The Case for Barack Obama

The last couple weeks I’ve engaged in a little back and forth over the Hillary and Barack rivalry. The Democratic party is fortunate to have two intriguingly qualified candidates and I am dismayed that the nomination is sprinting toward a contentious battle that may cause scars within the two factions.

In re-reading my scathing rebukes (one and two) of Frank Rich’s soft thinking and ridiculous defamation of the only female candidate in the race, I realize that casual followers of my polemics may think that I am some vehement pro-Clinton lackey or a virulent anti-Obamite. Nothing could be further from the truth. My gripe is with Rich who practices careless critical thinking under the guise of journalism.

Today, Paul Krugman decries the friction: “The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing…Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.”

The fact is I understand the hope and vision that Barack Obama prattles on about. I grew up in a grimy Irish Roman Catholic neighborhood on Chicago's south side. By the time I was conscious, the Kennedy Camelot had already been destroyed with two of her finest sons murdered, but the hope was still palpable. We knew that someone like us could one day be president. Growing up, every one of my friends my age was named either John or Bobby or Joe. The girl I took to senior prom in 1979 was Jacqueline. The legacy of those sunny days before November 1963 lived on throughout the decades of my childhood. We're all college educated now, schoolteachers, engineers, lawyers and doctors; some having served appropriately in the Peace Corps, and the Kennedy legacy was a large part of our identity.

This nation could benefit greatly from a President Obama who may indeed bring feelings of limitless possibilities to countless kids in Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens or Detroit’s downriver communities or Kalamazoo’s hardscrabble north side. Such buoyant optimism that could penetrate such insoluble circumstances may be worth the election of Obama in itself.

Or not. While I recognize the intangible benefits that Obama brings to the election, I cannot transcend my concern about the nuts and bolts of running a country at a critical time. My background is limited to plying my trade as a highly skilled laborer in the health care field and I admit ignorance regarding much of geopolitics, federal budgets and legislative process. I know few things, but I do know that Obama’s rebuff of a mandate for universal health insurance will only serve industry and corporations’ interests at the expense of citizens and small businesses, and four years from now we will be no closer to solving that problem. If he lacks detail on that critical issue, then where else is his platform deficient?

When the dust settles, I will likely vote for whichever Democratic candidate is the nominee. I may prefer Hillary Clinton for her policies on specific issues and my perception is that she knows what is necessary to achieve specific goals, but Obama would be okay, too. Barack Obama is appealing for his transcendent rhetoric—and that no doubt is important—and he will get my vote in November (if his name is on the ballot) even though I still see many of his policies as delusional (negotiate directly with Iran’s Ahmadinejad) or toothless (lack of mandates on health care) or pandering (expanding SCHIP).

I understand that certain voters feel excitement about their candidate. Heck, even Tom DeLay and Trent Lott could somehow get their supporters motivated for their hapless candidacies of hatred and cynicism. I get it. What I don’t get is the virulent lying crap being promoted by otherwise progressive and rational Obama supporters—much of it right out of the playbook of Karl Rove. Frank Rich promotes the Orwellian tactic that assumes mere repetition makes any accusation valid.

I agree with Krugman as he points out:

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality…

…What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

I like Barack Obama, but if he plans on being the transcendent uniter, he would do well to remind his supporters (and Frank Rich) first.