it's a beautiful day

The waiting is over: number two on the Democratic ticket is Joe Biden. Obama played this safe. According to pundits, Biden will move Hillary's 'white working class' supporters into the Obama camp. Joe from Scranton, the Scranton scrapper, the poorest Senator, Catholic Joe: this will be the political detritus of the coming week. The code words don't really code anything: Biden is supposed to counteract the effects of race; i.e., Obama's melanin (dis)advantage.

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Of course, that's not all Biden will do. He is allegedly a foreign policy heavyweight. To his credit, after supporting the decision to invade Iraq, Biden has been a persistent critic of the conduct of the war. I remain convinced his suggestion that Iraq could be broken into three states (a suggestion that recognizes the thoroughly constructed nature of post-colonial states) is an idea worth pursuing. The pundits immediately jumped on this perceived strength, arguing that it shows Obama's weakness (in foreign policy). This sort of argumentative gibberish, which turns into a "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't" sackgasse, will also contribute to the political detritus of the coming week. 

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I haven't taken to Biden in the past. He comes across as bombastic and shows too much attraction to his own rhetoric. However, the choice of Biden is probably the best possible among a weak pool of Democratic politicians. Of course, there was Hillary Clinton...

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Photo credit: A. Spencer Green (AP)

centering

Having vanguished the suddenly populist Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama is now tacking back to the center of the political spectrum and, in the process, has unnerved legions of the American Left (namely, the MoveOn.org crowd). Suprisingly (mock shock) he is not so absolutely against 'free trade' (and what President has been?). He thinks the government spying act (i.e., FISA) is acceptable in its current version. He wants good old boys in downstate Illinois who elected him to the Senate to be able to keep their shotguns. And he wants to expand the role of churches in social welfare provisions. Has Obama suddenly become G. W. Bush as suddenly as Hillary Clinton became William Jennings Bryan?

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The short answer is "no." One weakness of the Obama campaign has been its failure to pick battles to fight more judiciously. Hence, it floundered in responding to every provocation emanating from the Clinton camp. Perhaps he has learned a lesson. It is not a winning or worthwhile proposition to reject free trade as the potential president of a capitalist economy. As Claus Offe pointed out long ago, government policies that give an incentive to corporations to disinvest are self-defeating when one wants to simultaneously impact areas such as poverty or health care reform. On the Supreme Court's 2nd amendment decision, why stir the hornet's nest of the NRA needlessly. Let the sleeping lunatics lie. FISA is a bit tougher sell for me. However, as President, Obama can seek to use the powers it authorizes more judiciously; in other words, he can submit his own use of FISA to more oversight than Dick Cheney could stomach. Finally, on 'faith based initiatives,' this is very understandable: Obama's community organizing background undoubtedly brought him into contact with 'progressive' churches (such as the one he recently abandoned) which don't seek government funds only for the purpose of imposing evangelical morality on the people whom they help.

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All of these moves are reasonable from a person who seeks to run a truly national campaign (not the typical presidential campaign that focuses on a few swing states to the neglect of all others). Obama is hunting on McCain's expected safe territory; finally, a Democrat is not simply conceding Red States and religious fundamentalists. If Obama can actually co-opt the Fundies (especially those under 30), he will have broken the stranglehold of the legacy of the Moral Majority, which would be an accomplishment equal to getting the USA out of Iraq in a timely manner.

infantile raciality

Barack Obama has delivered the great race speech of 2008. One pundit (Sally Quinn) declared on MSNBC that Obama's speech was the most important contribution to racial dialogue since M. L. King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech of 1963. Obama, as usual, did weave together personal narrative with political and social dilemmas, and sounded the community organizer's call for Oneness in the face of a more powerful Other: corporations, lobbyists, terrorists, and the disembodied threat of ecological catastrophe. The most striking element, however, was his effort to work through the psychological issue of anger on both sides of the racial divide. More Oprah than Dr. Phil, Obama situates himself as a vessel of, and agent for, racial healing; as an exemplary person for extraordinary times. The religious (in the Durkheimian sense) dimension of Obama's candidacy is no less palpable than the materialist (in the Marxist sense) opposition that arises from the Clinton campaign. The choice is clear: the mission of national renewal versus the fight for redistributive policies within a recessionary capitalist market.

