Barack knows.
When even the Sun, doubtless directly influenced by Murdoch's recent comments on the Democratic presidential candidate, praises to high heaven the first African-American to contest the White House, it's hard not to acknowledge that something has fundamentally changed, both in American society and also in American politics for Barack Obama to have finally won his party's nomination. While it's easy to overstate his credentials, it's clear that Obama is certainly the most liberal presidential candidate for a generation, coming directly after what will certainly go down as one of, if not the most right-wing president of at least the last century. The hope that this signals the beginning of the end of the culture wars which have split America completely down the middle is probably still for now a pipe dream; it may well nature to take its course for that to be finally brought to a close.
It does however signify a generational shift. This wasn't just a rejection of the last 8 years; it was a rejection of the last 20. For those with a visceral dislike for Hillary Clinton, the slow collapse of her campaign, with her standing for nothing but her own personal vanity, believing from the beginning that she had a divine right to not just become the Democratic candidate, but also to become president, the last few months were little short of joyous. For someone who had spent their entire political career being the only woman in the nation with balls, even if she only wore them from her ears, her resorting to shallow femininity and even less feasibly, vulnerability before finally simple delusional intransigence, was completely shameless. Even with her plans for healthcare, and her defence of the right to choose, her comments on how she would "obliterate" Iran if it launched an attack on Israel using weapons which it doesn't have showed how the difference between her and John McCain were she to have won the candidacy would have been so slight as to warrant the spoiling of a ballot.
A little charisma can, as we've discovered to our cost, be a dangerous thing. The last thing that should be done is to give in to the hero worship towards Obama that some on the left both here and in America have displayed. As inspiring and hopeful as his campaign has been up until now, enough to make you wistful to wonder where our equivalent may come from, he's not the full package and doubtless we will be disappointed time and again from now until November as he tacks towards the right to head off some of McCain and the Republicans jibes. Already he's having to somewhat understandably row back on his pledge to talk to Iran and Cuba without pre-conditions, as welcome as that would be, purely because going too far all at once from the position which has been in the ascendance since the Iranian revolution causes irrational worry about just what else he might do. For all his rousing if ultimately vacuous rhetoric, he has to prove that he genuinely does have the power to both change the country and to unite it, and set out exactly how he intends to do so.
The first thing he could do to move towards that is to not give into the facile and desperate demands of some within the Democrats to appoint Hillary as his running mate. Despite her undoubted appeal to older voters and the white working classes yet to be convinced of Obama, she also still stands for the battles of the late 90s. She may have been right in denouncing the vast right-wing conspiracy which nearly brought her husband down, even if he was a liar caught with his pants around his ankles, but America desperately needs to move on, however painful in the short-term it might be for him and hurtful for Hillary herself. The dream would have been for the other main Democratic candidate, John Edwards, to join him, someone with undoubted appeal to the working class, but he's made clear that he doesn't want to be the prospective VP again after 2004. Most of his other options are ones that we in this country have barely and if at all have heard of, but he needs someone who can reach that parts that he either has trouble with or that have rejected him so far, but either James Webb or Ted Strickland of those already in frame appear on the surface to offer the most.
Secondly, he has to be prepared to take the Republicans on at their own game, something which both Al Gore and John Kerry failed to do. The Republicans will fight the only way they know how, as dirtily as they can without completely turning the electorate off, and Obama has to be ready to rebutt fiercely and repeatedly every claim and smear which they make. They're going to indulge if not backup those that have been claiming he's a Muslim, that he has the most "liberal" voting record in the Senate, and that he isn't "American" enough. They're going to use Jeremiah Wright against him, even if there might actually be more understanding if they actually listened to portions of what he said and how some have become embittered and almost ashamed to be American. They'll put his comments on guns, religion and small towns on billboards and adverts even if truer words had never been spoken.
The choice, whether from here or in America seems stark. Does the country want a continuation of the last 20 years, or does it want to attempt to start afresh? Does it want to continue an unwinnable war which should never have been fought or does it want to keep spending unaffordable billions on it for the next 100 years? Does it want a 71-year-old man who is by anyone's standards remarkable, honourable and indefatigable, but who offers just more of the same, or the 46-year-old whom, if doesn't quite want to rip it up and start again, wants fundamental change that the other candidate simply isn't interested in? If I was being pessimistic, and it's often difficult not to be, I'd fear they'd still plump for McCain. The hope, and the hope in this case is so important, has to be that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.
Labels: Barack Obama, Democrat presidental candidates, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, US presidential campaign, US presidential election
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