The Future Posted by Michael Cohen

There's a great line from rock journalist Jon Landau describing the feeling he had when he saw The Boss perform in concert for the first time, "I've seen the future of rock n' roll and his name is Bruce Springsteen."

Tonight, I went to high school gymnasium in Concord, New Hampshire and I saw the future of American politics. And his name is Barack Obama.

Watching Obama on stage tonight I actually felt sorry for Hilary Clinton. She's a nice woman, a good Senator, a fine public servant, a true progressive . . . but quite simply she is swimming against the tide of history. She's running the right campaign at the wrong time in American history. When you look at Obama, his very appearance seems to embody the message of change - after all he is a black man running for President who refuses to define himself as a black man. As if there is nothing out of the ordinary with a black man seeking the White House; and of course there really shouldn't be anything unusual about it. In a post-partisan world, he is the ultimate post-partisan messenger. For all her positives, when one looks at Hillary it's just very difficult not to think of the partisan wars of the 1990s. It's the double-edged sword of experience; yeah, she's been around for a while . . but that's part of the problem.

I unfortunately missed the Hillary event in Manchester tonight, but in Concord you could absolutely feel the energy in the room when Obama spoke. I've never been to a political rally where the crowd seemed so energized and so excited.

I may be going out on a limb here, but I had this palpable sense that the people in Concord tonight wanted to believe not just in Obama but in the very notion that they can feel pride in their country again. It's a lesson that Ronald Reagan understood in 1980 when he spoke about national greatness. But Obama's message is different and is more reflective of its time. I think I share the feeling of many progressives that over the past eight years we have lost faith in the idea of America, in the sense of hope that government can bring real change. When many of us have looked to government, we have seen nothing that has given us hope and everything that gives us despair. As much as many progressives want to see Bush leave office, they want to believe in American again; they want to have hope again - and in a real sense that's the message Obama is peddling.

I think it's simplistic to simply define Obama's message as change vs more of the same. Change is certainly part of the equation, there is no question about it. But there is something deeper going on here. Going back to Tocqueville, there has long been a idea in American politics that Americanism, for lack of a better word, is a type of civil religion; it is a secular belief system. I don't want to venture too deeply into an exceptionalist argument here, but America is founded of course on a creed rather than a sense of ethnic or religious identity. Belief in the "ideal" of America (while not always realized) is a strong undercurrent in American politics and Obama seems to have put his finger on it. 

His message is not "Change!" it's "Change We Can Believe In."  It's a message with a crucial distinction because it's based on the idea of Americans once again believing in the power to affect real change in this country. There's a good reason why, in Obama's stump speech, he presents this election as a continuum, from the minuteman to the abolitionists, to the union movement, to the greatest generation to the civil rights workers to today. We look back at the Revolutionary War and the ending of slavery and the defeat of fascism and the civil rights movement as great moments in American history; because they represent times when Americans not only affected change, but made a concerted effort to ensure that this country lived up to its founding ideals.  Obama is selling the idea that America can produce that type of change again, but only if Americans are willing to take the leap of faith and believe that it's possible. Indeed, this notion of believing is the climactic element of his stump speech.

Obama's message is not about change; it's about belief in the future and it's about hope. Quite simply, there is not another candidate who seems to get that; and I'm not sure that even if they did, they could sell it as effectively as Obama. If Hillary loses, I have no doubt the long knives will come out; people will blame Mark Penn; they will blame Bill; they will accuse Hillary of being too programmed; but in the end I'm not sure she ever had a chance. She's running against not simply a movement; but the palpable sense of hope and belief in America's revitalization and in its potential that Obama represents.

I think if I was her in shoes, I'd probably shed a few tears too.

Comments

[Cal]

There's nothing more touching than a corporate lobbyist waxing poetic about our candidate's future, but I think Michael's post should give everyone pause.

After Obama's speeches are over, what does it mean? Any talk of uniting our country with these feel good appeals is a delusion. So long as Scaife and Murdoch and Moonie control so much of our our political discourse, we'll be a divided nation. (The fact that Obama has gotten away with being so vague about his plans up until now will ensure that the disappointment among his supporters will be all the greater if/when he's elected, and then the sharks will certainly tear him apart.)

People used to call Nelson Rockefeller on his idealistic BS by saying his speech was a BOMFOG (brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God.) Obama seems to me to be just a very good BOMFOGer.

I hope I'm wrong, and I still think he's better than Clinton.

[Neil]

Cheerleading, predictions of victories and failures, this is what politcal horse race punditry has become. I thought you were the smart guys who reported on what is, what can be deduced and demonstrated. I like Obama but I'd like a little analysis and just a coronation from the chattering class.

[Dan Kervick]

I was there too Michael. I believe I saw you walking in. You say:

I may be going out on a limb here, but I had this palpable sense that the people in Concord tonight wanted to believe not just in Obama but in the very notion that they can feel pride in their country again.

My wife and I talked a lot about this on the way home, and I think it's even simpler. People want to feel good again, period. Not just about their country - although they do want to feel better about their country - but about everything else. What Obama recognized that his rivals didn't recognize, or at least not to the same degree, is that a lot of Americans feel bad. And worse, they often feel that the bad stuff is never going to get better. Bush guided them from the traumatic event of 9/11 straight into six years of fear, dread, suspicion, depression, bitterness and hatred. People are grateful to Obama for recognizing so clearly that they feel bad, and are sick at heart. They want better policies, and they know Democrats have better policies; they want more competent leadership, and they know all of the Democrats would be more competent leaders. But mainly they just want to stop feeling so shitty, and they know that part of that shittiness has something to do with what is happening at a national level. The current administration has failed to sustain basic morale.

Obama's domestic policy plans are every bit as specific and detailed as the policy plans of Edwards, Clinton and the rest. And he is quite capable of defending them and explaining the rationale for each of these details when asked about them. But Democrats know that all the Democrats are going to have basically solid domestic policy plans. What they need to know is that the president can sustain the national will to enact these plans in the vipers' tangle that is the US Congress.

I thought Obama did a great job talking at length, and with a lot of humor and insight, about the themes of the past few days: that he has too much hope, that he is peddling false hopes, that he doesn't talk about the details enough, that he talks about change to much, etc. The clarity of the responses to recent themes shows me he and his people are quick and mentally agile.

[Mike M.]

I have to admit, I found this whole post infuriating until the part about the unrealized ideal that is America, which is a topic that Michael writes very well about.

And yet I'm still agitated.

Here's why:

There is not, and will never be, "post-partisan politics."

So long as people are free to assemble, they'll form into parties and they'll disagree with other parties.

And that's a good thing.

The mistake behing nominating Obama isn't just that he's the wrong candidate for these times, it's that he doesn't understand that the debate between liberals and conseratives in America is a legitimate debate that has to be played out and that will never end.

Let's face it, it's good when progressives block a bill and bad when conservatives do.

There's a war of ideas going on. And there's nothing wrong with that. Obama wants to reconcile it but knows no way how. He's on the wrong track. Screw reconciliation. Go for the most advantageous position.