For nearly 30 years, I have been a proud citizen of the Granite State, no more so than when we conduct our first in the nation primary. Obviously, it's a chance to see the candidates face-to-face untethered from their handlers and minders, to kick the tires, as the cliché goes, of their philosophies and personae.
In our state's uniquely and intimately revealing political process, the flawed but endlessly interesting human beings who seek our nation's highest office are often caught in human moments unavailable to residents of other states, who have had to rely on simplistic media reports and mind-numbingly repetitious campaign ads to discern what we can see up close. It puts us in the unusual position of being able to pick our presidents on the basis of the content of their character.
For nearly 30 years, I have mostly been a keen observer of this process, attending rallies and house parties, checking out candidates on both sides of the aisle, sometimes introducing someone of my party (Democratic) at a gathering; voting, of course, but never really actively endorsing a candidate.
I guess I was keeping my powder dry, anxious that my party not be too distracted by the inevitable vitriol of primary season, intending always to support its eventual nominee. And on that last point, this year is no different.
Only this year, I have decided to wholeheartedly endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president. While I have from the start been drawn to Obama's vision of change, the Democrats have a strong field this season, with much to like about the others. But it was the wholly unacceptable, unbecoming negative campaigning of the last several weeks that finally flushed me out.
At a time when our politics has descended into cynical, slash-and-burn character attacks, Obama has steadfastly presented a positive, un-ironic agenda for this country. At a time when the political winds were pushing this country into an unnecessary and unwise war, Obama had the judgment - and the political and moral courage - to oppose it.
When others find themselves mired in the consequences of their past actions, and spend their time arguing and rehashing that past, Obama is presenting a vision of the future, a vision that is not only possible but essential to our survival as a great nation.
Much has been made about experience, as if the over-loaded résumés of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and their disastrous tenures have been completely forgotten, as if the burden of the past did not weigh heavily on nearly every other person running for office this year.
Our media culture is partly to blame for this. But as a student of history, I can hear the political commentators and bloviators of the 1850s handicapping the politics of that time, anointing the "experience" of Henry Clay or John C. Calhoun, Edwin Stanton or William H. Seward, over the compassionate pragmatism of an up-and-coming, single-term congressman from the Midwest who was also seeking the presidency. People who saw him up close understood they were seeing something new in politics, the genuine article.
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present," that young "inexperienced" politician, another tall thin native of Illinois (who became our greatest president) once said. "As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we can save our country."
As Abraham Lincoln experienced in his time, this nation is again at a crossroads. We again need a president who is above all authentic, who points us confidently toward that future, a leader with real character, like Obama, who calls upon each and every one of us to heed what his predecessor from Illinois called "the better angels of our nature" and not our basest fears. I am confident that Obama will be that kind of president. It is time for real change.
http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080101/OPINION/801010314/1028/OPINION02
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