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The boldest implication of Obama's speech is that his candidacy offers the possibility of mass psychoanalysis, a therapeutic treatment for America's infantile raciality. The ressentiment of the dispossessed, referencing concrete hurts and frustrations, seeks out -- in an animistic style of thought -- invisible forces in the social world which are perceived to be the source of dispossession. Race is just such a force, a malevolent god or spirit that works to thwart (or facilitate) the pleasure of specific groups, that is, the satisfaction of needs that are both physical and emotional: material wealth and social recognition (i.e., status honour). To race is attributed an amazing capacity of creation of groups, motives and consequences of action; success and failure is legitimated or disqualified by this idea. This is no less a miracle than the transubstantiation accomplished during the Catholic communion: blessed wine and wafers become the blood and body of Christ; different degrees of melanin function as a cosmological explanation of reality, the invisible yet visible hand shaping individual fate. What Obama suggests is no less radical than the Copernican turn in Western science: geocentrism and raciocentrism can be replaced through a shift in perspective. However, like ressentiment for the Father's disposession of the son's unmediated access to the Mother, it is not easy to give up racial anger; hence, sexual development and social development is "arrested" or, more properly stated, fixated in an anal stage, an infantile stage. Pain and anger become substitutes for the lost Mother or forestalled social achievements, they become the object-cathexis of the resentful child and the resentful adult. It is as if the child-adult or adult-child says you've taken away what I should have by right, so this is all I have left, my anger, my suffering, and I won't let that be taken away. This anger is mine and you can't have it! 

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Whether a public official can facilitate this working through of past pain is uncertain (Mandela comes to mind as one such person whose success in this area -- in South Africa -- remains uncertain). The cause remains noble even if a tragic mode of emplotment seems the likely outcome of the story. This is the risky path Obama has chosen, however: to stand for a missionary purpose while needing to engage in mundane worldly activities. Obama's candidacy stands as a sort of test of Durkheim and Weber: are the sacred and profane radically opposed (Durkheim) or can an affinity exist between other-worldly (in the sense of transcendent) goals and this-worldly intensive activity. 

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art object credit: The Great Chain of Being from Rhetorica Christiana by Didacus Valades, 1579

permanent campaign

Hillary is back, Barack still leads, when will it end? Clinton is making her claim on the nomination more effectively than Obama in the big states. Why? Maybe people in these states, especially the unionist, labouring classes, identify with the "I'm in your corner, fighting" assertions offered by Clinton. They are in no mood for the pragmatic idealism of Obama, preferring the pragmatic realism of the senator from New York. But can either candidate be effective if and when they occupy the Oval Office?

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Both Clinton and Obama would face difficulties once in office. Unless the Democrats can secure 60 votes in the Senate, a Democrat President will struggle to put through major proposals (such as universal health care). My hunch is that Republicans would dig in firmly against Clinton (the "base" will demand it). Sure, she'll "fight fight fight" for her ideas, but I sense a repeat of 1993 is in the offing for her centerpiece program on health care. Obama might be able to use the "bully pulpit" of the presidency more effectively than Clinton, which would put pressure on recalcitrant republicans not to filibuster legislation or attach poison pill amendments.

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Clinton, now in desperation mode, has found her "voice" again, which is negative. She's figured out a way to attack Obama's "character" without using the "racial profiling" tactic. For whatever reason, Obama hasn't figured out how to reply in kind while remaining on his theme of a "new politics." The easiest route is to turn Clinton's new claim of "electability" against McCain into an issue. For example, Obama's surrogates should insist on the release of Clinton's tax records: without having transparency, there may be fodder that McCain could exploit in the fall. Obama should question the premise that he would not win the big states in the fall. Is there any way that California or New York would suddenly vote republican just because Clinton is not the nominee? Finally, Obama can make the case that he can put into play those "purple" states that would not fall into the Clinton column. Finally, Obama has to put Clinton on her heels in any future debate, especially on the universal health care plan. But he'll need new talking points which basically suggest that a republican controlled senate won't pass her plan but will pass his.

