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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.
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