10 straight victories in the last primaries and caucuses won – an impressive achievement which underscores the incredible vibrancy and phenomena which is the candidacy of Barack Obama – and the very real possibility that he may be the nation’s first black President. His incredible burst of strength and the inroads he has been making into the traditional Clinton coalition of women, blue collar democrats, older voters and Latinos – calls into question the viability of Clinton’s continuing candidacy beyond the Ohio and Texas contests.

 
Nonetheless, I still am not sold. I do not deny that Obama presents a terrific and idyllic future of politics pointedly different than what exists now in our system; that he genuinely hopes to effect fundamental change (however ambiguous that expansive idea may be) once elected. But two things still strongly staying my hand and hesitating to support him in this primary: my lingering suspicion that he is inspirational phenomena and little else; and that the cult of personality that has been built up around him has a pedestal-setting quality to it which is just a bit too creepy. A favorite mantra that he has employed time and time again is that his opponents have mocked him as a “hope-monger,” a useful and effective rhetorical device delineating him from the “establishment” candidates of Clinton and McCain. Therein lies the danger of a campaign which sets expectations higher than can be realistically accomplished. I have no wish for Senator McCain’s refrain about “platitudes” becoming a reality – and it is my fervent hope that the Obama campaign substantively addresses reality with more than just soaring inspiration rhetoric relying solely on the force of personality that has thus far carried the day for him. As was written in last week’s edition of the Economist:

 
“But what policies exactly? Mr Obama's voting record in the Senate is one of the most left-wing of any Democrat. Even if he never voted for the Iraq war, his policy for dealing with that country now seems to amount to little more than pulling out quickly, convening a peace conference, inviting the Iranians and the Syrians along and hoping for the best. On the economy, his plans are more thought out, but he often tells people only that they deserve more money and more opportunities. If one lesson from the wasted Bush years is that needless division is bad, another is that incompetence is perhaps even worse. A man who has never run any public body of any note is a risk, even if his campaign has been a model of discipline.”[1]

 
            This is of course, not to say that Obama may not rise to these challenges and meet them – but any sensible candidate must be confronted with the realities of our political system. This country has shifted to the right decisively due to the influence of movement conservatives in the last eight years – and their influence, while diminished now in the Congress, will still be keenly felt in the federal judiciary and the institutionalized think tanks and echo chambers of the right. Their priorities are in sharp contradistinction to any priorities a President Obama may have, and they will oppose him every step of the way however fawning a public will be of him. The maddening question of “how?” is the albatross around the neck of the campaign which to date it has adroitly sidestepped time and time again.

The issues which divide the parties now and are significantly responsible for the climate of hyperpartisanship in Washington will still be there, and will not magically disappear just because he is elected. Even David Brooks recently noted in a column:

“How is a 47-year-old novice going to unify highly polarized 70-something committee chairs? What will happen if the nation’s 261,000 lobbyists don’t see the light, even after the laying on of hands? Does The Changemaker have the guts to take on the special interests in his own party — the trial lawyers, the teachers’ unions, the AARP?

The Gang of 14 created bipartisan unity on judges, but Obama sat it out. Kennedy and McCain created a bipartisan deal on immigration. Obama opted out of the parts that displeased the unions. Sixty-eight senators supported a bipartisan deal on FISA. Obama voted no. And if he were president now, how would the High Deacon of Unity heal the breach that split the House last week?

The victims of O.C.S. struggle against Obama-myopia, or the inability to see beyond Election Day. But here’s the fascinating thing: They still like him. They know that most of his hope-mongering is vaporous. They know that he knows it’s vaporous.”[2]

Commentator Russell Roberts of George Mason University noted on a recent broadcast of All Things Considered[3], that we all have a yearning and passion to see our candidates as beings of principles and ideals, but that we should fairly take whatever our respective candidates say with a grain of salt – since they are ultimately pitching themselves – as salesmen trying to sell us a particular vision.  

 
When Obama promises an alternative to divisive ideological politics, it should be credibly asked, what other kind of politics is there? Isn’t politics at its very core divisive and inherently ideological, and has been since the founding of the Republic? What Obama hopes to achieve seems to be the period of civility and parity between the two parties circa the 1950s, when there was a broad consensus on the policies of containment in the Cold War and the New Deal; and that is unlikely in modern times unless there is a radical realignment of the government to the left of center from its current rightward orientation. How an Obama presidency may pursue this is open-ended and non specific; but as I remarked before, that is not to preclude the fact that he may still indeed rise up to this challenge.

 

If anything, I hope I am wrong on all counts, no matter who may win the nomination contest and be inaugurated next January. I hope for a realignment towards the left-center, the same alignment which resulted in the comity, civility and universality of ideas and principles which resulted in the Great Society, a man on the moon and the notion that public service is an admirable calling and not simply the realm of dreamy idealists. I hope for an active federal government that is a vision of more than just social security checks and anonymous agencies, as Toby Zeigler once said; but an energetic partner to the enterprise of society, our aspirations and our collective resolve as a nation. I have no doubt that either an Obama or Clinton presidency may get us there; but my instincts and intuition strongly lead me to believe that the latter, and not the former, will chart a more precise and smooth course towards that objective.

