Received wisdom is that Obama will face his biggest challenges from the left. With that in mind it’s worth watching this week’s Bill Moyers Journal. His guests include Thomas Frank, David Sirota, Patricia Williams and Melissa Harris-Lacewell. From much to quote, I choose Princeton’s Harris-Lacewell:
One of the images I’ve been using as we’ve been going around the country trying to place the King holiday in the context of a new Obama era is I’ve been using the image, iconic image of…Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson together in the White House. And I say to people, okay, where’s — if you can superimpose Barack Obama’s face onto one of these two characters, onto whose face would you project it? And most people say, “Oh, well, King.” And I say, “No, no, no, no. Barack Obama’s LBJ in this picture.”
We’ve elected him to the U.S. presidency. So the missing image is who will play the role of King? Because, in fact, the president needs Kings. I actually think it’s plural. It’s not a single King.
I certainly agree. And one of them must be gay. Harris-Lacewell may believe so too.
Marriage equality is among the three items she lists as most important for Obama to address. (Gulf Coast recovery — in which she lumps racial injustice, housing, and the environment — and healthcare are the other two.)
And here’s how she thinks he’s going to do it:
What Barack Obama is going to, in these early years [is build a] consensus that will leave him some room to do the very basic civil rights work that we care about. My bet is that [what] we’re looking at really is the 2010 election. The issue is whether or not he’s going to hold this Congress.
So this Democratic majority in the Congress, if he loses it in the way that Bill Clinton did in his first term, then he is in a situation of consistently fighting. If, however, he’s able to build enough goodwill, keep his coattails long enough to keep Democrats in office into the 2010, redraw the districts after the 2010 census, then we have a president who can become the voting rights president. But my bet is it does not happen in ’09. It happens late 2010.
Looking at Obama’s political history it becomes clear that he has the kind of long-term outlook, steely determination, political savvy and astounding self-confidence to think in that way. And pull it off.