THE DIFFERENCE IS WHY

"I've been asked repeatedly by close followers of US politics if it can really be true that Barack Obama might not win."

I recently read an article at the Times Online by Gerard Baker that is an attempt to explain American politics and in particular Senator Obama for European readers. He previously explained why racism is not the issue that many in Europe seem to believe (there is a sad hypocritical myth in Europe that the US is a hotbed of rampant hatred and racism). This one tries to explain to Europeans why Senator Obama doesn't appeal to US voters like he does to European ones.

He starts by laying out some reasons why Obama isn't doing better than many Europeans think he should, such as the conflict between those who are "the followers of American exceptionalism and the supporters of global universalism." For many Europeans the ideals of patriotism and belief that your country is probably better than others is simply backward and gauche, it is uncivilized, unenlightened. Thus, Senator Obama's statements and actions moving away from such a position are attractive to Europeans. Not so to Americans.

Yet his main point is not the cultural divide it is that Senator Obama doesn't live up to his speeches. In soaring, flaweless rhetoric, Senator Obama makes speeches that sway his listeners with all sorts of vague concepts of reform, unity, and moving away from the party divide. Hope and Change, he repeats, in a glowing and airy sort of transcendent call for something better, which he promises he represents and will bring. Yet in practice, Senator Obama has not done any of these things; in fact, he's been the opposite:

Speechmaker Obama has built his campaign on the promise of reform, the need to change the culture of American political life, to take on the special interests that undermine government's effectiveness and erode trust in the system itself,

Politician Obama rose through a Chicago machine that is notoriously the most corrupt in the country. As David Freddoso writes in a brilliantly cogent and measured book, The Case Against Barack Obama, the angel of deliverance from the old politics functioned like an old-time Democratic pol in Illinois. He refused repeatedly to side with those lonely voices that sought to challenge the old corrupt ways of the ruling party.

Speechmaker Obama talks about an era of bipartisanship, He speaks powerfully about the destructive politics of red and blue states.

Politician Obama has toed his party's line more reliably than almost any other Democrat in US politics. He has a near-perfect record of voting with his side. He has the most solidly left-wing voting history in the Senate. His one act of bipartisanship, a transparency bill co-sponsored with a Republican senator, was backed by everybody on both sides of the aisle. He has never challenged his party's line on any issue of substance.

Speechmaker Obama talks a lot about finding ways to move beyond the bloody battlegrounds of the “culture wars” in America; the urgent need to establish consensus on the emotive issue of abortion.

Politician Obama's support for abortion rights is the most extreme of any Democratic senator. In the Illinois legislature he refused to join Democrats and Republicans in supporting a Bill that would require doctors to provide medical care for babies who survived abortions. No one in the Senate - not the arch feminist Hillary Clinton nor the superliberal Edward Kennedy - opposed this same humane measure.

Here's the real problem with Mr Obama: the jarring gap between his promises of change and his status quo performance. There are just too many contradictions between the eloquent poetry of the man's stirring rhetoric and the dull, familiar prose of his political record.

In practice, Senator Obama doesn't live up to what he promises to bring to Washington DC. That doesn't necessarily mean that he won't change and actually try to do what he promises, but it does indicate why he's not running on his record and accomplishments - such as they are. Even the little executive experience he got running the Chicago Annenburg Challenge he's not mentioned and he's avoided discussing (largely because of the closeness of his work in it with unrepentant terrorist and anti-American radical Bill Ayers as well as its near total failure to accomplish its goals, despite millions of dollars spent).

When Senator Obama runs for president on a platform of change, uniting divided America, fighting corruption, and so on, it's hard to trust the man based on his past behavior. Making nice speeches once in a while and posing dramatically isn't enough to do the job.

Strangely enough, Senator McCain and Governor Palin actually have accomplished some of these goals, in their past activities. Whether either team can even attempt such changes at the federal level as president is another matter entirely. And in a certain sense, a President Obama would be far better positioned to bring healing and unity to the US than a President McCain. Not because of anything particular about Senator Obama, but because of the inevitable reaction to a McCain victory.

When I pick up my handy Sears crystal ball I see Senator McCain winning the presidency this election. When he does, I also see some riots in some cities, I see constant cries of racism by the press and various pundits, I see cries of disenfranchisement. I see special documentaries, newspaper series, and TV specials on how blacks were kept from the voting booths, how voting machines were manipulated. I see books and talkshows, and I sigh.

Because no matter what happens, no matter how he wins, the left will instantly cry foul and fraud at Senator McCain. They will never admit that he could have simply won, no it has to have been some gigantic conspiracy, a vast effort by the right wing corruption machine to fix the election. Even if they don't believe a word of it, following Saul Alinsky's advice, they'll lie and cry moral superiority, because they believe that's how to get their power back. And the damage it does to America and the voters? Well they can fix it all when they get their rightful position of being in charge again, because they're enlightened and know best.

So in a sense, a president McCain would be much more challenged to bring unity and healing to the nation, because of the reaction to his election. Because for eight long sad years, it's been the screaming, lunatic left that's causedthe divide and damage to the nation, and they'd do it even more if they don't get their way, like a tantrum-throwing toddler.

For these folks, Senator Obama's actions and his speeches being opposed isn't a flaw, it's a feature: fool the rubes in flyover country and do the right thing in office, that's what they want to see. He's not bipartisan? Well good, because Republicans aren't just wrong or mistaken, they're evil and destructive. Whatever it takes to get power, that's all that matters. And the nation can pay whatever price to get there, in this corrupt worldview.

Senator Obama, Europe, Politics