This was my understanding of Barack Obama from the start. A man who could transcend division and focus on the best interests of everyone.
I have spent a year (we put up our first Obama yard sign on MLK Day 2008) cringing whenever someone claimed that Barack Obama was the most liberal candidate for President. Whatever that word means in an ideological or political sense, the word didn't apply to Barack Obama's style or inclination as a way of governance. I don't mean to say he does not hold progressive liberal values. But being defined by an ideology - liberalism - is different from believing in goals that are generally liberal in orientation. Obama, to me, clearly fit into the later category, not the earlier one. He wasn't about taking sides, staking claims to representing one side in a war of opposing views. He doesn't aim for division; he aims for bringing all of us together to better the nation. Healing divisions, acknowledging differences and constructively addressing concerns of everyone, rather than expoiting anger and fears. Those are core American values, and the idea that they could be perceived as "liberal" tells us more about America - well, not America but more precisely those who choose to speak for America - than about Barack Obama (or about liberalism or conservatism, for that matter).
Deep down I understood this all along.
Yet I look back on my blog entries over the last eight months or so and I see that my advice and commentary often failed to take this into account. I have been reactionary and angry in response to slights. I have suggested choices that sought to expolit that anger.
And in each of those instances, Barack Obama stayed true to Barack Obama and did not go in the direction that I suggested. For instance, Wes Clark was not selected as Vice President or shadow Secretary of State, and, as much as I admire General Clark, Obama's decision was right. Rather than using General Clark to counter John McCain's Vietnam experience and take McCain down a notch, then-Senator Obama chose not to go there, and distanced himself from that critique, praising McCain's service. In doing so, Obama did a favor for himself and for Wes Clark.
Despite my calls for Obama to aggressively point out the often vulgar distortions by the McCain campaign, Obama also chose not to attack John McCain back in response to McCain's tactics. Rather than shunning Hillary Clinton, he asked her to be Secretary of State, offering her a potentially historic legacy in pursuit of peace between Israel and her neighbors (Palestinian and otherwise).
The examples abound. And Obama stepped beyond that in each of those circumstances, and by doing so showed all of America a new way forward - a new way that is really the old way, the way our parents taught us as children: to treat people with respect and dignity, to achieve based on our own merits and not on the failures of others, to be honest, humble and gracious, to set an example for others with our behavior, that the greatest rewards come from doing your best and helping others.
While I could see all of that in Barack Obama, and it appealed to me in a way that no other candidacy has ever done (and, frankly, I didn't know could), my experience seeing political campaigns over the last two decades told me that Obama needed to become a pit bull (lipstick or no) in order to win the Presidency. I was often too willing to ask him to put his nature aside as the price for victory.
Barack Obama knew better. Every time I feared he risked being weak and naive, he emerged stronger and smarter. He recognized that he needed to be able to govern, and what a polarizing campaign would do to that governance. Obama conducted his campaign and himself with a confidence and a maturity and a dignity that did not demand compromise of his nature. He showed respect not just for his allies but equally for his adversaries, whether it was an adversary from the outside - like Hillary Clinton, John McCain - or from the inside - like Rev. Wright; and in the process earned respect for himself.
Many say that although Barack Obama has shown he is a great orator, he hasn't shown that he can govern; that all of this is just words. I disagree. Finding campaign guidelines that were flawed (attacking rivals, twisting facts, relying on corporate fundraising), he rewrote those guidelines to suit not only himself, it turned out, but a large part of America that was sick and tired of the old game.
Obama has shown that he is more than just words - but words are an important part of Obama, too. Words are where ideas begin. Like these words from Martin Luther King, Jr., whose 80th birthday we commemorate today, along with the ongoing need to be vigilant in his struggle for human dignity and respect and justice:
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.... The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
And Barack Obama has not only shown that he heard these words, but that he is strong enough to live by them, and by doing so help us all find our path out of darkness and back into the light. I expect that he will govern by those words, as well.
He has shown, in word and deed, that he is not hampered by traditional thinking that forces us back into cultural bickering and partisanship. Bush/Rovian rule by fear or Clintonian triangulation or Reaganesque aloofness or Nixonian paranoia and deceit have no bearing in Obama's mindset. Obama's ascendance allows us to turn a corner and face forward.
We have very challenging times ahead.
But I'm optimistic about addressing them together, as Americans, with the leadership of our new President.
The time to move forward is here.
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