It’s been a long time since I’ve weighed in on the presidential race—mainly because I have become rather bored of it all since the intense, protracted primary battle concluded with an Obama victory.
I am still a strong supporter or Barack Obama for President—and I loved the pick of Joe Biden for Vice-President, despite Biden’s ties to the Washington establishment. And I, along with more than 38 million others, watched his incisive, forthright, and sometimes inspiring acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night. There is much about Obama and his campaign to admire, and during the speech I even felt something like optimism and hope thaw away the edges of my cynical heart. Before I heard a word of his “American Promise,” he had me with the U2 song “City of Blinding Lights” that accompanied his entrance—though he almost lost me when Brooks & Dunn’s “Only in America” twanged obnoxiously from the stadium’s sound system immediately following his speech. (And yet, it didn’t nearly match the race speech in either the breadth or the erudition of its message.)
But damn it all, there have been times since he wrapped up the nomination in June that I’ve been disillusioned and even sick to watch the turn his campaign has taken. It’s called the “run to the center,” and it’s nothing new: a Democratic candidate runs on a progressive platform to appeal to the party’s liberal base, then when he (or she) has the nomination wrapped up, all of those progressive ideals fall prey to equivocation, obfuscation—and sometimes just plain contradiction.
Friends, I had no illusions that Barack Obama was the uncompromisingly liberal candidate this country really needs—and indeed, he bears little resemblance to the liberal bogeyman that has been conjured from the lousiest tax-and-spend, immigrants-run-amok, gay-agenda fears of conservatives. The positions he’s taken on gay marriage (he opposes it, but supports civil unions) and capital punishment (he wants to reform it, but he supports its use in limited cases), for example, have been disappointing in their apparent desire to have it both ways: embracing all positions so as to alienate no one.
But Barack Obama talked an awful lot—and still does—about being a different kind of candidate. He wants to change the way things are done in Washington. He wants to do away with “politics as usual” and govern in a new way: with the full support and participation of ordinary citizens moved to action by his campaign. I believed him, but the “run to the center” got so out of hand at a few points this summer than I almost took down my Obama yard sign:
- He voted—against most of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate—to support warrantless wiretapping, all but ceding Americans’ fourth-amendment rights.
- He expressed enthusiastic support for President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives, and promised he would expand these programs. These funding schemes for social services provided by religious organizations were a blown kiss by Bush to the evangelicals who helped elect him twice. Under the program, religious-based programs—which are already tax-exempt—can now conduct their proselytizing and their hiring discrimination with the full support of the Federal government. Obama’s pandering here is useless, since most of the evangelicals who would get all hot and bothered over such an announcement have already written the candidate off for his support—albeit tepid—for civil unions and abortion rights.
- Speaking before AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) in June, Obama said, “We will never compromise when it comes to Israel’s security. … Those who threaten Israel, threaten us.” His even-handed stances of the past, in which he took appropriately nuanced views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and even engaged in a frankly critical assessment of Israel’s behavior in the region, are long gone.
- Seeking to reassure jingoists and warmongers across the nation that he would not be hesitant to use America’s military might, he outlined a plan to deploy as many as 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and to attack Iran if the country threatened the U.S. or its interests. He also backed off his earlier statement in a debate that he would meet with foreign leaders with no preconditions, lest it make him seem like too much of a diplomat and not enough of an ass-kicking hawk.
- Finally (but there was probably more that I missed), he supported the Supreme Court’s reversal of a long-standing gun ban in Washington, D.C., tarnishing his encouraging gun control credentials.
There are four main schools of thought when it comes to Barack Obama, I’ve come to realize:
- From the far right, the racist, and the insane (often, all three defects reside in the same individual), there is the cry that Obama is either a Muslim terrorist who will lead jihad against the U.S. from inside the White House, or an unpatriotic, anti-white atheist who will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance or wear a flag pin and will turn the country into a socialist state. There are also the softer objections to his lack of experience; his “arrogance” and his wife’s “uppity” attitude (thanks to Monsoon's mom for this insight); his effete, seemingly detached manner; and so on. And finally, in the “No-Bama’ category, there are the Hillaryites: mostly middle-aged women who are certain that sexism—not a superior message—was the sole factor in keeping Hillary Clinton from being nominated as either President or Vice-President; despite the fact that their values are represented by Barack Obama, most polls indicate that some 20% of these Hillary supporters are actually considering voting for John McCain.
