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Objection 1) Obama is dark-skinned/funny-named and therefore unelectable.
I assert: Obama's appeal to Americans transcends race. As with figures like Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, and Colin Powell, race is not the primary driver of Obama's identity and popularity; his character and talents are.
The clever little Hussein/Osama name games have already been spent out. They went over about as well as David Letterman's "Uma/Oprah" joke. And as I have diaried before, lots of elected politicians have funny names. Fox has already been humiliated for their attempt to smear him with the "Muslim" label. Finally, as Obama becomes known to the nation over the next 21 months, the novelty factor of his name will wear off.
Yes, there are hardcore bigots who won't even give Obama a fair hearing. But for every one of those, there are multiple good-hearted Americans who will relish the opportunity to help shatter another glass ceiling and advance the process of reconciliation between whites and blacks.
Finally, Obama's historic bid will draw out a huge number of minority voters and young voters who might not have voted otherwise. Don't let the recent spate of "Obama Doesn't Have the Black Vote Sewn Up" stories fool you; we saw last month just how much pride the black community took at Deval Patrick's inauguration. If he's our nominee, an historic proportion of this nation's 9 million unregistered black voters will be out in force on Election Day.
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Objection 2) Obama speaks in Republican/Liebermanesque/Christian frames, instead of articulating a politics of contrast.
I believe this objection is seriously overblown. I've read Obama's books and heard his speeches. He is pointed and sharp in his critique of the Bush administration. I'm sure you'll see this in his February 10 announcement speech. His voting record and track record are among the most progressive in our party.
Make no mistake, Barack Obama is a progressive. His career trajectory makes that crystal clear. After Columbia and Harvard Law, he shunned the corporate world to work with the likes of ACORN, registering inner-city voters and doing community organizing on Chicago's South Side. Check out this 1995 profile of Obama, written during his first campaign for the Illinois Senate:
Obama, whose political vision was nurtured by his work in the 80s as an organizer in the far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Gardens, proposes a third alternative. Not new to Chicago--which is the birthplace of community organizing--but unusual in electoral politics, his proposal calls for organizing ordinary citizens into bottom-up democracies that create their own strategies, programs, and campaigns and that forge alliances with other disaffected Americans. Obama thinks elected officials--even a state senator--can play a critical catalytic role in this rebuilding....
What makes Obama different from other progressive politicians is that he doesn't just want to create and support progressive programs; he wants to mobilize the people to create their own. He wants to stand politics on its head, empowering citizens by bringing together the churches and businesses and banks, scornful grandmothers and angry young. Mostly he's running to fill a political and moral vacuum. He says he's tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up--at the speaker's rostrum and from the pulpit--and then allowed to dissipate because there's no agenda, no concrete program for change.
This is Dean-style activism, born not of the self-interest of a Presidential campaign but out of the innate sense of justice and good government which drives our shared progressive ideals.
But second of all, why would we begrudge Obama his most powerful skill: finding ways to reframe progressive ideas, and indeed the entire debate, in a language that is attractive to self-styled moderates, religious voters, and the media?
Obama's positioning is fantastic. While a progressive with a progressive background and a progressive record, he has nevertheless staked a solid claim to ownership of both of these memes:
- "HOPE"
- "UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER"
In other words, he owns both of the memes that elected our last two Presidents.
Was an article like this one ever written about Howard Dean?
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Objection 3) Obama is too young and inexperienced to be President.
Wrong.
He is plenty old enough: older than Clinton, JFK, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ulysses S Grant were when they were elected.
He has plenty of electoral experience: more years in elected office than the other two front-runners.
| Candidate | Years in Office | Elections Won |
| H. Clinton | 8 | 2 |
| J. Edwards | 6 | 1 |
| B. Obama | 12 | 5 |
In the Illinois State Senate, Obama served in both the majority and minority, and racked up impressive achievements on both sides.
Should Hillary's experience as First Lady count as "experience" for Presidential qualifications? I don't think so. Certainly, Bill Richardson runs circles around the rest of the field in terms of resume, so if experience is your primary concern, he's your candidate. But among the current front-runners, Obama's got the longest track record in elected politics.
His life experience before entering politics is also not to be minimized. Every Kossack should read Obama's two books -- especially Dreams From My Father, which poetically describes his diverse and inspiring personal story.
Suppose Obama goes up against long-serving Senator and certified war hero John McCain? Won't he be laughed out of town as a "snot-nosed kid"? No. The most important issue in 2008 will be the Iraq War. On this most critical issue of the decade, Obama was right and the rest of the field, Democrats and Republicans, were wrong. Moreover, consider the historical precedents for elections that pitted "fresh" versus "experience":
- Kennedy vs. Nixon
- Clinton vs. Bush I
Where is the evidence that concerns over "experience" ever sunk a Presidential nominee?
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Objection 4) Obama lacks the national security credentials to be President.
As this diary's title makes clear, I believe that of all the objections to Obama's candidacy, this one is the most short-sighted, narrow-minded, and just plain wrong. This is not only because, as mentioned above, Obama -- alone among the major candidates -- opposed the Iraq War from the start, and continues to oppose it strongly. This is a huge plus for Obama, since it liberates him from the tongue-twisting Kerry-ish excuses for changing his mind that are already plaguing Hillary.
No, the strongest national-security case for Obama is this: electing President Barack Obama would, in one fell swoop, "re-brand America" to the world. Barack Obama is the personal embodiment of hope -- that audacious elixir that sustains life even for people in the most desperate of circumstances. Barack Obama, the son of an African man. Barack Obama, the stepson of an Indonesian man. Just imagine what it would mean to the world if America could elevate someone with this background to our highest office!
It would advertise that we are a meritocracy, after all. That we are a truly multicultural society, after all. That we welcome our immigrants, after all. That we see Muslims as people, not as enemies, after all. And that America, for people in every corner of the world, is still the shining beacon of hope.
Scroll through these Google results for a preview of how Obama will be greeted by the rest of the world. America's leadership of the entire world would once again seem legitimate, since Barack Obama is legitimately a child of the world.
I maintain that electing President Obama would do more to actually ensure the security of our nation -- our cities, our families, us -- than any military or diplomatic policy ever could.
Terrorism is the antithesis of hope. Born of powerlessness, terrorism from Timothy McVeigh to Dylan Kliebold to the Palestinian suicide bomber expresses the feeling that there is no way out, no way forward for a person and his values, except by random violence.
As the world embraces America again, as we come to represent hope again rather than war to the world, moderates in the Islamic world will be re-empowered to steer their culture's rhetoric toward cooperation. Children around the world will see in us something to admire, not something to despise. In the battle for the hearts and minds of the world that the War on Terror ought to be, Barack Obama is the strongest weapon in our national arsenal.
I will close with a personal story. I visited the Muslim island of Zanzibar on my honeymoon in 2002. During our week there, my new wife and I vegged happily on the gorgeous beaches and had the time of our life. But, we did have one very unpleasant experience. Walking on the beach, we ran into a large group of kids playing soccer who, as we passed by, demanded a handout. When we declined, they taunted us by chanting "Osama Bin Laden", "Osama bin Laden". We were shaken. Later, we discussed the incident with an African friend of ours. Our friend explained, "they don't even really know what it means, but they know the name has power over us." Their "Osama" chant, he explained, helps them overcome "their feelings of impotence in the face of people who have no real need for them at all."
If that feeling of impotence remains for one of these children into adulthood, might they not continue to chant "Osama" and turn their anger into violence directed at our children?
Or, through the hard work and efforts of Americans like ourselves, could the result of our next election be that children around the world, when they meet an American, chant "Obama, Obama, Obama" instead?
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