February 04, 2008

What Is Possible

Four years ago, I slumbered through election season. In one party was the incumbent president, with whom I disagreed about nearly everything. In the other party was a campaign among a group of flawed candidates, the winner of which was apparently going to be among the least inspiring (if well qualified) candidates I could imagine. Regardless of John Kerry’s platform and ideas, he had a profound mobilization problem. I desperately wanted a change in the White House, yet I felt no inspiration to donate or volunteer to the Kerry campaign.

This time around, I am feeling plenty of inspiration. I was inspired first by the choice among three candidates I could get excited about (including the candidate I had supported in the 2004 primaries, John Edwards). I was inspired by the prospects for barriers to be broken. I was inspired by a sense that a real opportunity for a change in our national direction had arrived. But most of all, I was inspired by Barack Obama.

By now, we all know the biography, which is remarkable on its own. But it is the vision in our country born by Obama’s biography that really quickens my pulse. Obama is a walking example of the opportunity our country affords its citizens – as he has said, “in no other country is my story even possible.” Perhaps because of the long odds he has already overcome, Obama is inspiring many others to rethink what is possible. It is this ability to re-imagine what our country is and can be that draws me to Sen. Obama and inspires me to begin re-imagining these things for myself. He seems to have awakened a brand new universe of what is possible.

Ultimately, our president has two important and often contradictory duties. The first is to craft an agenda that can be enacted by public policy. This involves negotiation with parties of divergent values and views and can involve fighting to ensure that your own values and views are not compromised into oblivion. To perform this duty, it is conventional wisdom that you need a fighter who can withstand intense criticism to carry the day, but Barack Obama seems to be imagining a different way of doing business. He is imagining negotiation that is not of attrition, but of coalition.

Obama’s first instinct when confronted with an obstacle is not to fight, but to convert. His experience as a community organizer, concerned with tangible progress rather than loyalty to principle, only sharpened that instinct. History does not look kindly upon those who intentionally stand in the way of progress (George Wallace comes to mind) and Obama’s way of building movements rather than fighting battles has the effect of transforming his fiercest critics into mere impediments in the way of a better community. What Obama has imagined is a kind of nonviolent politics that he hopes will transform the nation’s psyche in the same way that the nonviolence of Martin Luther King once did.

The second duty of our president is to connect with citizens and provide a vision for what our nation can be. Under the fighting model of politics, this duty conflicts with the first. In a world where a policy that attracts support of fifty percent plus one is a success, it is inevitable that large segments of the population will be alienated. It is not possible to inspire a nation when you are fighting with half of it.

Performing this duty is where Barack Obama excels. I have had the opportunity to hear him speak in person on one occasion when he came to Memphis on behalf of a candidate for the Senate in 2006. I expected to be disappointed because there was no way he could be as good as I imagined. The candidate he was appearing on behalf of was about as well-liked as a politician could be in Memphis and is a formidable speaker in his own right. Obama was in another league. In an effortless way, he fed and fed off of the electricity in the room to create a belief that anything really was possible. But rhetorical talent is not enough – the vision that Obama tells us is possible is one that is true to our deepest ideals. It is a vision that rises above difference, whether they be racial, geographic, ideological, or otherwise. It is a vision that appeals to the better angels of our nature. But most of all, it is a vision that refuses to limit what is possible.

Barack Obama imagines the type of country I want to live in even if that country does not yet exist. That is the kind of president I can be inspired by.


(Click here to see what I had to say about Barack Obama this time last year)

13 comments:

The Blot said...

Great article Mr. Kiel, I couldn't agree with you more. Especially the first part about the 2004 Presidential election. Tomorrow should be very interesting, I just wish Texas was a part of Super Tuesday.

Unknown said...

The critical question I have for Obama is what exactly is his position on Tort Reform.

Unknown said...

everything you mentioned was about words, rhetoric. obama has great rhetoric. so did bill clinton, so did john f kennedy, and none of them changed our country, and in fact they both,(once they got into office) were more concerned with consolidating power and winning the next election, and i don't see any reason this will be any different.

If you remember, bush in 2000 campaigned on some of the very things obama is. Not that i'm equating the two, i think obama would be a sign. improvement, and i'd vote for him over hillary too, but you're too smart to be this naive about politics. the only candidate who offers real change is ron paul, and that is because he makes it about policy and limiting the scope of government and not personality and rhetoric words like hope and change.

Anonymous said...

well-said.

obama's community organizer background is particularly compelling. it's important work, learning to connect with many different people, hear their stories and look at systemic ways to address the problems at hand.

while he didn't carry TN, he did get quite a bit of support from shelby county...

Anonymous said...

Well said.

Anonymous said...

I already voted for him. I'm crossing my fingers.....

Anonymous said...

Thank you Daniel! You've nailed what I've been groping toward. Almost everyone I speak to seems to feel essentially this. What an exciting prospect before us!

Anonymous said...

I was inspired by your thoughts, especially since I just got to my office having voted for Obama this morning. I feel the momentum and hope that others do as well. Thanks so much for sharing. It will be an interesting evening.

Anonymous said...

quick political question for you on super tuesday.
in today's age, why are there still things such as delegates, superdelegates, and an electoral college? it is truly ridiculous that simple majority can not work in a time like this. it's not that hard. we don't use an abacus to count votes anymore.

Uneven Kiel said...

