Tired of the foregone conclusion that has become Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the press has focused its lights on Sen. Barack Obama, darling of the media and Democrats (not always synonymous) since his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
Last week, the junior senator from Illinois seemed to seal the deal on his nascent presidential campaign with a speech on Iraq to the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs, the intent of which, presumably, was to convince skeptics that he’s no slouch on foreign affairs. No matter. That anyone is even considering Obama as a serious candidate for president is outrageous and silly.
What, exactly, has Obama accomplished that qualifies him to be leader of the free world? Having completed just a third of a single U.S. Senate term, Obama served in the Illinois legislature for seven years. This is not to belittle his accomplishments, for Obama is certainly an accomplished man.
He was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and was, by all accounts, an erudite lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. But a large number of senators and congressmen can claim such public service and locution credentials equal to (or greater) than Obama’s. What is really motivating the Obamamania?
More cynical critics have alleged that it has everything to do with the color of Obama’s skin. That, at least, is the contention of John McWhorter, the country’s most astute thinker on matters of race. In a recent piece for the New York Sun, McWhorter postulated, “Let’s imagine a white guy with all of Mr. Obama’s pluses: crinkly smile, sincere concern for the little man, fine speech a couple of years ago about bringing the nation together, a certain charisma, wrote a touching autobiography.
Let’s call him Barrett O’Leary.” Now, would Barrett O’Leary attract all the attention that a certain Illinois senator with a less pedestrian name has attracted? It’s a question that need not be asked. Yet to credit all of the excitement surrounding Obama to his skin color ignores his very real abilities and the fact that he is a promising leader with undeniable leadership potential. But those are the key words: promise and potential.
Obama’s presidential ambition seems to be based on political instinct and little else. This is not unusual in presidential aspirants, but it ought to be pointed out to those jumping onto the Obama bandwagon that their man’s motives are not exclusively altruistic, as everything about Obama supposedly is. His reasoning, not unsound, is that if he does not run for president now he would have to wait eight years, at which point the Obama brand would no longer have the cachet it enjoys.
In the event (however unlikely) that Clinton wins in 2008 and does not do anything so disastrous as to warrant her foregoing re-election, aspiring Democrats would not be able to run for president until 2016. It would be nice if our politicians predicated their decision-making on what is best for the country and not what is best for them personally, but in this respect, Obama is no different from his peers.
I have seen Obama in action (covering his visit to South Africa in August) and he is even more charismatic a figure in person. He is sincere and thoughtful. But it takes a lot more than sincerity and thoughtfulness to be president of the United States. That Obama has gained such serious attention as a presidential contender demonstrates that American political life has become little more a personality contest (as the poll released this week showing Obama as the country’s second most popular politician attests).
Elections are a celebrity circuit in which our leaders put on performances to win over a voting public of political theatergoers; American Idol with trite sound bites instead of pop songs. With no offense to Sen. Obama (he is ahandsome man), whoever it was that said “politics is Hollywood for ugly people” was onto something.
The desire to be president consists of qualities both virtuous and vain. In the case of Sen. Obama, the brew is just as much composed of the latter ingredient as the former, if not more so. To be certain, these characteristics do not apply to every president; our current leader appears to have been motivated by neither virtue nor vanity and in the words of one biographer, rather “ambled into history.” But just because an unhealthy political phenomenon exists does not mean that the electorate must so shamelessly indulge it every four years.
James Kirchick is assistant to the editor in chief of The New Republic.
