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Room for a leap of faith
I have decided to support Sen. Barack Obama for president for this reason: Of the three candidates, Obama is the only one who gives the citizens of this country room to take a leap of faith.
Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain are running campaigns for the single purpose of getting elected. I believe that, once elected, whatever I might have liked about the campaign picture they may have painted for America in 2009-12 will disappear like runoff after a heavy rain, and there will remain the status quo. The people can count on that. It is a conviction I cannot shake.
I have no such conviction about Barack Obama. His talk is mostly to the people, and not to the other candidates. His famous race relations speech, after the other candidates attacked his relationship to his controversial minister, transcended not only the candidates’ attacks, but the candidates, the campaign, and politics itself. In that 45 minutes, Obama laid before a national audience a simple depth of thought and understanding that is not obtainable by Clinton or McCain.
Last week Obama was talking to people again, wealthy voters at a fundraiser in San Francisco, who asked him for some background on Pennsylvania voters in advance of that state’s April 22 primary. He said, “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the
Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
He obviously did not make those remarks in hopes they would win over those embittered people. He seemed to be making a general statement about conditions on the ground for any people in trouble who in anger and desperation go to ground and cling to principles they know are true. At a very simplified level, it’s called “sticking to your guns.” It’s like people embittered by the excesses of the Bush administration clinging to the Constitution, a desperation with which many of us are familiar.
Because of the remarks, Obama’s candidacy is under attack by the other candidates. I am convinced this is politics as usual, candidates running campaigns for the purpose of getting elected, with no real concern for Americans whom they insist Obama has insulted. There is evidence that, given a few days to think about it, Obama could make a 45-minute presentation about Pennsylvanians in desperation that would transcend politics. I would love to see that happen, just to see what effect such a presentation would have on the Pennsylvania vote on April 22.
For that quality of depth, in the entrenched shallowness of politics, I am ready to trust Obama’s vision. I am betting on his ability and willingness to change the status quo in
America in the years 2009-12. In what ways? I don’t know. My support of Obama is a leap of faith, a roll of the dice. But he is the only one who gives me a chance to roll. That, I am convinced, is a lesser gamble than backing either of the other two.
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15 Responses to “Room for a leap of faith”
In my opinion, the United States of America (and its allies) will be far worse-off if Sen. Obama is elected President.
Senator Obama cannot give the same kind of speech about poor whites in PA because he will not be able to play the race card to get the media to shut up. He has already thrown his grandmother under the bus to get elected. I wonder which white relative he can slam in order to make people happy this time.
And the crazies come out to comment.
If I hear the phrase “thrown under the bus” one more time I'm going to burn my BBQ! Ya know, there's a bit more meat to the so-called “Bittergate” than that weird-o comment you just made superdestroyer:
I wonder which white relative he can slam in order to make people happy this time.
C'mon. I don't see a litany of white relatives coming out and saying they feel betrayed. Puh-leeze.
Michael, I am glad you decided to support Obama. I do disagree with one thing.
His making a speech.
My husband and I were talking yesterday. The answer for the twisting of what Obama said by all the pundits is to make a speech. We wondered if in someway they have been looking for some small thing to play molehill politics and blow things up. Just so they can have Obama give another speech.
All summer they complained he was not any fun anymore because he was doing these small backyard q and a sessions. They complained he was boring. It was not until the Iowa JJ dinner that the press came alive over his speech.
The press is addicted.
obama talks to people like adults and doesn't pander. His speeches are things of beauty. But, they must be done as desert and not become common. They lose their meaning.
Obama has not been damaged by this molehill politics game. Most people are ignoring it as they, like Obama, are sick of Clintonian politics and the predictable slash and burn games they all play. The people have moved on even if the gop, the Clintons and the press are still stuck in 90s.
And why, Holly, do you think so. You did not say.
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Michael Grant's post is very interesting.
I was fascinated by the religious/spiritual aspect of it — the Kirkegaardian “leap of faith” — which seems characteristic of many supporters of Obama.
Now it is one thing to have a leap of faith for a deity who is silent . . . and another for a politician. Perhaps it is necessary to leap into the unknown with Obama, since little is known about him…in contrast to HRC or McCain, who both have extensive paper trails.
I support HRC…but I am a pretty cynical character, and hence my support is not personal . . . it is business. I admire her pluck, but find other aspects of her character very unappealing. Her platform is probably the best of the three, in general I think.
What is fascinating to me about the Obama appeal is how deeply personal it is for many . . . almost religious . . . despite these people being often secular liberals.
Obama seems to have touched something in a lot of people.
It would be nice if other folks here — like Holly or T-Steel — could write posts describing why they favour one or another candidate in such a way as Michael has.
Not to start a Flame War…but as a matter of interest.
I'm sorry but that must be the two dumbest lead in paragraphs for supporting a candidate I've ever read. Not that I don't support you decision, but, for instance i can think of candidates that would require much greater leaps of faith.
And I'll check back when I find out why Obama's running, now that I know it's not to actually get elected.
Interesting take you have.
temple
Well Marlowecan, I wish I could find it in me to write about a candidate as Michael Grant has but I can't. My disdain for the two-party system has risen in me like a vengeance so it's difficult to write without sounding like a shrill loon railing against the two parties. I do kind of hope Senator Obama wins the presidency simply because I'm a black man, he's a black man, and it's history. But that isn't enough for me to join his side. I've definitely cooled off concerning my political interest.
