Syndication
If Audacious Hope Turns Into Dispirited Cynicism
The Hour
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More in Forward ForumOf course there are risks; there always are. Let us be frank. It is by no means clear that the next president, no matter how skillful, will be adequate to the multiple challenges we face: ending a war, restoring American honor, dealing with the Medicare crisis (and the crisis of healthcare costs in general), reversing global warming, blocking the terrorist threat, fixing the economy, shrinking the income gap.
And the truth is that the risks are even greater if that president is Barack Obama.
The Obama risks run in a direction quite different from the canards so scurrilously and insistently whirling around the Jewish community, propelled by people either malign or naïve. Against those, it should be sufficient to quote Rep. Barney Frank, himself a supporter of Hillary Clinton, who cites the support Obama enjoys from the Jewish community of his home city, Chicago, as evidence that the accusations against Obama are all foam, no beer.
By now it is stunningly obvious that Obama brings prodigious talents to the task. More even than his brilliance as a speaker, the improbable campaign he has until now so successfully waged is evidence of that. From its fundraising effort to its state-by-state organization, the Obama campaign has combined meticulous management with bold imagination. It is hardly, as one pundit called it this week, “a juggernaut” — an inexorable force that crushes all in its path — but it is a tour de force.
The specific Obama risk derives from the senator’s theory of governing, a point that no commentator seems to have picked up on even though Obama himself has repeated it again and again. Instead, we hear and read that there’s just about no difference between Obama and Clinton — a smidgen on healthcare and on when to sit down with your enemies, half a smidgen on some other details, but nothing of real moment.
Wrong. There’s a vast difference, one of enormous consequence. It is embedded in Obama’s insistence that he means to govern not from the top down, but from the outside in.
Perhaps this difference can be best understood by recapitulating an intra-familial debate I’ve been engaged in for some weeks now.
Look, my realist relative says, he is going to bump hard into Congress, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to bring them together, as he claims he wants to. He is simply naïve.
But you’re missing the point, I’ve been telling him. Obama intends to deal with Congress by employing the core principles of community organization. He means to mobilize the citizens and have them bend Congress.
Whatever the array of motives that make a member of Congress support this or oppose that, every member of Congress is sensitive to constituency sentiments. Mobilized constituencies are power plants, perhaps even juggernauts. They become the change agents.
There are at least two iffy aspects to my thesis. First: For all that this has been a remarkable campaign, and for all that Obama has been masterful at mobilizing an ever-growing constituency, once we move from the broad principles a campaign evokes to the detailed proposals that governing requires, the constituents may lose interest.
People may not want to spend the next four years (or eight) being mobilized; the campaign is exciting, even fun, but slogging through the work of governing is rarely fun, often a yawn. Or the people may discover that it’s considerably easier to agree to broad principles than it is to maintain that consensus once the principles have been translated into policies.
Second: Congress is not an easy target. A pincer movement that seeks to capture and convert Congress, the White House on one side, the hinterland on the other? Maybe, but it’s hard to think of a solid precedent.
And all those special interests that, according to Obama, are strangling government, they may be cowed, but they will not easily be conquered and dispatched. The lobbyists’ livelihoods depend on their being able to work the system from the inside out; they will correctly perceive an effort to govern from the outside in as a clear and urgent danger, and they will respond accordingly.
The risk, in other words, is that Obama may fail — may fail spectacularly — and his theory may thereby be discredited. And if he does, very many of the new people he’s attracted to the world of politics are liable to conclude that there’s no change you can really believe in, that cynicism rather than hope is the safest course.
I vividly recall my reaction to the inauguration of Bill Clinton: “If these two can’t do it,” I wrote, “then perhaps it can’t be done.” Now, almost 16 years later, it is clear that those two did not “do it.”
But I am not yet ready to say that it can’t be done, that our nation’s decline cannot be reversed. I very much doubt that it can be reversed by the kind of tinkering I foresee in the event of a Hillary Clinton presidency, and I am confident it cannot be reversed in the event of a John McCain presidency. That is why, on balance, I find the Obama risk acceptable.
But it is a risk that comes with a price. The Obama theory works only if those of us who believe that it deserves to be tested recognize that we ourselves are part of that theory.
That is what the senator means when he says that we are the change we seek. We must be ready to stay not only inspired but also mobilized. The campaign is the foretaste, the appetizer; there are many courses yet to come, and we dare not leave the table prematurely. There is, after all, a wondrous dessert if we stay the courses.
