The 2008 Race for President and the Search for Our Better Selves

Watching yesterday's Obama rally in Los Angeles featuring Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, Maria Shriver, and Michelle Obama, I was struck by a point that both Michelle Obama and Maria Shriver made but that is rarely discussed during a presidential campaign: the importance of having someone in the Oval Office who can inspire us to tap into the better angels of our nature -- who can stir people to expect more of themselves than they otherwise would.

"The thing I like the best" about Obama, said Shriver, is that "he's not about himself. He's about us... He's about the power of what we can do if we come together." And she quoted from a Hopi Indian prayer: "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

Michelle Obama made a similar point, adding that this "it's about us" dynamic would require all of us to up our game. "[Barack] is ready," she said. "The question is, what are we ready for?... Barack Obama will require that you work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism; that you put down your division; that you come out of your isolation; that you move out of your comfort zones; that you push yourself to be better; and that you engage."

This call echoed something that historian and presidential biographer David McCullough had once said about JFK. "The great thing about Kennedy," he told me, "is that he didn't say I'm going to make it easier for you. He said it's going to be harder. And he wasn't pandering to the less noble side of human nature. He was calling on us to give our best."

I'd interviewed McCullough back in 1999, along with a variety of other political observers, for a column I was doing on the 2000 race and what Americans were looking for in a president.

The consensus opinion, one that crossed party and ideological lines, was that while specific policy proposals and nuts-and-bolts plans are an important part of what a candidate brings to the table, more than anything, people are looking for a leader who can inspire and mobilize them, who can tap into America's latent reserve of idealism.

"A great president," the late Paul Wellstone told me, "is one who successfully calls on all Americans to be their own best selves."

"Every presidential election is a renewal," said McCullough. "Like spring, it brings up all the juices. The people are so tired of contrivance and fabrication and hokum. They really want to be stirred in their spirit. That's when we are at our best. The great presidents are people who caused those who follow them to do more than they thought they were capable of."

"The American people," said Cornel West, "want a statesman who will tell the truth about our collective life together, good and bad, up and down, vices and virtues. That is the ultimate act of respect for the American people."

"What a successful president does," William F. Buckley Jr. told me, "is transcend the usual marketplace collisions. FDR accomplished that, and so did Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. A successful president isn't necessarily one who takes us in a direction I applaud. But he is somebody who does get the country excited about a political purpose."

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin agreed: "We need to get away from a political system that is so filled with minute public opinion polls and focus groups and the ability to know what the electorate is thinking at every moment that the leader loses his instincts for boldness. The job is not simply to reflect current opinion but to challenge it, move it forward and shape it. The ability to just take a stand and know that you can move the country to that stand is a lost art we need to recapture."

Back in '99, I also spoke to Sen. John McCain, who hadn't yet begun his 2000 bid for president. He too focused on "the ability to inspire Americans," and reached back to a defining moment in our history -- JFK's speech proposing the Peace Corps: "Young people were willing to live in a village hut in Africa for years and dig irrigation ditches," said McCain. "Why were they willing to do that? Why were they in fact eager to do that? It's because he inspired them to do it." Almost a decade later, McCain is still talking about sacrifice -- but these days he's thinking less of time spent digging ditches in Africa, and more of blood spilled on the streets of Iraq. Alas.

After the dark, uninspiring -- indeed deeply alienating -- years of the Bush presidency, the feeling that I took away from these conversations resonates even more profoundly today: that it is time we recognize that our search for a great president is also a search for our better selves. Finally, a political litmus test that matters: Which presidential candidate can lead us to do more good than we think we're capable of?

Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff

Comments

[opines]

No appeal to our better angels will succeed as long as the occupation of Iraq continues.

Choosing to end our near-genocidal effort to gain control over Iraq's oil resources is the clarion call necessary to attract better angels.

Once that is achieved, those angels would guide us in ridding the earth of nuclear weapons.

Yes we can.

