More thoughts on the man headed to the White House
Posted on | October 29, 2008 |
He is going to win (cross your fingers) unless something catastrophic happens. A bomb could explode in a subway and the security question would overcome the economic collapse. A video or picture of him performing illicit acts could come out. The Republicans could have the voting system rigged. But, these are unlikely scenarios and Barak Obama is well-ahead in the polls, some 10%.
Lately, the question on my mind has been my identity. I am a mover. As a kid, I moved around towns and schools, never setting down any long roots. In college, I transferred. I changed apartments and roommates like t-shirts. I wrote down the places I have lived this afternoon: Pueblo, CO, Alamosa, CO, Monte Vista, CO, Alamosa, CO, Golden, CO, Boulder, CO, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Boulder, CO, Atlanta, GA, San Francisco, CA.
The America that Obama represents then appeals to me. A man with varied backgrounds and only loose connections to places. It is here in San Francisco that I decided to settle and begin a new life. Here that I embark on a career and look for a “home.” Obama hand-picked Hyde Park, Chicago as the place to build his political career. He also adopted a geopgraphical identity.
But, what of this question as to what he stands for? Is he too post-modern? Too adept at adopting identities?
Here is a quote from Lévy again. Here is is talking to Warren Beatty:
A fearful left, he says. A left that’s afraid of itself and its own values and ideas. The Clinton left. The left of Al Gore, who waited until he lost to explain how far left he was. Obama? Sure, Obama. New face. New orator. But what does he really think? And what has he done in Illinois? No one has the least idea. The only thing they know is that now he’s going to have to run after votes, and so he has to begin to committ himself.
Because that’s the secret, he continues, suddenly regaining the mischievous, tormented, childlike look he still had in Bugsy. the whole problem is in the dictatorship of the new master, Opinion, which decrees to all politicians what their choices will be.
Later, or earlier, Lévy discusses how after the Kerry loss in 2004 nothing was happening on the left. There were intellectual currents alive on the right, in the pages of the Weekly Standard and in the ivory tower (Hungington for example) and in the White House, but not on the left. What he saw there, as he visited progressive conventions filled with democratic leadership, was a preoccupation with finances. The left perceived that the right had won with their money. The old idiom was the right had its money and the left its ideas. Lévy saw the axiom flipped in 2004.
Now we await the victory of Obama, with his most expensive campaign in history and his wave of new voters and his high approval. The left got its money and it got Opinion on its side. What about its ideas?
Again, I want to hear them advocate, not just defend and oppose. (Things the senate of Obama have been particularly good at doing).
Obama will be the most literary president we have had in a long time. He is the academic, the listener, and the careful decision maker. A cautious reformer.
Maybe he still has the heart that listened for years to the words of Reverand Jeremiah Wright, and organized communities on Chicago’s south side. Maybe he is green enough to not be completely bought, yet wise enough to know that he must pander to the center to wrest enough power to govern.
Obama will inherit a troubled country and a troubled government. The Democrats will control the House and Senate, with any luck by a large majority. He will have the country on his side. He will be supported by world opinion.
Will his ideas match his expectations? Will his vision equal his support?
I aim to finish American Vertigo shortly and read The Audacity of Hope before the election to get a better idea. I guess I just need to read it before he begins office. Maybe I will plunge into the imperial history of San Francisco instead.
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