- From the center and moderate Republicans and Democrats, the feeling that Obama is a gifted orator with sensible ideas who has quite correctly moved his policies to more reasonable positions; he will make necessary changes to address problems with America’s economic woes and foreign-policy challenges without questioning the fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism and corporate hegemony that underlie them. And these folks tend to look down their noses at those on the left who would criticize Obama for his shortcomings as a progressive candidate, preferring to present a united front of support. In short: he’s a swell guy.
- From the progressive and “liberal” Democrats, there is much of the admiration for Obama as stated immediately above, tempered with some grumblings about his “all-things-to-all-people” tendencies” and his run to the center—but folks in this cohort remain cautiously optimistic that when he reaches the White House, he will listen to the voices of those whose hard work propelled him there and reflect his more firmly progressive stances when he governs.
- From the far left wing—Communists, socialists, anarchists, conspiracy theorists, inveterate cynics, and I’d say the insane probably factor in here as well—we hear that there is very little substantive difference between Obama and McCain: both are agents of the ruling parties, neither of whom will really challenge corporate dominion over our lives, the collusion of government in such dominion, or the war machine. For these angry curmudgeons, the political process is an intractable parade of capitalist dirty tricks that will not be addressed in any meaningful way unless and until there is full revolution, or until a Noam Chomsky-Angela Davis ticket sails into the White House and fires the other two branches of government.
I fall in the third group, with some admitted sympathies toward the fourth. Let’s see how this works out.
A final few comments, if you’ll indulge me, about John McCain and his just-announced Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah “Barracuda” Palin, Governor of Alaska.
First, I want to direct you to an interesting article from AlterNet that reviews Michael Moore’s new book (Mike’s Election Guide) and takes note of his provocative discussion of John McCain’s “war hero” status.
Second, regarding his Vice-Presidential pick: I’ve never seen a more cravenly desperate, insulting, ill-advised, and cynical appointment in my life. John McCain met Sarah Palin exactly once at a meeting before he rang her up last week and asked her to join his fledgling ticket.
The Religious Right is over the moon about this pick, so it stands to reason that I’d be disgruntled. Let me outline a few reasons I find Sarah Palin objectionable:
- She has very little political experience, as has been noted; the little experience she does have has been marred by scandal—her office is being investigated for improprieties stemming from the firing of a state trooper.
- She is a lifetime member of the NRA who likes to shoot animals and pose with their carcasses, which I find to be vile (see the photo below, in which she and one of her kids celebrate the killing of a caribou; I’ve cropped it to spare you all the graphic details).
- Her children’s names are Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. I mean…really? Really, times five??
- Palin is a devout, born-again evangelical who opposes abortion without reservation—even in cases of rape or incest. What a gal.
- She believes Creationism should be taught alongside the “theory” of evolution in public schools to encourage “healthy debate.”
- She strongly encourages and has worked toward oil and natural gas drilling in pristine areas in Alaska and other sites.
- She opposes same-sex marriages and supported a referendum for an amendment to Alaska’s constitution that would deny health benefits to same-sex couples.
- She supports capital punishment without reservation.
An odd realization struck me as I began researching Sarah Palin after the announcement was made: I hated her before I even knew she existed.
I mean, she’s the embodiment of every single thing I reject, and she’s wrapped up in a seemingly unthreatening package. (If I hear one more pundit describe her as “hot” or “cute” I am going to seriously lose it.)
And finally, speaking of colossally insulting, McCain’s choice is so nakedly designed to woo disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters that it should be seen not as a final “shattering” of the glass ceiling, as Palin said in her introductory speech, but as one of the true mileposts in 21st-century sexism. (I can’t imagine Hillary supporters suddenly deciding to vote for Sarah Palin just because she’s the first woman to receive a Republican Vice-Presidential nomination. The only things Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have in common are two X chromosomes.)
The good aspect of all this for us Obama supporters is that her inexperience and notorious bluntness is bound to lead to gaffes, and her utter lack of foreign policy chops means Biden is going to chew her up in the Vice-Presidential debate. I think ultimately the choice, though bold, will backfire wildly on McCain and Barack Obama will comfortably be elected the 44th President of the United States.
I’ll leave you with two outstanding columns about Palin from the Sunday papers:
Maureen Dowd’s column from the August 31st New York Times.
Chris Satullo’s column from the August 31st Philadelphia Inquirer.
As always, I welcome your comments and criticisms. I’m up for a lively political debate on here, if anyone’s game.
Monsoon Martin