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In a year of crushing disappointment for the Democratic Party, one bona fide superstar emerged, the freshly elected Illinois senator Barack Obama, who jumped from the obscurity of the Illinois state senate to the national stage. Though still untested, Obama seems to have it all: the looks, the passion, the natural ability to connect. And then there's the fascinating provenance: a black father from Kenya, a white mother from Kansas. The forty-three-year old has ruled out running for the presidency next time, leaving party leaders with not much else to do but sit around asking each other how much longer until 2012.
You are often referred to as the rising star of the
Democratic Party, in large part because you've proved your appeal
to voters on both sides of the party line. Describe your ability to
reach a broad base of voters.
I shared a million voters with George Bush. Those voters think that
George Bush's agenda was superior to John Kerry's agenda but
nevertheless were willing to vote for me. It was astonishing.
What did those people see in you?
I'm comfortable in my own skin. People get a sense of authenticity
from me that cuts across ideological lines. I reject the
slash-and-burn, scorched-earth politics that has become the custom
in Washington. I stick to my principles without resorting to cheap
political tricks. Voters appreciate those things, whether they are
Republican or Democrat.
Are you worried that you've rocketed to fame almost
overnight and yet your career in Washington hasn't even
started?
Are you saying I'm set for a fall?
No, but you must wonder if you've peaked too early. The
media like to burn through their heroes quickly.
I don't mean to insult you, but the media can only drag you down if
you take it seriously.
What advice do you have for people who feel hopeless
after the Kerry loss?
Get over it. Go to the movies, go to the park, go on a date —
get some perspective. Losing an election is not a tragedy.
Tragedies are my mom getting cancer at fifty-three and dying in six
months. Politics in this country has always gone through cycles.
There is a constant battle between inclusiveness and exclusiveness,
between xenophobia and a more expansive view of what our role in
the world is, between a generosity of spirit and a narrow
self-interest. Dr. King had a wonderful saying: "The arc of the
moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." If you look
at the trajectory of America, it's bent toward justice. But it's
not perfectly consistent.
You're very levelheaded about all this. Don't you ever
get pissed about the Bush administration's policies?
I think there are times when it angers me, but I don't think of
George Bush as the devil incarnate. He sincerely believes in what
he's doing and it's good for the country, but clearly the strategy
and approach they are taking don't take the facts into account.
We are going to lose some battles, but the most important thing is not to get disheartened. Now more than ever people have to feel a sense of determination.
Are you thinking about Obama '08?
It is not going to happen. I don't intend to run for president in
the next election.
Is the country going to get increasingly polarized in
the next four years?
I think people are overstating the differences in the country.
There is a faction on the right that is very absolutist and there's
a portion of the left that is the same way, demonizing the other
side. And then there are eighty percent of people in the
middle.
Why did the Democrats lose?
The Democratic Party has not told a good story. What we have are a
series of policy prescriptions to solve particular issues. We have
our environmental position and our labor position and our
health-care position, but we don't have a narrative. And the
Republicans do.
Doesn't your party have more serious work to do than
learning how to tell a story?
Coming up with a narrative is not just PR, it's hard intellectual
and spiritual work. The biggest challenge for us is to figure out,
what do we believe? All too often we defend the status quo against
what we consider to be the assaults of the Republicans. Our labor
agenda is to protect labor laws that were written in 1937. Our
environmental agenda is to protect thirty-year-old laws. Our
education agenda is to protect schools that were built to train our
children for an industrial America, without addressing how to
redesign these schools for postindustrial America.
Who are your heroes?
My heroes are people who engaged in transformative politics, who
changed how people thought about their lives and the scope of their
concern -- Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King.
People who struggled not only with right vs. wrong but right vs.
right. They struggled with values that are difficult and
contradictory.
What transformative changes are required right
now?
The challenge that we face now in some ways is even more
complicated: How do we integrate a world economically, culturally,
politically, while still valuing life on a human scale? Just in
economic terms, for example, how do you have global free trade that
doesn't lead to wages all settling at the lowest common
denominator? How do you create a global economy in which you have a
few gazillionaires and everybody else on the wage scale of China
and Bangladesh?
What would most surprise people to learn about
you?
Probably that I'm a failed jock. I love basketball, but my love for
the game always exceeded my talents. I was pretty good but never
really good. Also, I'm a reformed smoker; I think that
surprises people. I quit, but then during the campaign when you're
in a car driving through cornfields, occasionally I bum a cigarette
or two. But I did all my drinking in high school and college. I was
a wild man. I did drugs and drank and partied. But I got all my
ya-yas out.
[From Issue 964/965 — December 30, 2004 - January 13, 2005]
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