpoints. Too many liberals project an overweening arrogance and self-righteousness that I find just as obnoxious as the latest sermon from Pat Robertson about how the gay menace is destroying America.
I think Barack Obama has run a great campaign. He is a class act, and I appreciate him more as time goes by. That said, I still need time to get used to him. He's a new phenomenon by comparison to everyone else, and now that I'm 50 years old and will be voting in my ninth presidential election, it takes more than a three month surge in the polls for me to climb on anyone's bandwagon.
Unfortunately, there is a significant degree of "cultishness" among Obama's followers, and the candidate himself projects (on the good side) a coolness under pressure that can (on the not-so-good side) can come across as aloofness and self-satisfaction.
Say these things to an Obama supporter, and a lot of them go absolutely batshit in response. Try critiquing him about something -- such as mentioning, as I did a few days ago, that his otherwise impressive race speech essentially ignored Latinos and the increasingly multi-racial nature of this country -- and you'll find out just how brittle, bullying, and nasty many self-styled liberals can be.
I tell myself to ignore Obama's supporters, and usually I can do that. I look at the guy himself, and his ideas. If he'll keep talking about policy for a while and not like a Coke commercial, he's going to have my support, but I think to get the support of other people he's going to need to find some symbolic ways of coming down off that pedestal and mixing with the people.
And his supporters, well, a whole lot of them sure as hell could use a course in diplomacy.
Now, as for Rev. Wright, I think Obama handled it well. I worried about it for a while, but my gut says it's going to break in his favor. Wright is so distasteful that voters don't want to see him, and I think they'll take it out on whoever runs ads with Wright in them.
From here, Obama has to branch out (not abandon, but branch out) from starry-eyed college kids and black people, and connect with white Democrats and independents, and Latinos. I think the nomination is already his, but the general election is very, very much up in the air.
Let's hope that his liberal supporters will remember that an election campaign is about persuasion, not instruction. If they don't learn how to ASK people for their support, then they and Obama will lose, and they'll deserve to. Americans hate to be told what to think, and no one should ever, ever forget that.