Why I hope that Obama wins
Now, I don’t want to sound overenthusiastic. I do want Obama to win, I am, however, not as enthusiastic about his candidacy as I was just half a year ago. His stance on Social Security is borderline neo-conservative, his healthcare plan isn’t entirely universal, however (one of those loud british HOWEVERs), he is definitly the lesser evil, and more than that.
There are many reasons to hope that Obama wins.
1) He isn’t “the corporate candidate”
Nader is entirely accurate when he describes Clinton as “the Corporate Candidate”. Clinton has raised more money from Washington lobbyists than any other candidate in the race, Republican or Democrat. Clinton has raised more money from the health industry (insurance companies and drug companies) than any candidate in the race, Republican or Democrat. Obama, on the other hand, raised all of his campaign money from private citizens, much of it small donations. This alone, is a good reason to vote for Obama, he doesn’t owe anything to big business, and hence, will enjoy more maneuverability than Clinton if he wins the presidency, even on health care.
2) He can deliver a strong majority in senate and congress
I think that, despite what Paul Krugman says, there is something to be said for avoiding a divisive candidate in this election. Especially if the candidate in question creates discord with personality and name alone, and not policies. A candidate like Obama, who so appeals to Independents (and even some republicans) is much more likely to help the democrats win senatorial and congressional seats, than a divisive candidate like Clinton. Winning a strong majority in the senate and congress, would make it easier to pass legislation and reverse much of the damage done to the constitution by the Bush administration. Hillary with her high negatives, is, despite what many democrats think, a worse bet for the general election* , but also less likely to deliver a strong majority in senate and congress. Incidentally, (something my friend MK finds especially surprising) polls suggest that Edwards would be the safest bet for the general election, and the candidate most likely to deliver a wide majority in senate and congress. Democrats, unfortunately, are oblivious to such polls (or computer illiterate), and Edwards has little chance to transform a win in Iowa to a cruise to candidacy.
3) His Face
Now, a lot has been written about this subject. Andrew Sullivan wrote a suprisingly sane and decent piece on why Obama is the best candidate for president. Besides mentioning Obama’s potential as a unifer, his disconnect from the culture wars of the 1990s, Sullivan ruminated on the power of Obama’s face, and what a great message it would send to the world. Sullivan suggested, correctly I think, that an Obama presidency would change America’s image in the third world, more specifically the Middle East.
“Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.” Sullivan**
Seymour Hersh echoed this assertion, writing that Obama represents”the only hope for the US in the Muslim world.” I agree with all this, and would like to add something to it; I think Obama’s presidency would send a strong message to the first world, specifically Europe. In November 2005, Time Magazine had a coverstory dedicated to the riots in the Banlieues with a headline that read something like “Message to Europe: Time to Wake up”. At the time, I, as a European, felt this to be correct, yet, to a certain extent, arrogant, because America had its own problems with anti-immigrant sentiment; Minutemen, fox news…
My sentiment of the time, was overly simplistic, and disgustingly continental; America still has much fairer immigration policies than Europe. Having the son of an immigrant as president would be a testament to the potential success of such policies.
European publications, even the very best ones, often have a very limited understanding of American politics and society. Few of these publications have even considered that Obama is a force to be reckoned with in this presidential race (the ones that have, Spiegel.de, have caught on, comfortably late). This has something to do with the beforementioned poor understanding of American politics, but also with a reflexive holier-than thou attitude which, sometimes correctly, reduces America to a supremely powerful, but politically reactionary and culturally backwards society, in continental minds. (Americans often, somewhat simplistically, reduce this sentiment to anti-americanism, or if the speaker in question is especially cowardly and proposterous, anti-semitism.) This European standpoint dictates that a candidate of Obama swarthiness, has no chance of gaining the confidence of a population, that Europeans regard as intrinsically racist. European contempt for American patriotism and institutional racism, often masks their own contempt for their immigrant (muslim) population and their inability and unwillingness to share a society with this population. Minority Rule in the United States, would force Europe to come to terms with being the prime bastion of outdated, white, christian stubborness.
An Obama presidency would force Europeans to reconsider their preconceptions about America, and rethink their own image in the world. I hope I’m right.
*http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html
**http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/obama
