Seabiscuit strides onto the field, led by Obama. (Cheering, crazy cheering, of massive crowd.)
Seabiscuit and Obama seem so similar, and the qualities they share are the those that draw in our hearts. These are heroes, in difficult times. Let's take a quick look at the times and the heroes.
Two Depressions
The Great Depression, felt most keenly during the 1930's, left 25% of Americans unemployed. Seabiscuit's jockey, Johnny "Red" Pollard, came of age during the Depression. Red's parents left him behind when he was 15 and the family was homeless. According to the movie, Red had a way with horses, he was making money, and the family had to move on, looking for work.
Horse racing was banned for a time in America, but when states needed revenue during the Depression, they started it back up, and taxed the bets.
Many Americans feel like they are in a depression in 2009. Although technically they are in a recession, some economists think the real unemployment numbers are much higher than the official numbers, and there is no denying that vast swaths of Americans are losing their homes and their jobs, just like in the 1930's.
Two Underdogs
Man o' War sired Hard Tack, who sired Seabiscuit. The son was named for the father (hardtack was a "seabiscuit," or cracker, eaten by sailors). But Seabiscuit was a disappointment; his trainer thought he was lazy, and he was relegated to the bottom of the totem pole, overworked and overlooked. Eventually, though, a trio of men came together around Seabiscuit, and all of them became much greater than each of them alone.
Charles Howard was a businessman who lost a son. Tom Smith was a cowboy-trainer who lost the West, but had a big enough heart and a good enough eye to bring Red, Seabiscuit, himself, and Howard together, and together they made Seabiscuit the hero of the day, Everyman's favorite, the little ragtag horse that won race after race, with another underdog, Red, on his back. (Red was down on his luck when Tom found him, and blind in one eye, to boot.) Both horse and rider were injured, but came back to win big.
Barack Obama was the son of a white woman, Ann Dunham, and a black man, Barack Obama, Sr., which automatically conferred underdog status on him. His family was not wealthy, and during two periods -- 1971-1972 and 1977-1979 -- he and his mother were separated, a similar event to Red's separation from his parents, though not as abrupt or permanent. Seabiscuit also had to leave home when they decided he was a loser. Being uprooted from a family is never easy, even in the best of circumstances.
But Obama also fought back. He said no to the party life, rose to the top of his law class, went on to help a downtrodden Chicago community, and with the help of family, friends, and politicians who also had an eye for a winner, became President of the United States.
Heroes that Americans Love
Americans love heroes that come out of nowhere, little guys that make good through sheer grit and heart, but Seabiscuit and Obama had something more: They came to us in especially trying times, holding a promise of redemption and the righting of wrongs.
Seabiscuit's owner made sure that even poor people could get into the "infield" of the horse track, and they filled those infields, using periscopes to see the races. While FDR was putting people back to work in the "alphabet soup" of work programs, Seabiscuit was winning their hearts. On the day of the match race, the infield (and the whole track) was overflowing, and more than 40 million people listened in on the radio! Seabiscuit was the most written about star in 1938, in terms of column inches, more that Roosevelt, who came in second, and Hitler, who came in third.
Similary, Obama drew an estimated 1.8 million people to his inauguration, and untold millions watched it on television. Throughout the campaign, people of color, the sick, the unlucky, the young, the old, and all the underdogs of the country, came together, worked hard and cheered their man at every chance they could, just like they did for Seabiscuit.
The Stars that Fight for the Little Guy
Americans listened to Seabiscuit beat an eastern, elite, race horse named War Admiral and their hearts burst with love and gratititude. War Admirial was a symbol of all the forces that brought down their world, and their little guy, dismissed as a loser, won that race, just like Americans were winning their personal races, building their lives back up again.
Americans listened to Obama beat the son of a war admiral and an Establishment darling named McCain, and their hearts also burst with love and gratitude. When Obama exclaimed, "Not this time!", Americans heard another fighter, a hero who would take on the powers that had brought America to its knees.
Brilliance and Burden
As I sat, sobbing, watching Seabiscuit, I realized that between the real film clips of the Depression era, and the "little horse that could," I was cheering and sobbing for the man who gets fired but keeps working at it until he gets hired again; the middle-aged woman who tries and fails, but tries again; the teenager who is ignored by the popular kids but goes on to success and to raise a fine family; and a million others. I was cheering for myself.
And I remembered that I had the privilege to cheer this way and to sob this way during another time, a time when Barack Obama fought back after losing some primaries, when he exhorted us not to quit because we were backing another underdog, an underdog that would rise to the top and throw the Pharisees out of the temple, that would prove to those that had grown cynical and hard that change was possible, that honesty, hard work, and the golden rule are what make America great, and that America would once again reward these qualities.
Some in America have lost their way, and only seem to know how to use Everyman's big heart up and then throw it aside. Not Obama. Obama saw through the frayed pant cuffs, the unemployment, the skin color, the illness. Obama saw through these things and Americans looked back at him and saw a man who would fight until he had restored them to their rightful place as the heart and soul of America. The rock solid earth upon which America stands would be solid again, as more Americans took part in building it up and fortifying it.
And I realized that this was a big part of the reason that so many of us feel so elated when Obama fulfills his rightful place in history, as a fighter for Everyman. And why the sadness and anger is also strong when he stumbles, and the eastern horse with the pedigree takes a race or two.
(Nothing against the East here, folks. It just happens to be that the stories are told that way: Seabiscuit was a Western upstart against the snobbish eastern thoroughbreds (especially back then) and Obama is a Westerner and a Midwesterner up against Wall St., about as far east as you can get.)
So, the brilliance that is Obama also carries this burden. He is not just a smart underdog that got elected in a rough time. He is our Seabiscuit, who will win because America needs him to. We need to put Americans to work. We need to stop putting deadly gases into the air. We need public healthcare. We need to rein in Wall St. Obama has the grit and the heart, just like Seabiscuit, to carry this fight into the future. And we will all be there, crying, cheering like crazy, as he does.
I still hold the flame. Let's do it, Mr. President. We're all here, fighting for the same thing.
Sources: Seabiscuit, the movie, including some extra features with the historian/narrator, David McCullough; the author of the book, Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand, and Gary Ross, the director, screenwriter, and producer. And of course, wikipedia: Seabiscuit, Obama's life, Obama's inauguration, Great Depression.
Now I hope to read two books: Seabiscuit and Dreams from My Father.