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For her part, Clinton  must decide whether she is willing to risk the alienation of the most fervent Obama supporters for the sake of achieving the nomination. The fact that she's even crossing over the line means she must believe there is no way a Democrat can lose in the fall. This was the same belief the Democrats held in 2000 and 2004. For now, it appears Clinton is on a "win the battle, lose the war" path.

rhetoric of the sacred

Barack Obama's oratorical style is widely commented upon. Some view it as inspirational; others view it as empty rhetoric. A simmering mistrust of his oratory has bubbled to the surfaced of the campaign; criticisms of his followers, apparently seized by a new messiah, are likely to become more mainstream if Obama's success continues. One pundit thinks the magic has faded. The bloom is off the rose, the Obama bubble has burst.

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Without resorting to the crudities of crowd psychology and the innate American fear of anything resembling the collective, it is possible to analytically parse the Obama effect. One good place to start is the work of Emile Durkheim on religion. One paragraph from his book The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) is particularly relevant.

...we can also explain the curious posture that is so characteristic of a man who is speaking to a crowd -- if he has achieved communion with it. His language becomes high-flown in a way that would be ridiculous in ordinary circumstances; his gestures take on an overbearing quality; his very thought becomes impatient with limits and slips easily into every kind of extreme. This is because he feels filled to overflowing, as though with a phenomenal oversupply of forces that spill over and tend to spread around him. Sometimes he even feels possessed by a moral force greater than he, of which he is only the interpreter. This is the hallmark of what has often been called the demon of oratorical inspiration. This extraordinary surplus of forces is quite real and comes to him from the very group he is addressing. The feelings he arouses as he speaks return to him enlarged and amplified, reinforcing his own to the same degree. The passionate energies that he arouses reach in turn within him, and they increase his dynamism. It is then no longer a mere individual who speaks but a group incarnated and personified.*

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Those who lack this capacity to incarnate a group (which is especially important for a modern politician) resent those who can. Presumably, this capacity is one crucial characteristic of leadership, which is what Durkheim describes in the preceding paragraph. To lead is to move people, both as an act of following but also on a mental level; to coalesce a social consciousness that carries the force of opinion. This could be why Hillary Clinton's impressive resume does not suffice to overwhelm her putatively inexperienced opponent.

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*Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York: The Free Press, 1995), 212.

one giant step for Manning?

Politics is football carried on by other means. Thus, on Super Tuesday an overdog faces off against an underdog, the Perfect Team confronts the wild card qualifier, the scheming genius tangles with the likable little brother. Let's prognosticate. 

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The underdog only recently arrived on the scene. A first round pick in the 1994 draft, he impressed the scouts with a verbal vertical leap that was off the charts. Following in the footsteps of a Presidential Hall of Famer (Lincoln), he promised to be the Great Emancipator of American politics; he would free the political system from the slavery of lobbyists and the negativity of past decades. After beginning the campaign with a long drive, he scored first (a field goal in Iowa). Yet, the game has become a battle for field position, with setbacks (Nevada) and one turnover (New Hampshire) in the early going. But now, the young quarterback is behind by 4 percentage points, and the final quarter is underway. Will this precocious challenger be able to "shock the world" in the waning seconds of the game?

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What about the opponent, the leader who was ready to win on day one, the one who could withstand scandal, and go on to run up the score on hapless opponents? Will her hubris to go for it (unleashing long bomb ex-President Bill) on fourth down -- in an obvious field goal situation in South Carolina -- come back to haunt her? Surely, she has the game plan and experience to pull off the perfect season. Or, in defeat, will she sprint off the field in the final seconds, offering begrudging praise to the underdog ("he got the endorsements, we didn't.")?

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I like something about both the young quarterback and the evil genius coach. Everyone likes an underdog and the audacity of his bid for the highest office inspires hope. I also like the grey-hoodied coach, plain but ruthlessly efficient, destroying opponents and treating each victory as inevitable. How does one pick between them: the improvised brilliance of the underdog's the hail mary pass towards destiny or the meticulously orchestrated defensive plan of the old coach intended to smash the upstart in the mouth?

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The Final Score....right after this commercial break.

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photo credits: Eli Manning (Newsday); Bill Belichick (The Onion)

eternal flame

The media says Ted Kennedy handed the passkey to Camelot over to Barack Obama. Which made me wonder, why it wasn't passed to another Kennedy. I remembered today why this didn't happen: the lineage had to go through JFK. Caroline Kennedy never positioned herself as heir. However, her brother sort of, maybe, did. But John, with the striking initials (JFK, Jr.), died in 1999. He would have turned 48 in this year, would be older than Obama and lacking none of the charisma. Would he have been a presidential candidate this year? Probably not, unless he had sought some "office." Heading the now defunct George magazine would not have been sufficient to answer Hillary Clinton's mantra of 30+ years of "experience." But then, perhaps he would have run for the Senate (in New York state) in 2000 and Hillary and Bill would have moved to New Jersey to launch her carpet-bagging political career. However, this was not to be. Hence, yesterday Ted Kennedy outsourced the Kennedy legacy.

