From A New Star for the Democrats
AudioHe's been compared to Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's color barrier, and to golfing great Tiger Woods, also of mixed race, and to Martin Luther King, Jr., America's conscience on civil rights. In Barack Obama's chosen profession, Democrats often invoke John F. Kennedy when describing his charisma. Republicans not under his thrall say that with his paucity of experience, Obama reminds them less of Kennedy and more of Jimmy Carter. This is not intended as a compliment.
The most striking aspect of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, however, is that it -- and he -- is unique in the American experience.
It starts, of course, with his race. Obama is the product of the unlikely union of a white woman from Kansas who wandered the world and a Kenyan man who came to the United States as an exchange student. Forget the hyphen: His parents were truly African and American. Then there's that name. As a kid growing up in Hawaii, he went by Barry Obama, but even before going into politics, he reverted to his given name, Barack, and he never hid his middle name, Hussein, which was his father's and still gives some voters pause.
Finally, there's that undeniably thin résumé.
Obama was never a governor, nor an executive. He did not serve in the armed forces or the House of Representatives. He worked in the private sector only briefly as a lawyer and was never a judge or a prosecutor. He wrote one highly acclaimed memoir, Dreams from My Father, and a bestseller, The Audacity of Hope, which is essentially a campaign book. He served for three years as a community organizer in Chicago, taught law school, served eight years in the Illinois state legislature, and ran for the Senate in 2004, winning against a fringe candidate from out of state.
That experience pales in comparison with John Kennedy's life before the presidency. JFK had written two books, as well, but was also a decorated naval officer in World War II, had served three terms in the House, and was in his second Senate term when he earned the 1960 nomination. At the 1956 Democratic Convention, he was nearly picked as the vice presidential nominee.
Obama's big break came at a convention, too, as the Democrats nominated John Kerry in 2004. Obama was still a state legislator, but his prime-time speech electrified the hall and inspired millions watching at home.
"The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states -- red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats -- but I've got news for them," he said that night in Boston. "We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states, and yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."
When he was done talking, Democrats had a new star.
He had to win his Senate seat in November, which he did easily, and then wrest the nomination from the Democratic establishment's candidate, Hillary Clinton, a harder task, but one he also accomplished.
Struggles of His Own
Today Obama stands before the electorate, poised to break all campaign fund-raising records. He has exhilarated African American voters, galvanized young people, and transfigured himself into the politician with perhaps the greatest crossover appeal in U.S. political history. He enters the summer conventions leading Republican nominee John McCain nationally, as well as in key battleground states, and stands seemingly on the threshold of history.However, he is not, despite his momentum, a perfect candidate.
Contrary to a pernicious e-mailing campaign during the primaries, Obama has never been a Muslim. But the black liberation theology of his Chicago-based Christian pastor, Jeremiah Wright, caused no end of grief to Obama and the campaign, and he quit his church earlier this year.
Also, although disciplined and cool, Obama occasionally embarks on flights of rhetorical fancy. He suggested that some white voters "cling" to guns, religion, and racism because of a stagnant economy, an assertion that led to accusations of elitism. Once, he asserted that more young African Americans are "languishing" in prison than attending college. This is wrong by a factor of five.
Some of this can be chalked up to inexperience; some of it reflects the polemic style of modern campaigning in which candidates exhibit little compunction about taking liberties with their opponents' reputations while burnishing their own.
In 2005, shortly after assuming his duties as a freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Obama compared himself to Lincoln. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat -- in all this he reminded me … of my own struggles," Obama said.
This was a bit much for conservatives, and yet Lincoln is where conversations about Obama often wind up -- with good reason. His candidacy offers Americans a chance to reap the ultimate fruit of the Great Emancipator's actions during the Civil War.
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns invoked Lincoln's candidacy while explaining his preference for Obama: "If you were a pundit in the 1850s, you would be certain that the country needed an old pro. What the country actually needed was a relatively -- or so it seemed -- inexperienced, young wiry figure from Illinois."
Even some of those close to John McCain express such feelings.
Mark McKinnon, a Texas Democrat turned George W. Bush advisor, helped McCain get the Republican nomination. But he told McCain at the outset of the campaign that Obama was the one Democrat he would not work against. "Barack Obama is a walking, talking hope machine," said McKinnon. "People see him as a reflection about what is good and great about America. He's like a mirror of what people think we ought to be."