All that being said, I have no problem pointing out the BS candidates engage in and praising them when they strike “gold”
Interesting how diffently people interpret what 'leap of faith' means.
When you consider that this country was founded by a leap of faith, a decision by a group of men of different beliefs and philosophies , to create something new, you begin to understand the power that such a decision can have.
People may vote for Obama, or not vote for him for different reasons, but once again, many of those who support him are looking to create something new, a new direction.
The faith that's required for such a leap need not be blind faith, not at all.
The Founding Fathers didn't write the Consitution without a great deal of thought ,deliberation and debate. Likewise, Obama 's ability to fulfill the hopes is now being thought over, deliberated upon and debated. The leap of faith will happen in the voting booth.
I just want to say that, though the reasons may be as varied as snowflakes,, every candidate thinks he will do something good for the country. The burdens of the preisency are so heavy, few would seek the job just for the glory alone. It's up to us to judge if what the candidate wants to do for the ocuntry is what we want done.
AS there is no assurance that our dudgment will turn out to be corrrect, you can say that every vote is a leap of faith.
I understand and somewhat agree with runasim taking issue with the criticism of 'leap of faith', and yet I can't help but see elements of the blind type of faith in MG's post. Take, for example, the second paragraph. On what evidence can we say that Clinton and McCain are 'running to get elected' but Obama is not? Doesn't one have to ignore evidence that Obama is doing the same; evidence such as the NAFTA flap where we learned that what he is telling voters is different from the messages he's sending to foreign leaders? Or evidence like his associations with some of Chicago's shady characters (which I'm sure is a requirement for any politician there, but still has an element of selling out instead of being the idealist who cares more about principles than getting elected.)
And then in MG's analysis of Obama's 'small town bitterness' comments, he seems to look on the remarks favorably- presumably because he thinks Obama was speaking some hard truths. But what did the comments actually convey, if not a call for people to have a religious type of faith in their government? The comments pointed out reasons that people distrust government, yet he offered no concrete reasons to think that he'd usher in new policies that will raise the economic conditions in those towns- he only offered that people should have faith.
That's not, as runasim suggests, the kind of faith that our founding fathers asked the citizens to have. In fact they knew that the people should be quite skeptical about the powers of government, and should keep it on a short leash. What they asked people to have faith in was that they could create a constrained system with checks and balances so that the people could have maximum potential to take care of their own affairs without government interference.
CStanley,
I'm glad that we can agree on some points, but you depart quite far from the meaning of my comment.
Quote: “But what did the comments actually convey, if not a call for people to have a religious type of faith in their government? “
You have to stretch very far, too far, to get that kind of meaning from Obama's words. There is a night-and-day difference between religious faith and the expectation that the government will act in the interests of its citizens and will keep its word to them.
Similarly, there is an equally vast difference between being sceptical about the government's intentions and banning it from the arena of conducting civil affairs.
Scepticism about all things is healthy, including business interests, religious instituions, grass roots movements (lynchings were grass roots efforts) – everything. Undue scepticism can bring a society to a screeching halt, unable to move in any direction, because everything seems suspicious.
And btw, when referring to the FF in the context of a specific issue, not their collaboative product of the Constituion, we should really be aware of which FF we are talking about., as there was wide disagreement.. What strikes me is how aware they were that they couldn't predict conditions in the future, nor how people would relate to the government.
Well, perhaps I didn't spell out the steps that led me to that conclusion (which you say is a far stretch.)
Here's what I mean….Obama was pointing out that people are cynical about politicians promising to give them better economic conditions and then failing to deliver. He's correct, I think, on that point.
He's pointing out also that the cynicism leads them to give up, and that while that's understandable, it also isn't healthy or helpful.
OK, I'm with him there too, to an extent (though it's also partially an argument for conservativism- that the promises of politicians are often empty ones because the economy isn't nearly as controllable as they'd like to pretend it is.)
But in asking people to try to put their cynicism aside, if he doesn't give them any evidence that he will be able to deliver on his promises, then he really is asking for a religious type of faith. I will concede that he wasn't speaking to that target audience at the time, but in his follow up explanations for what he meant by the comments, I didn't hear anything that explained why people should put more trust in him than in his predecessors. Why should they give big government a chance this time around?
CStamley-
I don't even see why you're bringing 'big government' ino this in the first place. Did Obama say that the government would solve all their problems? There are lots of ways to stimulate an economy, and a governmental role is only one aspect. He did refer to specific promises that were made in the past that remain unrealized to this day, but that's legitimate.
Big government, states' rights, no taxes – those are all conservative formulaic responses in every situation, it sems to me. . That approach doesn't work for me. The world is too comples to reduce every situation to such elemental, and thus simplistic, terms.
I don;t start with having the answer before I've examined the problem. I don't call for a big government or a small government. I want the right size governemtn to fulfill its obligations.
I'm looking for balance, but you start at one end of the spectrum and stay there, so regretfully, we will not meet.
What has all this to do with Obama, anyway? The way I see it, he is more about cleaning up the process than arriving at specific, as opposed to general, end goals. A primary goal is dislodging special interests. which would lead to deliberations on the principles and paragmatism of legislation, not on how well the legislation would pay off one or another group's interests.
I'm sorry, but your concern about big government has no relevance here, from my perspective.