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Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton again affirmed the wisdom of Ted Kennedy's choice by indicating she will attempt to seat delegates from primaries in Michigan and Florida that she, Obama, and Edwards promised not to contest. This is a classic example of trying to win ugly. It is clear that for the Clintons, winning is everything. Obama should take note of this. The Clinton legacy should be put into play; he should attempt to divide the family by questioning her support for things that are not popular with the liberal base: NAFTA, "welfare reform," No Child Left Behind, The Defense of Marriage Act. If Bill can "Jesse Jackson" Obama, Obama can certainly raise the spectre of another Clinton presidency full of expediency and a rightward tilt (thereby masking Obama's own fairly centrist positions). In other words, if the former president is running against Obama, Obama should run against that president as hard as possible. 

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photo credit: Corbis (Washington Post); Ted Kennedy and John Jr. in 1964

father figure

The NY Times is reporting that Senator Edward Kennedy will endorse Barack Obama tomorrow. This news follows in the wake of Caroline Kennedy's endorsement of Obama in a NY Times Op-Ed, in which she writes: "I have found the man who could be that president" who inspires people as did her father, JFK. This is certainly a major coup for the Obama campaign, to have the last surviving member of Camelot bestow the Kennedy imprimatur on his pursuit of the Presidency. Any evocation of her father tugs at the heartstrings of Democrats old enough to remember anything about 22 November 1963, perhaps the most significant date in American political memory until 9/11. Strategically, the double dip of Caroline Kennedy and Senator Ted may put into play such Clinton "safe states" as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts on 5 February. It will also not be easy for the Clintonistas to spin these endorsements, from the daughter and the brother, especially Bill, the self-represented legatee of the Kennedy tradition. Additionally, the logic of ethnic politics can be drawn out of Ted Kennedy's endorsement. Ted co-sponsored (with McCain) the defeated immigration reform legislation that had less draconian paths to legalization for millions of illegal immigrants. In the Lou Dobbsified American imagination, illegal immigrant equals "Mexican." Hence, the message can be delivered: Obama is good for "Latinos." Obama should play this "ethnic card" to the hilt.

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A question remains: why invoke the Father at all? If, as some pundits write, Americans may not want alternating political dynasties (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton), what recommends the symbolic capital of the Ur-Dynasty in American politics? Is this a unconscious hankering for the long lost aristocratic beginnings of the nation? For now, I'll propose that politics is about identity and the projection of identity. Unburdened by the responsibility of historical memory, there is a tendency in American politics to traffic in imagery. This is not necessarily a criticism. But what it means is that the political unconscious of the nation tends towards a search for the most positive image as the anchor of identity. The optimistic and naive self-conception of Americans about their place in the world order is mirrored by the desire to find "likable" people to have exclusive access to the launch code of the U. S. nuclear arsenal. In recent memory, the two parties have two fail-safe images: the "Happy days are here again" Reagan and the photogenic JFK (and Jackie), who asked the nation to do something for the greater good. If this is true, the photogenic Barack Obama, with the immigrant's name, will stand a good chance against the fidgety persona of Hillary Clinton, and the clenched jaw militarism of the aged McCain. Neither Clinton nor McCain emit the sort of light that enveloped JFK and now Obama. Caroline Kennedy has simply reminded Americans of the Democratic stripe: Father was best.

the days of whine and roses

Barack Obama announced today that he'll take on Bill Clinton.

"I have to say just broadly, you know, the former president -- who I think all of us have a lot of regard for -- has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling," he told Good Morning America.

You know, he continues to make statements that aren't supported by the facts, whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq, or our approach to organising in Las Vegas. You know, this has become a habit.

President Clinton went in front of a large group, said that I had claimed that only Republicans had any good ideas since 1980 ... He was making it up and completely mischaracterizing my statement.

One of the things that I think we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's not making statements that are factually accurate," Obama continued.

