The Perfect Storm
In the decades to come, historians will continue analyzing what
happened in the 2008 election, especially how a young African-American
inexperienced in national politics beyond a half-term in the Senate
with a funny Kenyan name came to dominate the White House bid in a
field of formidable political veterans such as McCain, Clinton,
Edwards, and Giuliani. Yes I said it: there is no doubt in my mind
that Senator Barack Obama will easily win the election in November,
simply because he understands the electorate better than any of the
candidates do, and along the victory lap to Washington he will carry on
his shoulders a plethora of Democratic nominees picking up House seats
and Senate seats, and some of them even might be picked from Clinton’s
own superdelegate pocket.
Obama is dominating the American
political scene not just because of who he is, but also because of what
America has become. I like to call our current situation "The Perfect
Storm:" a highly unlikely combination of historic factors that have
come together at exactly the same time that Obama has come of age
politically. This perfect storm has made an Obama administration
inevitable. Here’s why. Historian in the year 2030, here is where you
can begin your research.
Bush incompetence. This
can be summed up in one word: Brownie. Nowadays I thank Bush every
day, despite all the foolish mistakes he has made, because he has done
more for Obama than any other human being. Things have to be really
bad sometimes before they can get better. Obama could not have risen
without 8 years of Bush first. Let’s pretend for a moment that you
agree with all of Junior’s policy platforms from the last 7 years,
including the protection of America, invasion of Iraq, social security
reform, immigration reform, education reform, or fiscal
responsibility. He has failed miserably in every area due to the
gross incompetence of his administration. Protecting America was
doomed from the start, with 9/11 proving that the Bush-Cheney inner
circle did not respect the threat from Al-Qaeda despite repeated and
passionate warnings. The resulting War on Terror has produced one
failure after another: the rise of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran; a
Taliban and Al-Qaeda resurgence when our knockout punch was nigh; Abu
Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the unproductive debates on torture,
extraordinary rendition, and spying on people’s phones. Bush has
somehow, miraculously managed to create an American foreign policy that
is both morally wrong and undermines our national security. Iraq was
invaded successfully, but grossly mismanaged from the beginning. The
economy is in dangerously poor condition. Bush’s domestic agenda has
been defeated by one grand mistake after the other, whether it was New
Orleans in 2005, or No Child Left Behind leaving lots of kids, uh, you
know where.
Clinton incompetence. Just
a few weeks ago, this argument would not have applied. Isn’t history
fascinating? Despite Hillary’s inability to do anything productive
with healthcare while her husband was President for 8 years, and
despite presiding over an anemic Democratic party for 8 years, she
somehow managed to market herself as the most "competent" Democrat in
the race over the course of this campaign. The only semi-decent thing
to happen to the Democrats nationally since 2000, taking back Congress
in 2006, had little to do with Clinton. In fact, she was a cause of
this backlash, as she helped authorize the unpopular war which prompted
the 2006 takeover in the first place. But all this was marketed away
by clever Clinton operatives. She wasn’t knocked off the competence
pedestal, the arrogance pedestal, and any number of other pedestals
until she ran into a well-organized, grassroots-fueled Democratic
campaign that she underestimated from the start.
Bill Clinton tomfoolery.
Bubba proved that "nobody is the boss of me." This race would have
been a little bit closer if Bubba could have kept his mouth shut. Now
his legacy is tarnished and he locked his wife out of the White House.
By inserting the race card into the campaign, a mass defection of
blacks was created in South Carolina and onward; overnight, we went
from a majority of blacks backing Hillary in the polls, to almost 90%
of them going for Obama. That’s largely because they did not think
Obama was electable. That is, until Bubba helped make him electable by
denigrating the historic accomplishments of Obama’s campaign, and then,
red-faced with righteous anger, called the senator’s staunch opposition
to Iraq a "fairy tale." Which was itself a fairy tale. The Hillary
people rushed forward with a muzzle, but it was already far too late to
keep the blacks and many of other races. Thanks, Bubba: Barack took
your assist, and he SLAM-DUNKED it.
An uninspired Congress. As
bad as the administration has been, unfathomably, Congress has been
even worse. Lobbyists pour the slop into the pork barrel and members
of both the House and Senate feed like starving pigs. The swing from
Republican control to Democratic control has not created an
improvement, and many Americans see both parties complicit in the dirty
Congressional politics of getting nothing done. They see a
Washington where the president bickers with Congress, Republicans
bicker with Democrats, they’re all rich and corrupt, and the only
losers are working Americans.