Comments
Excellent analysis and it also casts light on the obsessive, no frenzied, tone of those Obama detractors who deride his appeal as devoid of substance----whether because they are threatened (as lobbyists or insiders of other kinds) by the prospect of a democratically organized polity, or cannot believe in it (even if they did, some of them when younger) the idea is too disturbing for them to live with. Once again, Leonard Fein has given us something to think about
What a sophomoric "theoretical" construct. It assumes that Obama offers anything at all to the Jewish people. He poses a hazard to Israel's security, and offers nothing but rhetorical smoke and mirrors to "progressives" who are blind to the risks of a pro-palestinian, who would attempt to force Israel into concessions it should never be forced to make. More importantly, he would pose a clear and present danger to Israel and America by "negotiating" with Iran, which must be militarily neutralized soon in order to protect Israel's existence. Why any Jew would support him is beyond me. Our bumper stickers should read: McCain, not Hussein.
What has been Obama's record in the U.S. Senate or the Illinois legislature for developing bi-partisan legislation? I think the answer is very little. Has Obama, the agent of change, every supported a non-machine candidate in Democratic primaries in Illinois? The answer is none.
See obamamessiah.blogspot.com
I hope after this election no lefty criticises the Lubavitchers for their devotion to Schneerson
It's as if Hussein has no knowledge of history and all the failed liberal policies of the last 50 years. He preaches change but it is a change back to the failed liberal policies of the past. Please tell me how he differs at all with the policies of that dinosaur Ted Kennedy. Hussein is just a younger, more handsome, half black, and sober version of Ted Kennedy. There is nothing new in his message and he will damage America terribly if elected. McCain is idiotically liberal also but would hurt the country less and will be better for Israel.
Just a hunch but I bet you agree with Dem pols who believe that the teacher's union and trial attorney's association are part of the community in the sense of your article and not "special interests". Obama sells hope because he has nothing else to sell. His bottles say hope on the front but under ingredients the first listed is "snake oil". I reject your premise because to the contrary of the spin the media puts on the campaign to date, votes cast have been pretty much equal. While I think we can all agree that Hillary's recent about face on Michigan and Florida is hardly altruistic, it is hard to be a uniter, or even populist when your strategic position disenfranchises two rather large populations. While I dont consider, presume or suspect Obama of being an anti semite, he defends attitudes and motivations in Rev. Wright that go hand in hand with anti semitic sentiments often. Ditto for Farakhan. Lets face it, as a black community activist operating in largely black neighborhoods, he sought and accepted aid and support (read that phrase M-O-N-E-Y) from sources sources which are actively, vocally and militantly anti a lot of things we embrace. Anti semitic, anti white, anti Israel(or as they call it, anti zionist) anti establishment. Anti law and order, anti society, anti pacifist, anti American. Do all of these tags belong on every association of Obama's? No, but it is clear he attached himself to individuals, causes, entities with which I and many others are uncomfortable. While I understand that he joined his church for professional gain much as someone might join a country club, while I understand that in his line of work and his social and geographic circles it was advantageous to align with the interesting characters (euphemism for hate mongers) who pepper his resume, don't tell me Barak, that on the one hand you are different from other pols, on another hand you are a uniter despite associating for decades with dividers, that you arent anti Israel despite having a record of speaking commiseratingly and sympathetically of the Palestinians, and that all you have to offer me is blind hope and undefined change. Dont tell me you think we need to talk to our enemies and then criticize Peanut Carter for doing just that because it is politically expedient for you at the moment in time. In the same way that you profited personally from Rezko, he profited personally and professionally from BCCI. You dont think Carter should talk to terrorists but you can't wait to talk the guys in Iran bankrolling terrorists. Not only, Mr Birnbaum is his appeal devoid of content, it is as blatantly based on lies and hypocrisy as any campaign run in my lifetime. He knows he cant just pull troops out of Iraq on the timetable he has claimed. He says he will talk to our enemies but chastises Carter for doing so. He says he would go back into Iraq if AL Quaeda made substantial inroads there and when awakened to the fact that they are already there, he goes to the cause instead of admitting he spoke out of both sides of his mouth. He always seems to get an workable excuse for his problems on the third try. First he had never been sitting in church when or been made aware that Wright said anything inflammatory. Then when caught in that lie by someone finding that he excused Wright from introducing him a year ago he said well it wasnt those specific inflammatory statements that led to his dismissal of Wright. Finally he came out with his speech on race in America that spoke in generalities and did nothing to explain his relationship with Wright. It is always the third time he explains something that he gets a story he can stick to. This campaign has no substance. Just hope. As in . . . I HOPE he doesnt screw things up too badly before his four years are up.
Yes, we must be the change we want. But what Obama's campaign reminds me of every day is that wonderful adage: "If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?" The problem with the Clintons' campaign and characters is that they act as if they are only for themselves. Hence their dangerous willingness to appeal to the demons in the American populace. Racist, sexist and now xenophobic sentiments--Hillary has gone after these to help her win over Obama. But her toxic campaign is poisoning the Democratic Party and with it the republic and its democracy. Not government of the people, for the people and by the people, but the gaming of government by rich and powerful people for the preservation of the dynasty.