The Choice (II) - The Case For Barack Obama

Super Tuesday is rapidly approaching and I remain undecided even at this late date. Massachusetts is one of the states voting, although you would hardly know that from television coverage. California and New York are understandably getting the most attention, but the Bay State has more delegates at stake than Georgia, Tennessee or Missouri. Especially in a proportional election, every vote counts. At this rate, I may not know who I vote for until I actually get in the ballot box.

The Case For Barack Obama

The case for Barack Obama is simple - words do matter when spoke by a president. Obama wields words better than any Democratic politician (with the possible exception of Bill Clinton.) Obama's political skills go beyond his powerful oratory. He understands, in a deep way, that transforming this country will require radically changing the terms of debate. Progressive ideas need to defined as centrist, conservative ideas that are now "mainstream" to be deemed extreme. A Democratic president elected in 2008 will face a Republican minority in the Senate that can move to block him or her at every turn. It is not enough to have a President who can work behind the scenes to forge bipartisan agreements, we need one who can bring his or her case directly to the voters so that Republicans fear the consequences of turning down olive branch.

On the stump, Obama purposely does not tick off a laundry list of policy proposals. However, there's evidence that he understands the complexity of the most important domestic issues facing the country: health care, climate change,education, family leave. On these issues, his relatively short tenure as a U.S. Senator is sufficiently bolstered by his strong work as a state senator and prior experience as a community organizer. On foreign policy, its reassuring that the one issue Obama has worked on in detail is nuclear proliferation.

Obama also represents the Democrats best chance of a landslide victory in November.
Certainly any Democratic win this November can staunch the bleeding, but only a landslide victory can deliver a mandate for progressive politics. The primary campaign has also shown Obama's ability to handle the rough waters of politics. Obama has shown significant aptitude for political jujitsu. He turned attacks against his record (or lack thereof) as attacks against hope and change.

Obama's ability to attract independents and produce ambivalence rather than loathing in many Republicans is important. But it is his ability to tap in the pool of potential voters who general sit on the side lines that is truly game changing. The passion that Obama instills in young voters is electrifying. As much we would hope that electing the most powerful person in the world differ from voting for student body president the stark reality is that charisma wins.

The Case Against Obama

It is easy to get caught up in Obama-mania. But as the Obama-skeptics rightly point out, Obama is not the messiah. Whether you view it as a strategic decision or evidence that the emperor has no clothes, Obama's campaign has been awfully free of substance. Obama's posturing on health care indicates a willingness to tack to the political winds even when it is arguably unnecessary. His resume is awfully thin for a presidential candidate.

None of these are compelling, at least not enough to outweigh Obama's positives. What does give me pause, however, are serious questions about what the foreign policy on an Obama Administration will look like. Obama has a extraordinarily slim track record on foreign policy. Being "right" about Iraq doesn't make up for this. There simply isn't enough evidence to be sure that he was "right" for the right reasons.

Obama says all of the right things - he wants to withdraw carefully from Iraq, hold firm in Afghanistan, keep the pressure on Al Qaeda, rebuild diplomatic alliances and restore American soft power. Like all Democrats, he rejects the Bush administration's foreign policy and promises something akin to the globalism of the Clinton Administration. What I don't have a sense of is the extent to which Obama recognizes where the Clinton Administration did things right and where it made grievous mistakes. Obama is quite cogent at pointing out the wasted opportunities of the Clinton years on the domestic front. He has offered no comparable critique on foreign policy.

Obama's early leadership on Darfur is commendable, and the presence of Samantha Power suggests a commitment to taking genocide seriously. But, on the other hand, Obama's "slippery slope" argument in the context of the debate over preventing genocide in Iraq was disturbing. Obama's other advisers are a mixed bag. Realist eminence grace Zbignew Brzezinski is the Democratic answer to James Baker. There are conflicting reports about whether Robert O'Malley, a leading peddler of Camp David revisionism, is a member of Obama's team (and O'Malley presence would be somewhat offset by Dennis Ross, who also has been linked to Obama.) I've seen little of substance, pro or con, on perhaps the most important Obama advisers - former Clintonites Susan Rice and Anthony Lake.

Essentially, Obama's foreign policy is significantly more likely to be different than the late Clinton Administration than a 2nd Clinton Administration. But it is wholly unclear whether that difference is going to be for better or worse. And as inspiring as Obama's campaign has been, part of me will go into the polling booth thinking not about JFK - a senator with 14 years in Congress marinating in security issues, but Jimmy Carter - brilliant, well-intentioned, but having too much to learn and too little time to learn it.