Message to Mr. Obama: you're in a political campaign, your words will be "mischaracterized". What Bill Clinton has done is nothing compared to what the Republicans would do in the fall campaign. I find it almost laughable that you've chosen to tell the world that you'll now start taking on the former president. That is exactly what you should be doing. Telling us you're going to do it before you do it is just silly. You should already have been doing it. 

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It is this sort of thing that makes me wonder whether Obama actually has the will for the job of President, especially a Democratic President confronting a Republican Senatorial filibuster machine. The Clintonistas won't play nice. Bill Clinton has been through much tougher challenges than the one Obama might present. Hillary has been a punching bag for Republicans since 1992.  In the face of this, does Obama think the talk of changing the tone of American politics will matter? Democratic party hacks like Charlie Rangel will hack away at Obama. Is this a surprise? 

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As I have opined before, the Clintonistas are fully at home in the trenches and there is a risk for Obama if he enters the battle on their terms (namely, he becomes just another politician rather than being the Chosen One). However, I do wonder about Obama's political style. It is often reported that Obama was a community organizer. His background is in Alinsky style organizing, which basically involves going into a community, listening to the complaints of community members, defining a common enemy in populist terms (i.e., the city versus the people; the landlord versus the tenants), picking a winnable battle (i.e., one that is likely to succeed and therefore build confidence in the community), making 'hits' on offices of public officials or engaging in "rent strikes", etc. It is also especially important for the Alinsky style to avoid "divisions", especially racial and ethnic divisions that might exist within the community that is targeted for organizing. I can see aspects of this organizing style in Obama's political style, most notably the populist appeal to "the people" rather than specific groups and the emphasis on "we" rather than "I" in his rhetoric. What is missing, of course, is the direct, confrontational style of Alinskyist community organizing. Ironically, Hillary Clinton's suppressed B.A. thesis is supposed to be on Alinsky; she, on the other hand, does engage in confrontation, seems to relish it, has a knack for it, and a will to succeed in it. 

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Hillary Clinton is running on her "experience" in the White House; hence, much of her campaign is bound up with the good times of the Clinton 90s. Why wouldn't Obama have made this a central point of attack? Bill Clinton was a creature of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the group of centrist Democrats who mapped out a strategy that would bypass the traditional, progressive, activist roots of the Democratic party, the inheritance of the 1960s. Clinton ran in 1992 with a theme of "ending welfare as we know it." And he did. His tactical strategy, nurtured in the DLC, was to steal Republican issues and make them over into moderate Democratic positions. Reagan ran for the Presidency by attacking the Red Soviets and the Welfare Queens. Clinton also ran against these queens, but did so in a truly kinder and gentler way. So when Bill Clinton criticizes Obama for trumpeting Reagan, Obama could point out that Clinton accomplished what Reagan could not; Bill Clinton put Reagan's idea into action ("It takes a President" in the eloquent formulation of Hillary Clinton). Moreover, Clinton launched the research into the policy that became the No Child Left Behind legislation of the first Bush term, which prescribes a method of educational testing that produces statistically unreliable results. Perhaps Obama is unaware of this, but, again, an Alinsky political style would make this a point of confrontation.

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Why mention Reagan? Obama surely knew he was stepping into deep sh*t when he flatly stated that Reagan "changed the trajectory of America" in a way "Bill Clinton did not." There's no need to recite the litany of Reagan's sins here. But it is, in fact, true that Reagan transformed the field of American politics in a way that no Democratic President has since FDR. Reagan co-opted FDR's themes and gave them a supply-side, neo-conservative spin (e.g., FDR's "Four Freedoms for the Fourth" speech*). Bill Clinton's domestic policies grew out of the soil of the Reaganite vision (leaving aside the national health care debacle). Obama could elaborate on this situation and tie Hillary Clinton to her closet Reaganite President-Husband. He could point to the language of Clinton's welfare reform law and show that it is directly hostile to poor, single mothers; that it is morally paternalistic; that it binds these women to men in an unfeminist way. Or Obama could point out that Bill Clinton set a Federal level firewall against "gay marriage" by signing the "Defense of Marriage Act," which stipulates that "the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife." Surely, Obama could point out these features of the Clinton Presidency, in which Hillary Clinton claims an important role. But then, he, like Hillary, would have to find his voice.