In his brief tenure in the Senate, Obama has compiled a liberal voting record -- even for a Democrat -- and has yet to break with his party on any significant issue. But it is also undeniable that he appeals rhetorically to the impulses that unite Americans, to what Abraham Lincoln himself termed "the better angels of our nature."
Lincoln spoke those words at his first inaugural while warning the nation of the deep cost to be paid if we stopped listening to one another and took up arms. Americans today are not nearly at the point of civil war, but we are not civil with one another either. This is what Obama says he'd like to change, and it is a powerful call.
Obama Answers Readers' Questions
In late June, Senator Obama sat in a Miami hotel room and answered questions from Reader's Digest editors. We had solicited reader questions on our website, and we asked him several. Here is what he had to say.Q: The cliché is that anybody could grow up to be president. If you win in November, does that make it true, finally? Does it complete Lincoln's work?
A: There is no doubt that if I win the presidency, then the adage "Anybody can be president" is true. If you took a look at all the babies who were born in 1961, the odds of me being president probably would not have been at the top of the list.
Q: Your mother was a freethinker, but would even she have imagined this? How about your father?
A: My dad might have imagined it because he, from all accounts, was pretty full of himself. [Laughs] And your mother always thinks you're special -- that's one of her jobs -- and so I'm not sure she would have been surprised. My grandmother, who is my only living elder, I do think she's a little overwhelmed by it. She's a very stoic, stiff-upper-lip type of person. If you think about it, this is a white woman from a small town in Kansas who grew up in the midst of the Depression. To imagine, first of all, that she'd end up having a grandson who was African American and then that he might end up being president -- that's a pretty big leap of the imagination.
Q: We keep hearing people say, "My head tells me McCain, but my heart tells me Obama." What would you tell those voters?
A: John McCain is a genuine American hero. He has rendered extraordinary public service to this country, and he has on numerous occasions been willing to buck conventional wisdom in his party. But I also think the country recognizes we're at a critical juncture and that the challenges we're going to face in the 21st century are different from the ones that we faced in the 20th century.
In terms of our foreign policy, we now have multiple threats, very few of which involve the traditional battles of the past. We're fighting not only terrorism but also pandemic, climate change, cyberterrorism, and refugee problems. When it comes to our domestic situation, we're transitioning into a new global information age, and the old solutions aren't going to work. We can't just trot out the old dogmas and somehow expect different results. Part of the reason I think I'm in the position I am in now is that people recognize that we're going to need new leadership in this new environment.
Q: One of our readers asked, "If you had to make one issue a priority, what would it be?"
A: I can't choose one, but I'll choose three. I believe we have to bring the war in Iraq to an honorable close. This is a huge drain on our resources, and it is also an impediment to our being able to lead the world.
The second thing is energy, not just because we have $4-a-gallon gasoline but because how we use energy is having an impact on our national security. It helps strengthen the hand of our enemies, and it is having an enormous impact on our planet, and so it is going to be critical for us to have an energy policy that starts to lessen the incredible impact we are having on the global climate.
And the third thing is health care. We have got a broken health care system. It has an impact on families all across the country. It has an impact on businesses, small and large, that are straining under these enormous costs, and we just don't get a good deal out of our health care system. We spend far more than any other nation per capita, and yet our outcomes aren't any better than in countries that are spending 25, 30, 50 percent less. That doesn't make sense.
Obama's Solutions for America
Q: Education is another area in which people think we're not getting what we're paying for. Two Democratic groups released position papers, one saying that attacking poverty is the way to address this issue; the other believes schools aren't doing what they should be doing. Where do you come out?A: I am a big believer in what Dr. King called "both-and" solutions instead of "either-or" solutions. Our schools need to be restructured and refinanced. There is not enough money in a lot of our public schools. Our teachers aren't paid enough. You have crumbling infrastructure. We have to reform our schools to update them to the 21st century. We've still got a school year that is structured around kids going out to harvest.
But we also have to change attitudes. The fact is that we as a culture have become a little soft and a little complacent and a little indulgent, and a lot of our kids don't have the kind of support that they need at home that says, You go to bed at a regular hour, you turn off the television set, you do your homework.
