I am amused by the folks in the comboxes below who are tut-tutting the identity politics manifesting themselves on the Right, with people "identifying" with Sarah Palin, and therefore willing to give her their votes. Because, see, the only reason leftish people have gone ga-ga over Barack Obama is because they carefully and unemotionally examined his positions on key issues, and decided to support his candidacy.
Bosh. Obama's program was no different from Hillary Clinton's, and is pretty standard Democratic fare. Obama sailed to the top on a high tide of good feeling; tens of thousands of people found him inspiring, seeing in his style certain ideals, and the charisma necessary to bring those ideals to reality. So what? This is how politics always works. You think Yes, we can! is a program? No, it's an emotion. Obama's entire approach has been about inviting the masses to identify with him, and it's served him well. What on earth do you think Bill Clinton's "I feel your pain" business was all about?
Being able to win the hearts of the masses is a critical skill of political leadership. People want to believe that the leader understands people like them. Being a national politician is not like being a CEO. You have to be able to build mass coalitions, and that takes skills that CEOs don't have to possess. Besides, if the quality of leadership depended only on resume and experience, we wouldn't have gotten our national rear end into such a crack in Iraq; it would have been harder to find a more experienced national security team than Cheney, Powell and Rumsfeld. I'm not saying that experience and education don't matter, but only that they are relative. Joe Biden might be 10 times smarter and a hundred times more experienced in areas that matter in presidential politics than his running mate, but the fact is his running mate won enough votes to claim the Democratic nomination, and he only got a handful. Why is that? It's not because Democratic primary voters weighed relative positions and experience, and decided Obama rationally was the better candidate. It's because Obama captured their imaginations. More people identified with him than with any other Democratic candidate.
You can bitch and moan about this -- and conservatives have done precisely that about Obama's popularity ... until they found an Obama of their own -- but there it is. I find it risible that folks on the Left would be so scandalized by the fact that people on the Right are succumbing to identity politics with Sarah Palin, when the truth is many of them did precisely that in picking Obama over Hillary Clinton (the questions is: which identity?). Then again, conservatives who go ga-ga over Palin surrender the high ground from which they looked down on liberal Obamaniacs. Keep in mind, though, had McCain picked a more conventionally qualified candidate for his running mate, he would have lost the race handily. McCain has this crazy idea that he'd actually like to be president, and he'd really like to win this race. That's the hazard of democratic politics. I think what's cheesing off the Left is not so much that many on the Right are selling out to identity politics, but that right-wing identity politics stand a decent chance of defeating left-wing identity politics this year. Nobody saw that coming.
UPDATE: Alex Massie is making sense. Excerpt:
A super-qualified running-mate is not much use if they don't help the ticket win in the first place. And that's why I ask: what was John McCain supposed to do? The front-running candidates for his Veep would each, I think, have guaranteed his defeat. Mitt Romney? Please! Tim Pawlenty? What a snooze. Joe Lieberman? You have to be kidding. none of these men could have had Sarah Palin's impact upon the race. None of them would have been a potential game-changer. They were - Lieberman excepted - safe picks who would have helped, I believe, McCain trundle along to a worthy, honourable defeat. (Lieberman, of course, would have been a disastrous choice.)And that is what many of Palin's harshest critics would have wanted. Better for McCain to lose with honour than prevail after an ugly, unpleasant, malicious campaign. And there's something to that. Most of us, when we're asked whether the ends justify the means, tend to reply, "Well, it depends, doesn't it? What end? What means?"
But one may also understand why the McCain campaign doesn't see it like that. Politics is, if you like, war by other means. And just as the logic of warfare can demand - when you get right down to the bloody essence of the matter - total war, so you might conclude, if the prize is big enough then politics has to be total politics too. Otherwise, why get involved in the first place?
Because of Sarah Palin -- there can be no other explanation -- John McCain is now polling ahead of Barack Obama, with 51 days left till the vote. Did anybody expect that?
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Perhaps our nation is learning the hard way that identity politics lead to superficial, bad choices. My friends who were rah-rahing for Obama are now getting to know what it's like to be on the receiving end because of all the pro-Palin hysteria. I just hope we don't have to suffer through another "Great Depression" (or WWIII) because of it.
I'm supporting Obama, but only because I think he is the lesser of two ills. I'm starting to think that cynicism would serve us better in the long run than idealism.
Alicia,
What we need is a president less cynical toward others and less idealistic about himself.
What we need is a president more cynical about himself and more idealistic toward others.
Obama fails -- and fails badly -- on all these counts.
Which isn't to say that McCain is much better, but enough so to be the lesser of the ills on offer.
Bosh. Obama's program was no different from Hillary Clinton's, and is pretty standard Democratic fare.
Um, yeah. Which is why he had a long and difficult battle for the nomination, and eventually won it, everyone basically admits, not because he was better, but because Hillary's campaign kept making mistakes and her unavoidable baggage.
And Democrats should be excited about actually electing a Democrat with 'standard Democratic fare', after having to put up with 'triangulation' Bill Clinton (who often managed to triangulate issues right off the board, like health care) and decades of Republican misrule.
The thing you must understand about us Democrats: We're not divided into 6 warring factions, but actually standing here with actual policies that basically the whole party is behind. I know it sounds odd to you Republicans, but, the fact that the entire Democratic party basically wants the same thing and thus ends up with candidates all promising the same thing and is happy no matter who ends up nominated...well, that's only a weakness if you're crazy. It is, in fact, a strength.
And, incidentally, McCain's bounce is normal post-convention bounce. If you don't realize that, you're going to be crushingly disappointed as 'inverviews from Palin' results in McCain slipping in the polls, when in reality they will have little to do with each other.
Hi, Rufus.
My view is that the current administration has led our nation towards a cliff, and a new Republican administration would lead our nation off that cliff. Obama may err in the opposite direction, but even if we start heading towards "the opposite cliff" I don't think we will reach it by the time an Obama presidency ends. I'd prefer we didn't swing between extremes, but it's better to do that than to keep rushing, hell-bent, in the wrong direction.
My attraction to Obama has something to do with identity politics, but I think this all tied into worldview which ties into policy. He's like me in several ways, he's multiracial and has spent several years abroad, including a few in his childhood. His worldview is big enough that he understands what things are like for the rest of the world, and how policies work out in other countries. I think he would understand viscerally the impact of war on a country's people. For him, they aren't imaginary invisible beings, but very imaginable people. His empathy extends to the rest of the world. They may not get a vote, but our policies will impact them greatly. They matter, morally and ethically.
This is why I hope that Obama would build bridges rather than burn them. Our military is the best funded on earth, and I can tell you personally that the men and women I serve with are the country's best men and women, bar none. But we can't be the sum total of U.S. foreign policy. Diplomacy prevents wars, and therefore saves American (and foreign) lives. For this reason, I am generally in favor of it.
Once we are IN a war, it's all in. Choose wisely.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.