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* See the excellent analysis of Reagan and FDR in the dissertation of Jayson Harsin, "A Tale of Two Citizenships: The Economic Rights Discourse of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan" (2005).

no dice

Hillary Clinton's roll of the racial dice has come up snake eyes. Barack Obama has taken the "high road," again refusing to wallow in the muck:

Obama: "I think that I may disagree with Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We're all Democrats....We all believe in civil rights. We all believe  in equal rights. We all believe that regardless of race or gender that people should have equal opportunities....They are good people, they are patriots. They are running because they think they can move this country to a better place." 

The contrast in styles is real and has substantive consequences. The Clinton campaign is more comfortable with slash and burn politics; it thrives on attack and counter-attack. But this style requires someone to play the role of adversary. In the 1990s, the adversary was the Republican party and a vast conservative "conspiracy." Such existential foes made for existential battles, culminating in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The problem the Clintonistas face now is that Obama refuses (more or less) to play the adversarial role. He tends to deflect the blow rather than responding in kind. Hence, the Clinton campaign is force to fight a phantom and here the strategy flounders. My sense is that Clinton would be a formidable and relentless candidate in face of a Republican in the fall election, in particular because Republicans can be expected to fire all their remaining ammunition at her. This is the preferred terrain for Clinton; two military formations meeting on a single field of battle, face to face. As the presidential nominee, Obama would have to remain above it all without appearing aloof; the goal would be to demonstrate the desperation of the Republicans by refusing to answer every volley; political honour would then hopefully prevail over an extravagant display of arms; in the end, the beefy class ruffians would succumb to the compelling nobility of skinny class president. I am not sure this style would prevail, but clearly Obama has no desire to engage in gladiator politics.

it's all about the 'he said, she said' bullshit

Finally, the Democratic presidential campaign has gone back to basics: identity. Whereas Republican identity politics center on claims to the Reaganite inheritance, to god, small taxes, and big weapons, Democrats are more inclined to obsess over gender and race. At the moment, the Clinton and Obama campaigns are fixated on the latter. There are historical reasons for this: southern whites abandoned the Democratic party over the pro-civil rights legislation of the mid-60s (more on that later); hence, the black vote is an essential component of any Democratic "southern strategy." But the reason today is that South Carolina (in which the majority of registered Democrats are black) is the next primary battleground.

Rather than rehash the terms of the current clash over the proper way to speak about Martin Luther King Jr., I'll wander over other topics. On King, this much can be said: he is one of the three saints of Democratic party politics: Martin, John (Kennedy), and Bobby (Kennedy)  (more on John later). Hence it is important for both campaigns to commemorate King in an effort to align with his "legacy." One might ask why Clinton would keep the dispute over King alive, when there are clearly risks of committing a racial "offense." I have no idea what is the real intention in this, but clearly it has had this positive effect (from the standpoint of the take-no-prisoners Clintonistas): it drags Obama into the muck of political trench warfare which he so far has assiduously avoided, and it raises the racial stakes for Obama. What are these stakes? They are two-fold. First, Obama's own "racial authenticity" can become a political issue in a highly racialist black community and, second, it may force Obama to engage more directly in racial politics, an engagement that would jeopardize his ability to claim the standpoint of the national universal as the candidate of "unity." Hence, the risks are actually more significant for Obama than for Clinton, who already has a solid bloc of black supporters.

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What is of more interest to me is the continued invocation of one of the three saints, JFK. Bill Clinton claimed his entry into politics came through meeting JFK. Obama has situated his candidacy in relation to JFK as well, and the media has made inevitable comparisons of the two youthful, optimistic Senators. JFK is useful since the memory of the murdered prince of Camelot evokes the memory of tragedy and of promise. The tragedy of his assassination cut short the promise of his presidency. And, of course, JFK was a Democrat (the other "great" Democratic president of the 20th century, FDR, has receded from public memory). However, this "social memory" of JFK should not, following Halbwachs, be confused with history. JFK initiated a more significant involvement of U. S. troops in Vietnam during his brief presidency; Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) escalated this involvement and consequently doomed his own legacy. JFK is the light and LBJ the dark in Democrats' social memory of the 1960s. However, another "memory" is possible: under Johnson, a striking shift in a long-standing policy of over 300 years occurred in the signing of the Civil Rights Act (by LBJ). Fearing the desertion of Jim Crow southern Dixiecrats in the 1964 election, JFK equivocated on civil rights. Under LBJ and the pressure of the moral persuasion of Civil Rights activism (led by saint Martin), the historical mess of legally sanctioned institutional exclusion was cleared up in two years. In the terms of realpolitik, if there were "beneficiaries" of the Kennedy assassination, one set would be southern blacks.

