Obama is the way to go
So I was poking around my computer earlier today and I happened to notice that it was 10:00 AM Central time, exactly the time that Barack Obama was planning to announce his plans for pursuing the Presidency.
I made my way over to his site and saw that the speech was being streamed live, so I watched it. And I’m a little uncertain about what I’ve seen.
Obama has a wonderful vision for our future–the kind of vision that people will be willing to give their votes for. To create a better tomorrow usually involves some amount of getting to work today, and politics aside, Obama is the kind of leader that has the ability to inspire our nation to work together to achieve unarguably great things. (By unarguably I’m referring to goals that people on both ends of the spectrum have, like ending poverty or hunger, rather than partisan-driven goals).
I’m an English major, so one of my main tasks at school these past few years has been to study rhetoric. It was clear for me listening to this speech that Obama is saying all the right things, in a way that rings more true than any politician I’ve heard before. His communication with us is similar to that of the speeches of MLK Jr. and Abraham Lincoln, and given the political climate lately, it’s refreshing to hear. True political leaders unite the people they lead, and it seems that Barack will be able to motivate us to work toward achieving common goals more than any other Democratic candadite.
The greatest sign of this, for me, was in some of the rhetoric that he chose to use in describing how we will move forward. Take these few sentences:
“I know there are those who don’t believe we can do all these things. I understand the skepticism. After all, every four years, candidates from both parties make similar promises, and I expect this year will be no different. All of us running for president will travel around the country offering ten-point plans and making grand speeches; all of us will trumpet those qualities we believe make us uniquely qualified to lead the country. But too many times, after the election is over, and the confetti is swept away, all those promises fade from memory, and the lobbyists and the special interests move in, and people turn away, disappointed as before, left to struggle on their own.
That is why this campaign can’t only be about me. It must be about us - it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice - to push us forward when we’re doing right, and to let us know when we’re not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.”
In this statement he has taken three incredibly powerful steps: he has shined a light onto a failing that candidates usually keep in the dark once they’ve reached office. He has implicitly promised to not follow in their footsteps. But most importantly, he has shifted the responsibility–and the reward– onto us, the American people, where it belongs. (After all, no matter how disillusioned I am with our current President, I cannot deny that he is the man who our nation chose to lead us–twice).
There’s something about Obama’s words that move me really deeply, in a way that I’ve never encountered in listening to any other politician. Sure, Obama could be lying. He could be a manipulative hack; our nation has been burned by far too many aspiring politicians for us to be capable of implicitly trusting one. But there’s something about Obama’s message that he is in this race “not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation,” that just rings true to me.
People will cite Obama’s lack of experience as a reason that he should not be considered as a presidential candidate. This is a fair point, and part of me agrees with it. But given the climate in Washington lately, I wonder what more “experience” in Washington would really mean. If we’re working with a clearly broken and ineffective Congress, do we want to favor leaders who are more firmly entrenched in the corrupted system? Do we want leaders who are more adept at settling for what is?
There is a newness and a freshness to Obama’s passion that more “experience” may slowly drain away, after he has a few more years of being subjected to lobbyists and special interest groups. If we as a nation are committed to changing our government, maybe we need someone who hasn’t adapted to Washington. Maybe the time for Obama is now.