Super Tuesday is upon us, and today I cast my lot in our primary for Hillary Clinton. This should probably not come as a surprise to those who know me well – but I add the caveat that at the conclusion of this internecine selection process I will be vigorously and enthusiastically supportive of the party’s standard bearer, be it Clinton or Obama. Such is the blessing and luxury of having two remarkable choices to choose from; as I firmly believe that one or the other will herald a new progressive era of Presidential leadership, rolling back and ending an 8 year nightmare of executive hubris, arrogance and irresponsibility.

 

Both candidates are equally impressive and have many respective laudable traits and qualities; different strengths that appeal to different cross-sections of the public. The media has made much ado, and more or less summed up the differences simplistically – Obama representing the “change” candidate of bipartisanship, holding the inspirational mantle of new vs. old, while Hillary is the “old guard,” the experienced and politically savvy party insider and classic (for better of worse) politician. Both are driven, passionate candidates, and both will represent a historic first for our republic.

 

My selection however, is best viewed through the complex prism of experience and principle. Obama thoroughly engages my personal “West Wing” Bartlet-isque excitement of idealism with his JFK-allusions of public service and aspirations towards a common public good. Clinton however, engages a view I’ve come to embrace over the last 8 years of my political consciousness – a more realist and pragmatic acceptance and appreciation for process candidates intimately familiar with the legislative machinery that is our federal system. Like it or dislike it, it is the system that is in place, and it is the system we must work within to effect change, despite whoever will say otherwise. This criterion gives Clinton, in my view, the edge over Obama.

 

Now, many Obama supporters have fairly given attention to Clinton’s vote of support for the Iraq war – certainly a decision I strongly disagreed with – but I also do understand the simple reality that elected officials, whatever their stripe, will sometimes hold their noses, swallow principle and make a cold-hearted political calculation. This is a reality of our political system – and I challenge anyone to find any historical exception where our leaders in the past have not acted against their guiding lights and disappointed us. We are human, and we can make strange cost/benefit calculations which may always haunt us in the future. This learning process is intrinsic to all our candidates however, and it is incumbent upon us as voters to balance the candidates as a whole, and not simply on one issue. It is once again why I feel, on balance, that Clinton’s acknowledged Senate relationships and bipartisan record, along with her consummate appetite for the policy process edges her out as my preferred candidate.

 

It is along similar lines that I have, and always shall be, skeptical of the “outsider” gimmick – the well known campaign ploy of casting oneself as a “Washington Outsider,” campaigning to “change the way Washington works,” ala Mr. Smith. I have come to feel over the years that this view is naïve at best; disingenuous at worst for it utterly ignores the bulk and reality of our politics for the last two centuries. Washington as an institution has never been fundamentally molded by any individual save one – George Washington himself, who had the privilege of setting the precedents in place which would serve to guide those who would later occupy the high office. Other Presidents have had the felicity of circumstances and events which allowed them to shape and mold the presidency further: Jefferson in 1812, Lincoln in 1861, Roosevelt in 1936, Johnson in 1964 – but these men were creatures and products of Washington. That is not to say they did not affect it – but they certainly had to work within the system effectively in order to produce the changes they so desired.

Obama’s parallels to John F. Kennedy here are certainly valid comparisons; as Kennedy did represent a hugely idealistic idea and belief in an American Camelot, a new era of change – that is indisputable. His legacy saw increased activism in public service (which a William Jefferson Clinton heeded) and faith in the federal government as an instrument of the people; a creature made up more than just social security checks, but one which put a man on the moon. But as any serious student of executive history knows, JFK wasn’t a domestically impressive President. Little landmark legislation was achieved during the Kennedy era; it was up to LBJ and even Nixon to later put the teeth behind the Voting Rights Act and end segregation; it was the Johnson administration which effected the “Great Society,” and many have looked upon the Cuban Missile Crisis as a glossing-over of the fact that the Bay of Pigs invasion that preceded it was an abject foreign policy disaster. His assassination largely romanticized his dynamic and meteoric rise and enshrined upon our consciousness the best civic values that he aspired to. I firmly believe both Clinton or Obama can grow into such a transcendent role; and inasmuch as I wish I did not have to pick one over the other (hint hint – Clinton/Obama ticket!) my choice today is clear: I support Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Primary.  

I very nearly completely forgot I still had a xanga, as its been months since I've even bothered dropping by.

The only catalyst for my return is the annoying fact that I can't seem to sleep this last week at all - I just lie in bed with a cacophony of thoughts going on in my head which won't cease ...


And I work in an hour, zzzz