Q: Well, one of these groups says that the teachers union itself is often the problem. They think it's inhibiting reform. As president, would you be willing to take on the teachers union?
A: I think that, generally, reform should not be imposed on teachers, but we should have teachers involved so that they have ownership over reforms that are taking place. But if you've got bad teachers in the classroom, for example, they need to be given the resources to improve, and if they don't improve, they should be replaced. That's not always going to be something that sits well with the unions. If we've got work rules that are preventing the best approaches to teaching kids, those have to change.
Q: On June 3 in St. Paul, the night you clinched the nomination, your wife joined you onstage, and after you exchanged fist bumps, she said something to you. Would you tell us what she said?
A: If I'm not mistaken, she said, "I'm really proud of you." I think that's what she said -- it was a little loud.
Q: Our readers want to know when was the last time you were able to do normal stuff like go to the grocery store, pump your own gas, shoot hoops without cameras?
A: I can still shoot hoops without cameras. I have a group of friends who have been willing to come and play at the gym with me. So that's been fun. I don't drive anymore because of the Secret Service. They don't allow you to drive -- that's part of the deal -- and going to the grocery store, it's probably been about the same, about a year.
Q: How would you translate the success you've had campaigning on the Internet into governing? What do you do on the Internet yourself? Do you have favorite websites? Do you e-mail?
A: I spend a lot of time e-mailing, mostly on my BlackBerry these days because I'm traveling so much. Can I be honest? On the Internet, mostly I check sports scores.
What we've been able to accomplish in the campaign points to what I think we can accomplish in our government. I passed a bill last year that sets up a searchable website where you can find every dollar of federal spending. So if there's a bridge to nowhere being built, you can find out who was that congressman who is wasting my money. And that creates accountability.
Q: What is the single difference the world will notice between a Barack Obama presidency and George W. Bush's presidency?
A: That's a long list. But I think the one thing is a philosophy that says the United States is the largest economy in the world, it's the largest military power in the world, but it can't solve problems alone. I think that's fundamentally different from the approach George Bush has taken.
Q: What is it with you and young people, even those who aren't yet of voting age? One of us has a three-year-old son who goes around saying, "Barack Obama, Barack Obama."
A: When it comes to three-year-olds, I do think Obama sounds like mama. So I think it's a fun name to say. I'm not sure it's because of my position on Iran. [Laughs] For teenagers and younger voters, they understand that the 21st century is going to be different and new, and I think they're attuned to it -- that there's going to be more diversity, there are going to be fewer top-down, command-and-control institutions, and there's going to be more collaboration and networking. I also think that it's been a long time since young people were called on to be involved. There's a pent-up idealism there that they are responding to.
Q: What is the best thing about John McCain's appeal, the best thing about his candidacy?
A: John captures a code of honor, a love of country that is really important and sometimes gets lost in the materialism and the superficiality of modern culture. I think there's a sense that he has been forged by extraordinary hardship, so that he is willing to sacrifice on behalf of the country, and I think that is not lifted up enough in our culture today. It has always been something that we need.
YES! finally some brain power in the white house. it's been a while since someone who cares has been elected.. 338 electorial votes proves that he deserves this position!!. later guys..
What a total "fluff" piece, highlighting the liberal media's handling of their "star"! Someone's 3-yr old likes to say his name, when was the last time he went to the store, and what did his wife whisper to him? Seriously??? The writer needs to check his "giddiness" at the door and ask some "REAL" questions of Obama. The man is running for president, not captain of the debate team! McCain's interview didn't have any of these light-hearted questions...I wonder why?
A couple questions RD forgot to ask: Q: What is it with you and RD editors? We all run around our houses chanting "Barack Obama. Barack Obama." Q: Liberal voters have been fighting amongst themselves lately. Some believe you will be an awesome president, while others believe you will be a REALLY awesome president. How do you respond to that?
you have damned Obama with faint praise. I dislike your slant.
Interesting yet primarily rhetorical answers. I do not want to hear over and over, "we need change." I need to hear specific plans and perspectives on what it takes to make positive changes in our wonderful nation. I rarely hear an answer from Mr. Obama that goes beyond a very general approach.