Sunday, January 13, 2008 - 16:48
 "Barack Obama Prior to Announcing His Candidacy")
The scary thing is that Barack Obama can win, indeed, he might be exactly what the country wants. He's young, good-looking, eloquent, and best of all, doesn't seem to have a confrontational bone in his body. He's a political tabula rasa, to be written on, not by experience, but by whoever sees him. Barack Obama knows that he is a mystery, and that most of his appeal is that he appears to be all things to all people. And he's fine with that.
It is an indictment of the lack of seriousness of American culture that Barack Obama is even a legitimate candidate. He's the Paris Hilton of politics, famous for being famous, and popular for being popular. The media loves him, because the media loves celebrity, and many people love him, like they love a Hollywood starlet or the winner of American Idol; they see themselves in him, and like themselves better that way.
Barack Obama's life story is like a movie. He was born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother. He's a little bit heartland and a little bit ethnic. His father left when he was young, like they always do in movies, and he lived for a time in Indonesia before returning to grow up with his grandparents in Hawaii.
Obama has always had a sense of his own destiny, publishing a memoir, Dreams from my Father, in 1995, before he had ever held elective office. In it he details the difficulty of growing up in a White middle-class neighborhood, of attending posh private schools, of going to Harvard and becoming editor of The Harvard Law Review, all the while being half-Black.
In 1996, Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate, where he spent eight years being uncontroversial, angling for higher office, and compiling a perfect liberal voting record. He ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, but lost, perhaps because of the stink of naked ambition.
It seemed ambition would do him in when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004. He trailed badly in a three-way primary against billionaire businessman Blair Hull, and state Comptroller Dan Hynes, but Hull's candidacy exploded after allegations of domestic abuse, and Obama won the primary with 52% of the vote.
His general election victory was assured when his opponent Jack Ryan withdrew from the race after ugly details emerged from his child custody case, and Illinois Republicans panicked and carpet-bagged in the erstwhile presidential candidate Alan Keyes.
Most Americans, and indeed, most Illinois voters heard of Barack Obama for the first time at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. His speech, entitled "The Audacity of Hope" thrilled an audience who had earlier been riveted by the likes of Ted Kennedy, Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle and yes, Janet Napolitano. Following her, it is no wonder that Obama was the highlight of the night!
He addressed the Red State/Blue State divide stirringly in that speech, angling, even then for popularity in both.
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 too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and 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.
It was great speechmaking, of course. But no new ground was broken, and coming from someone else, say Janet Napolitano, it would quickly have been forgotten.
But that's the thing about Barack Obama. The message is the messenger. No real issue statements needed here, no, Obama must represent a new kind of politics because, see, he looks different than the other candidates. No foreign policy experience needed, no leadership on issues, no real record of accomplishment to speak of, because Barack Obama represents us, all of us, in whatever way we want him to.
America is strong, but there is a streak of silliness in all of us. It is that streak that makes Paris Hilton a celebrity, and it is that same streak that would make Barack Obama president.
Barack Obama represents the hope in all of us for peace, for acceptance, for resolution and an end to conflict. He makes us feel good about ourselves, in a warm-and-fuzzy way, when we think about voting for him. He's just Black enough to count, but not Black enough to unnerve us. He is just liberal enough to be safely politically correct, but not outspoken enough to make us queasy. He's just young enough to make us think he is fresh, but not too young. He is just smart and strong enough to make us confident in him, but he's not so sure of himself that he makes us hate him.
He is the anti-Bush, and the anti-Hillary, and if he wins the presidency, it is because our fatigue with the rough-and-tumble politics of the last eighteen years of Bush-Clinton-Bush outweighs the common sense in all of us that tells us, no matter how attractively he is packaged, Barack Obama is neither strong enough nor serious enough to lead us in a time of war.
And make no mistake: there would be no greater blow to our efforts to win the war against radical Islam than to elect Barack Obama, a postmodern president for a postmodern age.