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The association of JFK in particular with the mainstream liberal vision is not an act of nature. Depending on one's position in the political hierarchy, it could appear confusing that JFK, remembered more as geist than as mensch, is so closely identified with the political liberalism of the Democratic party. LBJ, whose sole, decidedly negative political value has come to be identified with Vietnam, was the sponsor of the Great Society, the most comprehensive liberal policy agenda in American history (Ok maybe the New Deal was more comprehensive). In particular, the domestic legacy of the Johnson years is the "second" welfare state, whose "needs-based" criterion and "new subjects" (the chronically un- and underemployed, single mothers, children, and students) share an uneasy coexistence with the "first" welfare state, whose "contribution-based" criterion and "old subjects" (ethnic, working-class men) continue to be more politically defensible (it is probably not a coincidence that Bill Clinton carried through his campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it" in 1996). JFK's New Frontier looks decidedly complacent in comparison to the Great Society. However, it is the symbolic reappropriation of JFK that is the foundation of liberal Democratic politics rather than Johnson and the Great Society, which is burdened with the spectacle of Vietnam and the anti-war movement, as well as political crimes of the neo-conservative imagination -- i.e., big government, welfare corruption, reverse discrimination, crime, the erosion of values, etc. Because LBJ's record is decidedly mixed ("right" militarily, "left" socially), the Texan is unfit to function as the spiritual source of the politics of the liberal Democratic mainstream. The fact that the exclusive access to the Kennedy aura remains a point of honor to a generation of liberals and Democrats whose political well-being is based on hoarding the memory of the fallen JFK could be seen in the exchange between Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen and Republican Senator Dan Quayle during the 1988 Vice-Presidential debate (Bentsen to Quayle: "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy").

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Hillary Clinton's "error" was to invoke LBJ  in seeming opposition to saint Martin. Her rhetoric tread upon the sacred, and the critical response was predictable. In the fine tradition of the debauched American public sphere, she has turned the tables on the critics and Obama by claiming the criticism has introduced "race" (obviously "divisive" and obviously inconsistent with the communitarian imagery of Obama's speeches) into the campaign. Which is exactly what Clinton wants.

cry me a river

Big girls don't cry. Or maybe they do. And when they do, their sins (and ours) are washed away. It appears that an emotional "moment" has derailed the Obama Express to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Or has it? Pull up a tissue and let's figure it out.

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There are two views (because I say there are!) of the Great Meltdown of 2008. One, which will necessarily find association with the Royal Society of Hillary Haters (the RSHH), sees these bitter tears as just more manipulation,  an orchestrated bit of classical Clintonian triangulation (or cryangulation), a brand of glassy-eyed political strategy. As the two chaps in the Guinness beer commercial say: Brilliant! And the RSHH says: How Dare They! A few drops of water cascading from the eyes of the Ice Queen of American politics does not make her human, nor should we be duped into thinking otherwise. The other view, which seems to coalesce a non-existing coalescence of Oprah (who supports Obama) and Gloria Steinem (representing resurgent 2nd wave feminism), holds that it's OK to cry and, gosh darn it, there's wisdom in those soggy eyes. "It's My Turn" is the unofficial theme song of the Emotionistas, the "Girlfriend Mafia", the BFFs in their global sisterhood. Confronted by these opposed viewpoints, what are we to believe? What exactly happened in New Hampshire and will weeping be the factor that decides the Democratic Party nomination contest?

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From our stiff upper lipped perspective, one thing is clear: the pollsters got it wrong when it came to Clinton. From now on, it would be better to consult a poison oracle than to believe the predictions of quantitative research. Also, our post-election hermeneutics are likely to only reveal partial aspects of an irrational reality. All we know for certain about Clinton is the following: veni, weepy, vici. It could be that the gender gap swung in favor of Clinton in New Hampshire (unlike in Iowa) because women saw the video of The Moment. Or maybe they heard about it. Or maybe they were on Clinton's side already. Who knows and who bloody cares! Get over it.

