The Struggle to Define Obama
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in 2008 Election, BarackConservative essayist Jonah Goldberg goes on an anti-Barack Obama tear in USA Today. His beef? Obama, Goldberg claims, is a postmodernist who believes in no permanent truths. As you read the piece, you can hear Goldberg’s bubbling frustration and disgust – both at what he sees as Obama’s duplicity and at his own inability to pin down the enigmatic Illinois senator.
Goldberg’s argument isn’t great. His understanding of postmodernism seems rather rudimentary (or purposefully oversimplified) and his application of that field of thought to Obama is tangential at best. But his desperate attempt to define Obama gives support to another editorial circulating today: this one by David Brooks who hypothesizes that Obama is only marginally ahead in the polls primarily because many voters are still struggling to define the senator.
Brooks points out:
There is a sense that because of his unique background and temperament, Obama lives apart. He put one foot in the institutions he rose through on his journey but never fully engaged. As a result, voters have trouble placing him in his context, understanding the roots and values in which he is ineluctably embedded.
Brooks sees Obama as being detached from every place he’s lived and from every organization of which he’s been apart. I don’t know if that’s true. But I do know that we the voters are detached from Obama’s experiences. How many of us are bi-racial, raised predominately overseas and graduates of elite universities? Even George Bush’s silver-spoon, prodigal son life is more universal.
We struggle to define Obama because we struggle to understand the experiences which formed him. We have no easy touchstones like we did for Bill Clinton (poor kid made good) or John McCain (determined warrior). Our inability to define Obama is as much the fault of our own need for easy labels as it is the fault of Obama’s rapid ascent and habit of distancing himself from past affiliations (Rev. Wright, anyone?).
To win this thing in a landslide, Obama will need to get out of the image-enhancing, brand-building mode and into the trust-building mode. The more voters trust him and believe they know what kind of president he’ll be, the larger his victory can be.
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August 5th, 2008 at 11:05 am
So, in other words, “he doesn’t feel like the other guys on the dollar bill?” :-)
Touchstones such as the ones you mention are constructed. It’s simply a question of how to tell the story. He grew up in America, had a family that had its own challenges because every family does, went to college, made the most of his opportunities, and so on. That’s plenty of basis for shared experience and analogies, etc, etc. The common ground is there. He’s not from Mars, he’s from Chicago.
It’s up to Obama and his campaign to tell the story in such a way as to make it quintessentially American, moving and inspirational, and providing of a rationale for why he feels as he does and what direction he wants to take us.
And quite honestly, as an editor and writer, I have a VERY hard time believing that this will be difficult to do. At all. To the contrary, I have every reason to think it will be quite easy to do. Further, I have strong reason to believe that not only will the tale be a good one, but that it will be delivered in an eloquent and moving fashion.
Right now, we are at the stage where the GOP is rushing to try to define Obama, to sow doubt and fear. Not that there’s anything wrong with that per se. They want to win, and that’s OK. It makes all kind of sense for Obama to tell this tale in his acceptance speech. Then the GOP has to try to de-construct it afterwards.
They’ll have to do so AFTER Obama delivers his tale to a large portion of Americans who now feel fearful of the future and doubtful of their place in it. He’ll leave them hopeful and indeed euphoric. That casts the GOP deconstructionists in the unenviable role of the turd in the punchbowl.
IMO, the choice will be made by many folks on a pretty visceral level. It’s the young new different inexperienced guy preaching hope and lacking details against the old experienced guy encouraging you to doubt the young guy and stick with old ways. I encourage everyone to experience this by answering each of the following questions:
At his best, how does Barack Obama make you feel? At his worst?
At his best, how does John McCain make you feel? At his worst?
I submit that at his best Obama makes us feel hopeful and encouraged, and confident that we’ll meet new challenges head on with confidence and strength and new approaches. At his worst, he makes us feel like he’s a rookie that would be devoured by vicious veterans. IOW, a huge mistake.
I further submit that McCain at his best makes us feel like he’s a more prudent choice, that the Lion in Winter is still formidable. IOW, that the future will feel very much like the recent past and the old steady hand is just what we want. At his worst, he makes us feel feeble and worn out, and makes us worry that America’s time of dominance is passing before our eyes, that we face a future of debt, lowered standards of living, and in general, decline.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I wouldn’t have an issue with Obama if he could only believe and stand by what he says. I have given up on him. First he’s against FISA THEN he votes for it. First he’s against drilling THEN he’s for it (changed mind in less than a week) and the list could go on and on and on. At least Hill and the other democrat candidates were more stable. Obama is unstable and he’s lost my vote at this point. The guy can’t find anything he really truly believes in.