Dr. J - It does seem a bit anachronistic, doesn't it? There is no good answer I can think of other than tradition, which I think is a pretty lousy explanation. Although, beware the abacus. I read that California is returning to pencil and paper ballots that will be counted scantron style, just like they were doing 20 years ago before the mess of electronic voting arrived. Give us another 20 years of technology and maybe we'll be back to the abacus. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Uneven Kiel said...

To Scott: A much deserved and overdue response.......


Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree....and I suspect that many of the people who are skeptical about Obama will not be persuaded because of this particular difference of opinion: I think rhetoric matters and I think it matters a lot. The truth of what the president is actually capable of accomplishing is somewhat limited. The president doesn't control the economy, which has such a huge impact on how things are perceived to be going. The president doesn't control unpredictable things like 9/11 or Katrina. The president really doesn't even control policy - although the president may provide a direction, it is up to legislators to get it done and the president's only real role is to convince the public (i.e., be popular) so that opposition to the policy is politically dangerous and make the decision to sign or veto. We all act like the president controls the country when he/she so clearly does not in so many ways.

So what does the president do? From a policy standpoint, the president's impact is most significant in foreign policy, which depends so much on rhetoric and perception. And domestically, the president's impact is most significant in making appointments (cabinet positions, judges, etc.), which has almost nothing to do with rhetoric but a lot to do with presidential popularity. But perhaps most importantly, the president is a symbol of the country that many citizens look to as an example. We want to respect and admire our president (at least I do and I have never really been able to). Rhetoric certainly matters there.

All of this is a defense of rhetoric and not so much a statement that results don't matter. Obviously, there comes a time when rhetoric loses its ability to inspire people if those people are poor, the terrorists are winning, etc. Results certainly matter, too. But I believe that the president capable of getting results is the popular president - the one who the opposition does not want to oppose. How effective was Bush when he had a high approval rating post-9/11? Very effective in plotting and pushing down our collective global throat a war that is probably the worst strategic decision in our history. This is because the majority of politicians in Washington (perhaps not Ron Paul) care more about their own career than about what is right. Otherwise, how to explain the votes authorizing war in Iraq when you and I (lay people with no security clearance) knew that Bush was going to war no matter what before he even was elected. I think that Obama's rhetoric will give him a high approval rating to begin with, which will make him capable of getting early results, which will allow him to be popular, which will allow his rhetoric to still be believable and so on. So that's my case.

A couple of other points....the problem with Obama is not that he does not want to change Washington. I believe he truly does and given a free hand and life tenure, I think he would. The problem is that he doesn't have a free hand and he will only be there for 4 to 8 years and the kind of change he wants to make simply cannot be done within such constraints. Is it a coincidence that FDR and his extended tenure had the largest impact in shifting the politics/tone/field of legitimacy in the country? The problem, as I think you have suggested and are correct about, is that a change campaign built on the power of an individual's rhetoric/personality does not survive that individual's tenure. This is JFK and RFK.

And although you can certainly say that JFK was not a real change agent, I would argue that the way he shifted the field of legitimacy on civil rights did make a difference in opening the door to the civil rights acts of 64, 65, and 67. I'm not saying he was the key to the civil rights movement - I'm saying that his rhetoric mattered. And I think Obama's rhetoric and ability to inspire matters today. Real change does not come from the top, but from the bottom. It certainly helps, though, when those on the top are at least not diametrically opposed to the change coming from the bottom (Nixon) and it helps a lot when they are providing inspiring rhetoric.

Anonymous said...

well, what fun is agreeing to disagree? i'll have to think about whether rhetoric is important or not, my inclination is that it isn't but i haven't really thought much about it. My point was not that rhetoric is important or unimportant, the point was that you can't believe the rhetoric, it's meaningless. If i weren't so lazy i would look up the rhetoric that bush used in 2000. If you were to have taken it at face value you'd be hard pressed to disagree with it. Same for political leaders since the beginning of time. They will say whatever they think will get them elected, and what they say has little to do with how they end up leading. anyways, he was against the war but he's not against de militarization or backing off from all our overseas bases or really any fundamental changes in the way we operate in the world, he's a member of the cfr which means he's far from an outsider. Will he be a huge upgrade from bush? obviously, but if you're getting your hopes up that he's going to change the way politics work then you're gonna be disappointed. in terms of jfk and change or even lincoln and change, it's people that cause the change, and then when it reaches a point where the politicians have to act and they see the tide then they come around and punch it in from the one so to speak. jfk was pretty lukewarm on civil rights for a long time and lincoln famously tried to pass an amendment to the constitution guaranteeing that slavery would be legal forever. It's pretty rare in history to find a political leader who was at the forefront of real social change. It's the job of politicians to sell the dream of hope and change and then in practice uphold the status quo as much as possible. I know that's cynical but i don't understand how you can study history and not come away cynical. elections are discussed like sporting events and run by pr firms.

Uneven Kiel said...

Yes. We are on the same page. Change happens from the people and the politicians may validate it with policy at some late date. My point is that if you are the civil rights movement, it is better to have JFK than Nixon - and if you are the change in 2008 movement (whatever that is), it is better to have Obama than anyone else. Our difference is not on any of this, it is that you are cynical and I am naive (as you'd say it) or I am optimistic and you are, well, cynical (as I would say it). There is nothing I can say that will make you less cynical I suspect, which is fine. But there is nothing you can say that will make me give up believing that improvements can happen, even if it takes an improbable combination of hard work, timing, personality, etc. to happen.