Why I'm for Obama

I voted for Barack Obama last week under Illinois' new early ballot system. I did so mostly with enthusiasm, certainly more than I would have had for any other candidate beyond Joe Biden, whom I supported last year until his poor showing in the Iowa caucuses. Senator Obama's selection of Biden for Vice-President only made whatever ambivalence I may have felt dissipate basically disappear. So I voted for the Obama-Biden ticket and hope they will win in two weeks.

Saying "whatever ambivalence," however, implies that I have at least some reservations about Obama or, more specifically, what he generally represents. I do not doubt that Senator Obama is both a decent and ambitious man. Those are not irreconcilable categorizations and I do not exclude Senator McCain from them either. In the last several years--even stretching over the last quarter century--however, I have come to question not simply the reasonableness, but what I'll call the "awareness" on the part of left wing as well as right wing orthodoxy. If their adherents would go so far as to admit their own limitations and, as the best theological thinkers might put it, acknowledge the "context" of the conclusions they reach, I might be more hopeful about what remains possible in our common life together.

My experience, nevertheless, has been mostly contrary to the hopes of my youth and early manhood. Both wings, left and right, are well-represented and quite vocal throughout our society, demanding that anyone with sense and decency come to their senses and adopt whichever flap of orthodoxy happens to be on the television or internet screen at a particular moment. It makes reasoned conversation and plausible solutions almost beyond the skill of our best politicians and past the common sense of our fellows who live in parts of the country where no one will even think of spending time in a coffee shop. We have come to live in an increasingly stratified society, one where notions of "one society" or "common purpose" or "common values" has come to be either labelled with every left wing epithet imaginable or defended with every right wing epithet imaginable. We're seeing--not surprisingly--a great deal of both wings flapping furiously as the election itself draws closer by the day.

Here is where I think Senator Obama gives us the best opportunity to at least tone down the hatred, disgust and demonization of those with whom we disagree. My reasoning is not primarily related to his mixed ancestry, although perhaps that may help in some way. It also does not have much to do with his "calm, cool demeanor" in a crisis that his campaign staff has been mouthing too much for my taste in recent weeks. As Ernest Hemingway reminds us, however, showing grace under pressure isn't necessarily that bad of an idea. I also do not worry too much about whether Obama somehow stayed altogether clear of the shenanigans in Chicago politics. If he did, so much the better. If he didn't, I'm not too sure that either the RNC or Senator McCain or Governor Palin can cast too many stones without worrying about their lack of culpability in their local settings. Bridges can be built to nowhere, it seems, in Chicago or anyplace else for that matter.

What I believe Obama represents is more that I think he actually believes how we as a country are, in fact, a common country. He understands the need to recognize the multiplicity of viewpoints and perspectives, but does not allow that to morph into--metaphorically at least--these experiences taking their chairs away from the one table in the room. At the same time, Obama, in fact, recognizes that we as Americans share something beyond a continent of land. We actually do share a set of values, a mutual outlook and the bare-bones reality that like it or not, we are all in this together. In short, I think Obama understands both the singular and dual nature of who we are as Americans and invites people to avoid emphasizing one to the expense of the other.

I can argue that belief with some degree of confidence after I heard Obama's remarks the night he won the South Carolina primary last, I believe, early February. Of course what he said was a political speech with the next set of caucuses and primaries in mind. Of course what he said was to emphasize his credentials as a Democrat to lead Democrats back to the White House. But something else was there: something to which he neither had to express or allude on a night of political victory. Obama specifically indicated that he believed we as Americasn shared a common link even as we are different. He mentioned that his support had generated an increase in voter turnout, which for him indicated that inviting people to "hope" was something that a good many people desperately wanted. Not so much "hope" in a specific set of policies, but something along the lines that Robert Kennedy indicated the night he won the California primary or the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed: that in spite of our divisions and in spite of our self-doubts and seeming inability to listen to one another, we can begin to embrace something different even when it seems hopeless to even try.

Obama concluded that night with an anecdote about why several of his campaign workers had expended such effort for him. He mentioned how one person affiliated with former Republican and Dixiecrat Senator Strom Thurmond had seen something beyond the ordinary in what Obama was saying and had enrolled to help. Then Obama told the story of how an older black man and a younger white woman were asked why they had signed on: the white woman indicated, as I recall, something along the lines of hope and exhaustion in how she felt about the country (this is a lot of paraphrasing, so forgive me if I am a bit or more than a bit off here). The somewhat older black man, sitting immediately next to his white fellow campaign worker, then said according to Senator Obama, "I'm here because of (the young white woman's name)."

That statement did not have a lot to do with proclamations of "justice" or a belief that God chooses sides between American politicians. It did, however, have something to do with overcoming suspicion and weariness and a good bit of history just long enough to begin to see, experience and feel one another as human beings. That statement will not solve the interrelated problems we Americans face among ourselves or throughout the world. It will not somehow magically lead to an adoption of this or that economic policy or health care plan or find another Harry Blackmun for the Supreme Court. It might, at the same time, allow for civility and decency and a hand shake across the aisle when a day's debate is done. I think Senator Obama represents the chance we have to create an atmosphere where that handshake can take place. I think a good way to start, if he actually wins, is to award Senator John Sidney McCain III the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his lifetime of heroism, sacrifice and service to our one common country.