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In reality, we must focus on the sorrows of the young Obama himself, which can be traced to his campaign strategy. He needs to talk to Democrats about the things Democrats care about. We (i.e., we Amerikuns) are not in a "crisis" on the order of the 1860s that calls for Lincolnesque eloquence and a lofty vision of America the Beautiful. There are things like foreclosures, health care, and the state of public education on the minds of the Democratic voters. Clinton, the Yoda of Wonk, has mastered the art of talking about these things in detail. Tedious, yes. Effective, yes. If the theme of "change" can be co-opted by Clinton, so can the wizardry of wonkism be mastered by the Harvard J.D. 

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So let's pen no more sonnets about the Deluge in the Diner. Pull yourself together and get on with it!

all the pundits fit to post

A sampling of the best and the brightest of the NY Times Op-Ed page reveals that conservative David Brooks is optimistic about Obamamania, while it is left to Gail Collins to introduce notes of caution and realism.

"This is a huge moment. It's one of those times when a movement that seemed ethereal and idealistic became a reality and took on political substance.

And Americans are not going to want to see this stopped. When an African-American man is leading a juggernaut to the White House, do you want to be the one to stand up and say No?

Obama is changing the tone of American liberalism, and maybe American politics, too."

"If Clinton wants to be Franklin (and Eleanor) Roosevelt in this campaign, and John Edwards is channeling Williams Jennings Bryan, Obama is, for all his early opposition to Iraq, the most conservative visionary in the group. Big change is hardly ever accomplished without political warfare. When the red and blue states join together and all Americans of good will march hand-in-hand to a mutually agreed upon destiny, the place they're going to end up would probably look pretty much like now with more health insurance."

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The truth lies somewhere in-between. Obama has shown some ability to "change the topic" of discussion on the Democratic side. His vision is inspirational. On the other hand, his policy positions are not very different from those of his competitors. And the question remains of how he would pursue the trench warfare that would be needed to move a Senate that is still dominated -- through arcane rules -- by Republicans. Does he have the desire and instincts to succeed in this endeavor? ( for example, would he use Executive Orders to bypass legislative stalemates?). Or, does Obama expect Republican Senators to be swept up in his lofty rhetoric, or compelled by their constituents to follow his siren song?

These questions remain unanswered.

american exceptionalism

The victory of "hope" in Iowa is being hailed as a transcendent, feel good moment. And perhaps Obamamania will carry the day against the Clinton apparatus. I can only give two cheers to Mssr. Obama at this point. As an member of the entitled, liberal intelligentsia, I appreciate his brain power, eloquence, and ability to articulate a coherent vision of what America might be. We Americans like to have our cherished ideal-self mirrored back to us. And, as of today, Obama is that mirror. This is cheer #1.

Cheer #2: I like the way Obama navigates the insistent racialist vision. He usually leaves his identity unstated, which forces others to project their racial meanings upon him and his candidacy for president. 

The missing cheer #3: The high blown talk of "uniting". I don't want to "unite" with neocons and bible-thumpers. I share no common cause with these types. Moreover, I have enough Marxist DNA left in me to find that something should be said about "binding" capital to even the weakest notion of the "public good." While Edwards is serving a warmed over, nativist anti-capitalist spiel, there is something in it that is valuable. Populism, preferably the type that doesn't turn into poujadisme, is about all one can expect as a substitute for 'socialism'. Populism is the US equivalent of socialism, framed in the typically petit-bourgeois form of the little guy versus the big bosses. Obama has cast this frame into the dustbin of history, perhaps prematurely. But maybe he is in touch with the Zeitgeist: the "little guy" is fucked no matter what, but compensation can be found in the warm-fuzziness of Being-Together (Dasein-Miteinander for Heideggerians). My third cheer is reserved for the time when Obama reveals some edge, intellectual or rhetorical, that draws a few lines around what can be included in the America that might be.

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Finally, let's cut through the crap of "experience." Like it or not, there's nothing in the U.S. Constitution prescribing that only the most "experienced" (in what?) candidate is "qualified" to be President. Hypothetically, anyone (meeting citizenship requirements) who decides to run for President can become President if s/he gains the most electoral votes. Of course, this lack of substantive criteria has lead to problems (see G. W. Bush). But short of administering a take-home exam, I'm not sure that any candidate has a monopoly on "qualification." Each might claim this, but each one still must convince "the people" that their "qualifications" matter.