Obama’s Message Unbounded

I have been trying to stay rather neutral to the run-up to Iowa caucuses, but the vitriol of the past few weeks has left me rather on “edge.” Essentially, the rhetoric of who most qualified and most experienced has been lost on me for quite a while. Simply, because none of them other than Bill Richardson, on the democratic side, has any experience of being the executive and having foreign policy knowledge. On the republican side, the candidates are trying to outdo “Bush” on policy, Rudy Giuliani every other word, practically, is in regards to 9/11, while Mitt Romney tries to deflect the arbiters of hate regarding his religion.

Nevertheless, the theatrics of politics has propelled the obfuscation of meaningless dribble of he said, and now, she said in who is best qualified for the presidency. Admittedly, experience is a factor, but so is character, and authenticity. Therefore, the question becomes, how do we evaluate the next president of the United States of America?

In the age of political spin, commercialization, and propaganda, the imagery of the heir apparent for the presidency, of the greatest democracy on the planet, has already wore hard on the electorate, but it also has been apparent for quite a while that the voting public has no true idea of who their candidates are; or, for that matter know themselves. This is what I mean. In a recent article by George Will (link here), allays the myth by Shelby Steele that, although Barack Obama may be a viable black candidate, he cannot win because he has not paid certain “umbrage” to the old school guard, meaning black “power brokers” and tribute to the politicos of the democratic party.

In other words, he has to pay “dues” or “tribute” to the cronyism of the party “power elite.” Furthermore, since Barack Obama is not displaying the angst of the downtrodden black man, who should be railing against the injustice of black disenfranchisement, he is not “black enough” to radiate the emotional desperation of the oppressed minority. Essentially, he is not blaming the “white man” for all his woes. Shocking! This is unacceptable to many of the old guard, who wish to continue to tether the transgressions of blame to the past failures of the black community, in lieu of propelling itself with the tools of empowerment both economically and educationally.

Instead of blaming, Barack Obama message is that of, transcendence. In so being that, from a literature perspective, he is the Horatio Alger story. The narrative of a hard working individual, trying pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, and taking on the everyday challenges of life, and moving upwardly with one’s: intelligence, merit, and ambition, has reminded Americans of its greatest mythos of hope. The American Dream is attainable.

Barack Obama has shown the youth and the 13^th generation (under 50) of America that they can make a difference. He has shown that his message of change and hope and that America has moved beyond the trivialities of race and is maturing beyond its adolescence into adulthood. Shelby Steele’s condemnation of Barack Obama shows the desperation of the old guard trying to hang onto its power and credibility through the dissemination of angst, bitterness, and victimization. Instead of empowerment, they (the old guard) cultivate fatalism. The message of Obama is of empowerment, hope, and change.

This message to the electorate transcends the typical convention of the political pessimism, it is inspirational, and fortifies the words of Martin Luther King of “not judging a person by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.” The Iowa electorate divisively showed that they were examining qualities of the candidate, not the color of their skin. Now, in New Hampshire, the independent minded citizenry, whose state motto is, “Live Free or Die,” are about to vote—and Obama’s message seems to be resonating: authenticity, hope, unity, which transcends, reflects, and reaffirms the beacon of liberty that so proudly became the American ethos.