From Trademark Optimism
It was a buoyant gathering in the town square of Fairfield, Iowa, on a midsummer evening. More than a bit funky, too, which was fitting for a place that is home to the Maharishi University of Management (think Transcendental Meditation). One look at all the sandals and T-shirts tie-dyed with New Age slogans, and you felt this crowd was ripe for another Woodstock. They were there cheering a candidate who, for some, brings to mind another icon of the 1960s, Robert F. Kennedy. The same giddy excitement rippled through the crowd as Barack Obama made his way to a central gazebo, bedecked with Fourth of July bunting.He didn’t disappoint. The tall, reed-thin Senator flashed his megawatt smile as the crowd shouted its support. Then he showed why he’s the most effective orator among the candidates in either party as he fed the faithful his applause lines: The economy has been great for Wall Street but terrible for Main Street; health care is an awful mess that needs fixing; our energy policy has us funding terrorists while wrecking the environment; the war in Iraq is a disastrous mistake, and we need to bring our troops home. After running through a list of woes, Obama reverted to his trademark optimism, talking about how an America that vanquished slavery, and prevailed through two world wars and the Great Depression, will once again rise to the challenge. “I get teased sometimes for talking about hope because people tend to get cynical,” he says. “‘He’s peddling hope again. He’s a hope-monger.’ But I have good reason to be hopeful.” He smiles again as the crowd cheers in agreement.
This is the Barack Obama that has fired up the party’s rank and file ever since he wowed the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Another side of him—a quiet, contemplative side that is truer to his nature—was evident just hours before, when he sat down for an interview with Reader’s Digest. He talked slowly, carefully, searching for just the right words to express his positions. And they weren’t always what those Fairfield activists would want to hear. Would he consider naming Republicans to key positions in an Obama Administration? “Absolutely. I think one of the things we need to return to is a sense of public service that transcends party.”
How would he use America’s power and influence? “Part of our power has to be deployed to deal with a very real terrorist threat. It would be naive to think that simply through diplomacy we’re going to deal with what is a set of ideologically driven fanatics. So we’ve got to deploy our power militarily.”
Of course, most of his remarks fit well within the liberal canon. Regarding Iraq: “I would come up with a plan to change our course militarily while aggressively ramping up our diplomatic efforts.” On health care: “I would introduce a universal health bill within the first 100 days.” On energy: “We need an energy plan that will raise fuel-efficiency standards, ratchet down greenhouse gas emissions and aggressively explore alternative fuels.”
Not Black Enough
His appeal to the Democratic base is obvious, yet he trails Hillary Clinton in national polling by a wide margin. Obama’s prospects seem to hinge on the electorate’s reaction to two basic facts: He is seeking to become the first African American President, and he is relatively inexperienced. Plenty of observers say this is a one-two punch that will doom his candidacy. Maybe. But there are others who believe that these supposed hurdles will prove to be Obama’s ultimate assets.Start with a most curious charge: Obama is not black enough. Grumblings of this sort have percolated in the African American community, and they stem from the Senator’s uncommon background.
His genes are a mix of two starkly different worlds: Kansas and Kenya. Obama’s father, also named Barack, was born into Kenya’s Luo tribe and raised a Muslim, while his mother, Ann, was a white middle-class Midwesterner. The two met at the University of Hawaii in 1960, and Barack was born a year later. His father abandoned the family when Barack was only two, and not long after, Ann married again—this time a man from Indonesia who moved the family to Jakarta. After four years there, Barack was sent back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents so the nine-year-old could attend the highly regarded Punahou Academy. He continued on an elite course, graduating from Columbia University and earning a law degree from Harvard (where Obama became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review).
This is a powerful narrative for a politician—a triumph over racial and cultural divides, not to mention a fractured family. Add to it Obama’s three-year stint, between college and law school, as a street-level organizer in Chicago’s poor, black neighborhoods, and you have a candidate with a strong claim on minority voters.
Except that a recent poll shows Hillary Clinton neck and neck with Obama among black voters. Almost certainly, this reflects an enduring affection for former President Bill Clinton, but it also suggests mixed feelings about Obama. Is he really one of them? Can a guy who was raised mainly by white grandparents, whose black heritage has nothing to do with slavery, and whose education is Ivy elite, relate to their problems?
Obama’s supporters, such as his law school friend Cassandra Butts, insist this wariness will vanish as the Senator becomes better known. Now a senior vice president at the Center for American Progress, Butts says there was “a similar pattern when he ran for the Senate. As people got to know him, support for him skyrocketed. African Americans will embrace him as they learn about his strong record of support for issues that are important to them.”
But Obama has to excite and inspire fellow blacks while not allowing race to define his candidacy. “It wasn’t about race when he ran for the U.S. Senate,” says Obama’s wife, Michelle, an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center. “Barack spoke to everyone’s hopes and dreams, and he won in the urban North and the rural South. His appeal is based on his ability to connect with people in a way that cuts across race, gender and political affiliation.”
Connecting with voters across the spectrum may not even be his biggest challenge. What about concerns that he’s too green to be handed the reins of power? “Naive” is the way Hillary Clinton characterized a recent remark by Obama that he’d be willing to meet unconditionally with the leaders of rogue states, like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korea’s Kim Jong-il. Clinton has pounced on other statements as well, implying that her opponent is not prepared to become Commander in Chief at a time of global threats to America.
Time to Try
Obama can’t afford this kind of credibility gap, so he has tried to reassure Americans that he’d be aggressive in the country’s defense. In an August speech, he went so far as to say he would consider attacking al Qaeda sanctuaries inside Pakistan.He appears more comfortable, though, when he talks about using the example and influence of America to win allies and thwart enemies. “I’ll be looking for opportunities for Americans to work on transnational threats that everybody has to be concerned about,” he told The Digest. In Obama’s mind, that list is long and ranges from climate change to nuclear proliferation. And it will mean being more generous with our money. “We should double our foreign aid budget and invest it strategically—like in malaria medicine or in digging wells or in making sure that women get the education they need to prosper.”
Obama’s idealistic vision for America has helped attract more donations for the primary campaign than Senator Clinton garnered through the first half of this year. And while she remains the clear front-runner, Obama may be holding a pair of trump cards.
Clinton has long excited the Democratic base because she could make history by becoming the first female President. There’s only one prospect that could energize the activists even more—and that’s the election of the first black President.
As for Obama’s inexperience, that can be helpful in Presidential politics, where a long legislative record is like deadweight dragging you down. “It’s a problem when you’ve cast thousands of votes that can be spun any number of ways,” says Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation. To the extent that Obama has a voting record, it’s among the most liberal in the Senate, according to the nonpartisan National Journal. But it’s such a brief record that people can easily decide his views are still evolving. Bruce Reed of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council told Rolling Stone, “People don’t come to Obama for what he’s done in the Senate. They come for what they hope he could be.”
To be sure, many things have to fall neatly into place for Obama to come out on top. But he is a political phenomenon who can’t be sold short. “He’s affable and likable,” says Darling, “and he’s been in the Senate long enough to become a media sensation, but not so long that he’s become a target, like the old bulls.” In other words, it may or may not be Barack Obama’s time to win the White House—but without question, it is his time to try.