And as for the comment above this one — it’s not about how I feel about Obama. I know for a fact that he can’t be trusted he’s already lied to us on two big issues FISA and now drilling. Either he is lying to us to move to the center and then he will change once elected and come back to us – or he will say or do anything to get elected throwing his (former) supporters under the bus.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Lena, here’s the thing. People who are undecided will decide using their gut, which means how they feel. I agree that it perhaps it ought not be about how one feels. But IMO it very often is.
I have a very hard time believing that the vast majority of Hillary Clinton supporters will fail to support Barack Obama against a hawkish GOP candidate eager to put more conservative judges on the Supreme Court. We’ll see. But I’ll hazard a guess that AT LEAST 90% of the women who voted to re-elect Bill “I didn’t have sexual relations with that woman” Clinton will vote for Obama, holding their noses if need be.
August 6th, 2008 at 7:03 am
ASC, you are a conservative leaning person who tries to look at both sides; Goldberg is the male version of Ann Coulter–he not only doesn’t want to understand, he engages in mental gymnastics so bizzarre as to defy credulity.
Goldberg’s often preposterous notions are either intellectually dishonest or outright nonsense–his sole effort over the years has been to obscure definition and confuse people.
His struggling with defining Obama is a joke–Goldberg has no desire to define OBama and anything else outside his conservative world. This is a man who sees the origins of liberalism in fascism…this guy doesn’t even know fascism is.
How can you take anything he says seriously is beyond me.
p.s.–Kritter. Good stuff.
p.s.s–Lena. The FISA thing bugs the heck out of me, too, but if you read what Obama is saying, the offshore oil drilling is more putting it on the table as a discussion point rather than endorsing it. Even if you call that a flip-flop, as far as flip-flopping is concerned I think it is now McCain 11, Obama 2.
August 6th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Hi Kritter & gerryf,
I expect McCain to act like a politician and pander. The problem with Obama is that he’s promising a different kind of politics – something many of us crave. I am desperate to see progress being made on several key issues, as are millions of other independent voters. I’m sick to death of the nonsense like that Speaker Pelosi is pulling – “I’ll take the heat but conservative or moderate democrats you vote (for drilling) to save your congressional seat “. What about principals? If you don’t support drilling as a political platform WHY,WHY, WHY play games?
As for FISA that was major and he betrayed many of us who firmly are against it. He is no different than President Clinton (do anything, say anything so he will be popular) and President Bush (stubborn and refuses to acknowledge his mistakes).
I will vote as I always do every election but I’m having a hard time justifying a vote for Obama. I know what I’m getting with McCain – as much as I dislike him…he’s an evil I know. The debates will solidify where my vote goes. Hope Obama finds himself in time to win back those of us he has disillusioned.
- A quick note for Donklephant owners: Thank you so much for a venue for us independents. I’ve added your blog to my daily reads. THANKS!
August 6th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Lena: I too was disgusted with the FISA vote. I understand the position it put Obama in. If he voted for it he was flip-flopping and going against his base. If he voted against it he was soft on terrorism. I guess he voted for what he thought was the less of the two evils. I think he also knew it was going to pass anyway so his voting against it wouldn’t have changed a thing. I think he should have voted against the bill and say he did it because it was unconstitutional. Most people would understand that argument.
He didn’t change his position on drilling but rather bargained it to get something he valued more. Isn’t hins what you are asking for? Someone willing to get things moving to solve our countries problems. I see Obama as a realist. He seems to have a knack for seeing what he can accomplish and what he has to give up to get it.
August 6th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
“If Obama is fully a member of any club — and perhaps he isn’t — it is the club of smart post-boomer meritocrats” is probably more on the mark than “post-modernist”, but it’s definitely in same ballpark.
His “change” is one that is propelled by personality, not ideals. The ideals are obviously expendable with the political breeze. His policy ideas are not new, but quite old.
So far the best thing the guy has done is to make people aware of their tire pressure. Public littering was a pox on the interstate and highways until a public campaign of civic awareness changed the attitudes. His economic policy is to raise taxes and redistribute income, very simple. His energy policy is a spectacular spending orgy, very simple. His foreign policy…make Europe like us. Nothing new and nothing infused with hope stemming from American ideals, only hope in Obama.