Character, Substance and Experience

OK – I've been in a foul mood since Wednesday – the day of the Ohio and Texas Primaries. I knew it was going to be a bad day. It was one of those gray, rainy, New England days – Winter has lost its pristine beauty, and is now just long and dirty. I knew Obama wasn't going to do well in those primaries…

Since then, my mood has gone from bad to worse. Usually an undying optimist, the world has indeed looked bleak. I've been ready to pack it in and leave the country to rot in it's own excrement. I am full of acrimony towards the media, what a bunch of sheep! And Samantha Powers is right – Hillary is a monster, I'd rather vote for John McCain. I don't want anyone to tell me about any silver linings, but at the same time I am pouring over the Internet trying to find them.

As my friend Catherine says: Hillary "has polarized a Democratic electorate that before had spoken of liking both candidates. Now people talk of voting for McCain or abstaining if their candidate isn't chosen as the nominee. This is what a polarizing personality does: makes us take sides, dislike the opponent and feel angry." A presidency like this? We're sunk, no matter how good her policies are!

This morning I went to the gym and shocked myself by how grumpy a bad yoga teacher made me. So I went and got a cup of coffee, took it into the sauna along with a copy of Vanity Fair and began to read…. what else but an article about Obama! It is an in depth look at his past, his path to this moment and his character.

I remembered why I had been for Obama in the first place. It was his SUBSTANCE, not his rhetoric that inspired me; the social justice he has fought for throughout his whole career. It is his EXPERIENCE, grounded in community organizing, constitutional law and local politics that gave him just the qualifications the next president needs to deal with the disastrous consequences of the last 8 years. It is his CHARACTER - tough-minded and practical principled yet inclusive - that has proved so effective throughout his 8 years in the Illinois Legislature. And as an article in the Nation pointed out: Obama has a signal accomplishment to his credit, a substantial one, which may change the shape of politics. If elected he will be the first to enter the office without financial backing from the major business, industrial or professional groups with their PACs, their contribution bundlers and lobbyists. That first day, which Hillary Clinton has made famous, will find Obama not owing a thing to the big money pressure groups. You would have to go back a century and a half to name an incoming president with so few debts to repay.

I realized that I had been beginning to buy into the two-dimensional picture that I was getting from the news and so I was beginning to feel hopeless...What we are trying to do here really is "change the face of politics" That is a wing and a prayer.

But if it can be done – Obama will do it. He's got the substance, experience and character. Keep the faith!

Read and enjoy!

The 2008 Election
by Todd Purdum March 2008
Raising Obama
Is he tough enough? That's the question being asked of Barack Obama. To those who have known the candidate since boyhood, it's not just those "dreams from my father" that make Obama a contender, but also his mother's daring, his grandmother's grit, and his own relentless drive. (read the whole article - it's worth it!)