Saturday, November 24, 2007

The Audacity of Hope

“The ideals at the core of the American experience, and the values that bind us together despite our differences, remain alive in the hearts and minds of most Americans” – Barack Obama, Senator from Illinois and Democratic candidate for President.

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time when millions of Americans across the country make a special effort to be close to their loved ones. Since the celebration of the first Thanksgiving Day in 1619, when 38 English settlers came together near Jamestown in the old British colony of Virginia to mark “…a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God”, this national holiday has evolved into a event in many ways as big as Christmas, where family participation involves everyone from the youngest to the most senior. It is at times like this when the thoughts of Americans also turn to those who are serving overseas in the armed forces, mostly notably today in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is the fifth Thanksgiving of the Iraq war and Americans have reached their threshold. A poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post at the beginning of November showed that 75% of Americans want their next President to take the country in a new direction. Bush is well and truly a lame duck and his focus now is on trying to salvage something, anything, from this administration that will save him from going down in history as one of America’s worst presidents.

The American public’s cynicism with the politics of Washington began with Watergate, when Richard Nixon was forced to resign as President rather than be impeached by the Congress. Since Watergate, partisan politics has governed the day to day running of the country, where special interests, lobby groups, nepotism, cronyism and downright criminality have been the order of the day. Forty seven million Americans still have no private healthcare, the income gap between the rich and the poor has come full circle back to where it was in the 1920’s and the confidence that Americans have in their political institutions is at an all time low.

Americans are tired of Beltway politics. The current candidates for President, both Democratic and Republican, are an eclectic mix of Washingtonian insiders and fresh, energetic politicians that have made their reputation outside of the day to day cocoon that envelope those who spend their days on Capitol Hill. Washington has a way of insulating politicians to the point where they begin living in a parallel universe; one that is disconnected from the issues that the average Mr. and Mrs. America have to contend with on a day to day basis. The current rivalry between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama is a clear example of the power of the status quo on one hand against a desire for a real, lasting change in the way politics is operated in America.

The appeal of the Obama campaign is that here is a man, a black man, still in his mid ‘40’s and a relative newcomer to Washington who is appealing to America’s desire for a real and significant change in direction in the same way that Franklin Roosevelt did in 1932 and John Kennedy did in 1960.

This month my wife and I and some friends went to see Barack Obama speak at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. On a cold Wednesday night in the middle of November, the queue outside to go in and see the Senator was 8 blocks long, an estimated 7,000 people. As we waited patiently to get in, the Obama motorcade pulled up outside the building. Energized by the crowd, Obama jumped out, grabbed a loudspeaker and began addressing the gathering in the streets. Under the protection of secret service personnel, a “perk” that all presidential candidates have been granted since the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968, Obama mingled as best he could, shook some hands and spoke for a few minutes. My wife and I were 20 feet away from the Senator and he was electrifying. Later inside, he spoke with passion and strength that moved many in the audience.

The audacity of hope that Obama is talking about in this campaign is something that every American understands. In a week where former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan came out, and in an excerpt from his upcoming book accused Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney and George Bush of deliberately covering up the Valarie Plame Wilson CIA leak case, Americans are again reminded of the cynicism and criminality that has pervaded the administration of George W Bush. The leaking of Wilson’s name as a covert CIA operative to the press was done to embarrass her husband, Joseph Wilson, who was a former ambassador to Iraq and a chief critic of the Bush/Cheney reasoning for prosecuting the war in Iraq, i.e. the existence of WMD.

In less than a year Americans will go to the polls to elect a new President. For me, it is not surprising that Obama has energized the presidential campaign in the way he has, especially when you consider that in every year since 1980 a Bush or a Clinton has occupied the position of President or Vice President in the White House. Americans are tired of the same-old, same-old style of politics; I see it and hear it everywhere I go. Whether it will be enough to win Obama the Democratic presidential nomination remains to be seen. His chief challenger, Hilary Clinton, is the toughest, shrewdest competitor in town and she is still the front runner in all the national polls. Stay tuned…