America is polarized, and tired of it. Bush
oversaw a dramatic polarization of the country, an uncivil war between
blue states and red states, one where reasonable citizens on both sides
of the Republican/Democrat divide honestly believed that the other side
was ruining their country. Karl Rove engineered this drama, and it was
effective toward the goal of getting elections won by small margins.
America now yearns to move on from this 51/49 life and follow a leader
who is actually intelligent, competent, and able to get something done,
get it done right, and get it done on principles most of us can rally
behind. This is the promise of Barack Obama; we should be clear that
he hasn’t yet proved that he can deliver this yet, but America is more
than willing to give him a chance. Luckily, things cannot easily get
worse on the polarization front than they are now. The level of
gridlock is at saturation point, the level of discourse is toxic, and
politics have nowhere to go but up. Nothing positive of note is going
on at the federal level today except some aid for Africa.
McCain will sink on the Iraq ship. McCain
too is a response to this polarization, as his party conceded that the
only chance at victory would be the least-reviled Republican figure.
Some Dems are worried that McCain will poach enough of the nation’s
independents to eke victory because he occupies the center, the same
place where his opponent likes to roost. On issues such as the
environment, campaign finance reform, torture, and the economy, he is
not radically different from most Democrats. Liberals should relax.
McCain only has one card to play, which is fear. Obama will not keep
you and your children safe! He’ll take your gun away! He is weak on
national security! He wants us to surrender! There are wolves
circling around us in the woods! But his only card is undermined on
the most important national security matter of the day, Iraq. McCain is
on the side of the failed Republican policies. A.K.A., the wrong side
of the voters.
Loud, Dumb Republicans. Sean
Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and Rush Limbaugh: this is a
case of "everyone wins." Obama will win thanks in part to your
hysterics, and good days are ahead for you too. You would love nothing
more than to attack an incumbent Democrat in the White House so your
ratings, and sense of self-importance, will go up for at least four
more years. It’s no coincidence that they’re skewering McCain:
right-wing lightweights clearly don’t want him to win. The same old,
tired messages of abortion, bashing gay rights, how the media favors
President Obama, "liberals = unpatriotic = terrorists," the frightening
prospect of another liberal Supreme Court justice, and the evils of
Islam will continue to play out on the airwaves daily during the Obama
administration. But the messages of hate won’t get across to many
beyond their little choir.
They’ve got nothing on Obama.
I have read just about everything the right-wing lunatic fringe has
written or said about Obama, pouring over anything they’ve written
against him, and whatever Fox News has been able to come up with. The
fact is, they have nothing on him at this point beyond supermarket
tabloid stuff. Obama is a foreign spy. Michelle Obama hates you.
In other words, zero. If he gets through Clinton in one piece, we can
be confident there is nothing else to find. If her people found
anything more than alleged plagiarism and a friendship with Tony Rezko,
they would have used it. It was fortunate that Obama was forthcoming
long ago about his drug use as a young man; more than we can say about
Bush, Clinton, or for that matter Rush Limbaugh as an older man.
Only one candidate represents the next generation of America.
We haven’t had a politician who youngsters think is "cool" campaigning
for president since Bill Clinton in 1992. Many who are too young to
even vote suddenly care about politics for the first time. This isn’t
an accident; it’s partly because their older and wiser parents are
sensing a historic movement; civics teachers are getting tingly as they
teach their students; Obama is most accessible at only 46 years old; he
will be the first post-baby boom president; and the Obama campaign has
spent an enormous amount of resources on courting the young, something
few campaigns in American history have bothered to do. Most younger
voters don’t see Obama as black, but just as a dude they would like to
see in the White House because he, like, speaks to them.
Obama represents what we want from a leader for some of the wrong reasons.
Here is where the politically incorrect stuff comes in. Yes, some
blacks are voting for him in droves largely just because he is black.
Women are voting (and fainting!) for him because they have a massive
crush on the tall, dark, and handsome guy. Older whites are voting for
him due to white guilt: they know their race has stomped on blacks for
centuries, and voting for Obama is a bit of a mea culpa.
Americans like myself with a dual identity identify with his
connections to Indonesia and Kenya. Whether voting for these
irrational reasons is right or wrong, people have always voted along
these lines, and they always will. We are fortunate that in this case
at least, they have accidentally voted correctly.
These
are the factors that perfect storms are made of. It will be a long and
bumpy ride to November, but come January 2009, it will be a new day in
America. Let’s hope for peaceful waters afterward- and above all, be
glad that you were a part of it.
