Will Super Tuesday be transformational and “get America going again” (in the words of John F. Kennedy)?
The conventional wisdom of the moment among political pundits is that Americans are crying for change. Voters are fed up and disappointed and want to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and feel that the President they choose to rule the world is honest, ethical and moral.
Most of this hope is reposed in Barack Obama. His uprightness, appeal to the high road of ideals, flights of poetry and personal charisma are being compared with JFK. Especially so, after endorsements from Caroline Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, the elder statesman.
In this moment, Barack seems also to appeal to young people, in whose nature often plays the desire to better the world. Then they reach middle age and their early high mindedness often crumbles under the pressures of bills and taxes, and having to safely raise their children and save for retirement.
Robert Kennedy’s children provided the counterpoint by saying that a President should be able to win fistfights. The Kennedy family has diametrically-opposite points of view and as such mirrors the conflicted feelings of voters. Most dislike George Bush but are unable to decide whether they would like to see a little bit of him in the new President.
Those who want a hint of Bush might go for Hilary Clinton and those who want even more of him might settle for John McCain. Mitt Romney may get those who worry more about the economy than Iraq or foreign policy.
This is a cliff hanger but not yet transformational. It will be transformational when Obama gets elected President in November but almost nobody outside America expects that to happen.
So low is trust in America’s generosity of spirit because of the Bush years most believe that between a white woman and a black man, American voters will choose
the white woman; and between a woman and a conservative white man, they will choose the man.
The behavior and choices of American voters have not done much to reassure non-Americans since JFK’s election. They have consistently chosen the person with the most glib talk and sound bites, and with narrow views limited to making them richer and keeping the country dominant.
The ultimate step in this line of thinking was Bush’s election in 2004 despite the well known lies, dirty tricks and arm twisting of his campaign. The harsh divisions that happened subsequently to America and the world because of US policy were not Bush’s fault but that of US voters. Bush was clear and never hid what he intended to do. The voters behaved in a confused and perhaps wishful manner seeing nobility and good purpose where there was little.
Who among Obama, Clinton, McCain and Romney has nobility and good purpose for both Americans and the world? Who will have the guts and clarity to fight the good fights on a suffering planet riven by profound disputes ranging from climate change, uncontrolled financial speculation and the rise of Russia and China?
It is worth considering that we may be driving ourselves into spasms of self-serving excitement simply because of the extraordinary spectacle of a black man and a woman competing to be the President. This uplifts us because of color and gender.
But those should not be the issues at all. It is character that should be uplifting, not the unusual nature of the battle. In any case, are Obama’s niceness and lofty words signs of character? Or is Hillary’s readiness to roll in the dirt to win a fight, character?
On the Republican side, is a man over 70 and formed by a war 30 years ago really capable of understanding the aspirations and necessities of today’s America and today’s world? On the other hand, is a millionaire businessman from a Christian cult suited to handling the divisiveness of domestic and international politics, and the terror sown by a tiny Islamic cult?
These candidates are not transformational and can never be so because they are just individuals. The transformation, if it occurs, will come from the people who vote on Super Tuesday and later.
Undoubtedly, there is need for transformation. But the debate has yet to begin about the direction of the transformation and how it can solve the concrete economic, social and military problems of the US and world. For the moment, there is confusion about transformation. That has brought us to a cliff hanger.