John and Sarah can’t seem to muster much more than smears at this point. It’s all they’ve got to run on. McCain’s platform is as thin as Palin’s resumé; cynicism is their last, best defense. They can make a lot of noise about Obama’s great oratory skills being empty platitudes, about him being untested and risky and dangerous and the like, but they can’t do much more.
Why will we win? Because we’ve got Charles Alexander, that’s why. We’ve got heart. We will win because hope is a beautiful and simple thing. Hope is also a huge thing, not a small, trivial one, as this current crop of Republicans would like us to believe. And hope is made visceral and real and true by stories like his, told by people like him.
We need to take another step forward, as a nation, as a society. And not in a political way — not to the left or right even, nothing like that. We’ve endured a lot of grief in the last eight years: A divisive (some would say stolen) election; two horrific terrorist attacks; a pair of brutal, poorly managed and increasingly forgotten wars; a devastating storm that crippled the nerve center of American culture; the most severe economic crisis of our lives; and, perhaps most tragically, a president who didn’t seem to listen through any of it, an ideologue who valued bluster and bravado over compassion at every turn.
It’s all starting to make a little more sense to me, this groundswell of support for the unlikeliest of candidates, Barack Obama: We’re done grieving. We’re at the point where continuing to mourn our tragedies as we did when the wounds were fresh just isn’t right anymore. Of course we’ll never forget 9/11 or Katrina, nor should we try; we’ll carry those pictures privately in our hearts and minds, and discuss them publicly whenever it’s time, as we do other milestones in our history, both bad and good. But I believe we’re ready for those events to be patches in the quilt of our great and storied nation, and no longer the whole blanket. It’s time to make some new squares for the quilt - from stories of our own choosing.
There is a human tendency toward historical hyperbole. Well-to-do people my age are especially prone to this feeling that it’s never been so bad, or dire, or difficult, or whatever: It’s because our childhoods were good, our young adult years were sloppy and carefree and reasonably well-funded, and only now that we’re actually assuming some responsibilities (children, mortgages, careers) do we freak out about the world at large. It’s only in the present - often with a minimum of historical context - that we assess the state of our communities, our country, and our planet. Similarly, when a person or thing shows signs of some greatness, it’s all too easy for us to turn on the faucet of messianic praise, without the filter of history to temper us. In a nutshell, the past is never as powerful as the present, because we don’t remember those times before our own.
A lot of comparisons have been made between Barack Obama and some of the other young American political upstarts, like Abraham Lincoln and John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Bill Clinton. No living person remembers Lincoln, but his legacy is clear, both in paper policy and actual outcome. Kennedy’s mark, in policy terms, is less obvious to me, but his impact on the psyche of the nation — both in life and in passing — seems impossible to underestimate. And Bill Clinton, to me, felt pretty great, but not exactly transformative: His win in 1992 was hardly a decisive popular mandate, as Ross Perot thoroughly split the vote; and by 1994 he was battling a bratty, contrarian Congress.
In the case of Barack Obama, I have no fear of hyperbole. It’s simple: We must elect him president. I very much doubt I’ll live to see another leader who fits the zeitgeist so perfectly. I of course can’t speak to the climates in which Lincoln and Kennedy were elected, nor to the efficacy or substance of their candidacies. But I feel safe speaking of Barack Obama as a revolutionary. I don’t think, even considering the historical context I have at my disposal, that any of the aforementioned presidents possessed each and every one of the things that make Barack Obama so unique: He’s got a brilliant analytical mind; a clear, executive control of speech; a kind, open demeanor; a full and complete grasp on the technologies of the day; a photogenic presence and beautiful family; a gift to inspire and involve everyone around him; the ability to lay the groundwork for plans, both big and small, in obvious, common language; a compassionate ear; and the good fortune to have the cultural winds at his back, and the managerial know-how to capitalize on those winds in unprecedented, brilliant ways.
All of these are good things, some with more gravity than others, and every politician needs one or two of them to achieve a modicum of success. But to open a national dialogue as big and wide as the one we’re in right now requires the whole truckload, in spades, and then some. It takes a leader — and I dress that word in full literal regalia — to show the way forward, to clear the path, and to illustrate that dudes like Charles and I have quite a lot in common. I owe it to Charles, as much as anyone, to do everything I can to elect Barack Obama.
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