Sen. Barack Obama’s rally at Philadelphia’s Independence Mall April 18 was yet another confusing moment for me, capping off a long period of ambivalence toward his quest for the Democratic nomination.
Without a doubt the event was impressive, attracting the largest audience of any campaign event held by any candidate this year. The excitement and civic engagement Obama has generated in the last year are refreshing – the 35,000 attendees buzzed with anticipation as though we were at a huge rock concert. This motivated me to make a series of unfunny cracks about Obama stage-diving and the crowd rushing the stage. I couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm as most the other rally-goers, so I felt the need to distance myself from them. This isn’t a legitimate movement, I thought, it’s just a bunch of kids having fun on a Friday night. Don’t expect too much from it.
Long practice has made post-modernist detachment easy for me.
Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton are the sort of candidates I expect in national politics. Both have spent long years in Washington and are intimately connected to the last two presidential administrations, which have overseen the development of the problems which are now electoral issues. I’m not claiming that the Bush and Clinton administrations have been indistinct from each other, but I am saying that they have shared one major flaw that is undeniably pertinent to the 2008 election: They have served America’s corporate and financial elite at the expense of the middle and working classes. Neither senator has any credibility in claiming responsible stewardship of the middle class.
Obama, by contrast, has at least a chance to prove he is different from his two competitors. His historic speech on race briefly won me over into his camp. The courage and candor he showed March 18 were unexpected. Don’t believe what they tell you about Social Security: race relations are the third rail of American politics. Obama even spoke about the need for Americans of all races to work together for their common interest against the economic elite.
There is much that I could appeal to if I felt inclined to defend Obama’s candidacy. It has all the trappings of a genuine populist movement; he clearly understands the plight of the middle and working class Americans and has convinced many disillusioned Americans that he is going to do something about it.
Bear with me while I digress on the controversial comments Obama made about Pennsylvania voters being bitter. As the son of a working class family from central Pennsylvania, I can tell you that we are bitter. My father, who recently learned that his job is being outsourced to China, is an avid hunter who has been disgusted with politics for his entire adult life. The only thing unfair about Obama’s comment was the verb “cling” that was an unflattering characterization of a phenomenon which he otherwise described accurately. Rural Pennsylvanians cherish their Christian faith and tradition of outdoorsmanship. They have remained constant while Washington has proven unreliable. Obama has proven that he is more closely in touch with voters than those who have attacked the comments.
Even with that understanding in mind, I remain at best a reluctant supporter of Obama. His broad fundraising base of small donors does not preclude the support of Wall Street, which has donated to him nearly as heavily as it has to Clinton. Obviously the moguls behind America’s financial system don’t believe his populist rhetoric. The same could be said for the “Powers That Be” in Washington. Obama didn’t just wake up one day last year, buy a campaign bus and start driving around delivering inspirational speeches. He was elected to the Senate, which is easily a contender for the most exclusive club in the world. It would be much harder to be skeptical of Obama if he was leaning on the populist aspects of his campaign, using only money from small donors and eschewing support by the establishment in his party. The viability of such a strategy is questionable, but its integrity would not be.
Thus I arrive at my present conundrum: How close can Obama come to traditional politics before he undermines his own message? How far can he stray from them before he becomes a hopeless fringe candidate? I will continue to watch his efforts in confusion.
—Joe Gauger