[nyro]

I am a woman in a very competetive market: the art world in New York. I will tell you that it is as miogynist a place as one can find and I have gutted it out for 30 years. This means that I am of an age that is nowhere near what is generally considered young, sexy and emerging. In the last 6 years I have spent a lot of time meditating on Hillary; watching her take the crap flung at her, damned if she does or doesn't, hearing about her divisiveness as she has gone about the business of being one of the greatest senators of New York state. She has crossed the isle to get things done. Before the Obama phenomena, Hillary was the Democratic rock star who gave her time generously raising money for her Democratic colleagues for years.
She is brilliant capable and politic. She is unflappable. Hillary certainly inspired me personally to hang in and realize it is the work one has to accomplish that is far more important than even the personality or ego that produces it. Her relentless doing of her life long work, in the face of personal attacks, humiliation and knee jerk misogyny has inspired me to just go on, smile as much as I can muster and do my work.
I can honestly say that Hillary has in fact inspired me to be tough and tenacious and true to my better angels and I have a new chapter of a long career to show for it now. Thank you, Hillary. For this reason she has my vote.

[JPaul2008]

I was watching Obama speak yesterday and he said: "America needs us to win." This has been a patern of Obama who seemingly, perhaps understandably, is caught up in the moment of his adoring fans. I'm always concerned when I hear someone suggest that he, and he alone, can change the world. Obama is eight years away from being qualified to be president. He gives great speeches, but presidents give one state of the union speech per year. The rest of the time is spent on understanding policies and how to enact them. He'd make a great appointment to the Supreme Court. I hope Senator Clinton considers him. If Obama is the nominee, against a seasoned war hero with 30 years in Congress, he will look as inexperienced as he is, and we will have missed another opportunity to make the change that Obama truly wants.

[llozano]

We are all in this together. I agree that not since JFK has a President challenged us to work together to solve the many problems and obstacles in our way. I get the feeling that Barak does that in a way the Hilary cannot or will not. What I don't get from Barak is what he is going to challenge us to do and what I get from Hilary is that she thinks she knows what is best for us without having to ask us what we think. If either one of them wants to lead I suggest they take us along for the ride otherwise we'll get another Bush who leads no one and is going nowhere.

[NeverWrong]

The main thing I look for in a President is to teach people about "Personal Responsibiliy", the only thing that Democrats/Liberals seem to have a problem getting a handle on.

[Rockyman]

No doubt inspiration and optimism energize the populace to surmount the many obstacles before us. Yet, I see substantial philosophical issues of what a "compassionate" Democracy should be--to counterbalance the "wink wink" and tax-benefit "that a'boy" to the "haves" and uplifting "hand-down" offered to the "have-nots". The moneyed-class has now unfair influence and is tipping the playing field to their benefit. It is as if they feel "entitled" to take advantage of those less lucky or fortunate. They seem to ooze this sense of "priviledge". It is structural and will need some "dismantling". Who will have the leadership qualities to do that? The hard-working middle-class will find it hard to be inspired and give more. They are trying to sustain a way of life heretofore available to the masses. It will be increasingly difficult for them. We need almost a revolution­ary-thinki­ng if we are to truly energize and mitigate the many perils before us.

[audri]

I think Hillary is no more just out there for herself than her opponent. I think she also will and does demand the best out of all of us.
She does not give speeches from the mountain top, she does not present herself as a later day saint. She is down her with us. She has already been tested by power, she has already tasted extreme power and she has remained herself. She makes no grand claims about who she is. She presents herself as no more than a hard working, dedicated person here to fight for us, here to fight with us.
Voting for a woman president of her caliber is already a move that will bring the best out in all of us. She has already engaged me in a way I have not been engaged in years. She has definitely brought me out of my comfort zone and made me want to once again work for my country. I find her inspiring.

I think it is time for Hillary to respond to the idea that she is the same old same old more aggressively. She needs to stand up there and say that being the first woman president in our country's history is in no way the same old same old. She needs to say that if her candidacy has been called divisive, that perhaps any woman running for president would have the same charge levied against her. She needs to say what a ray of hope having a woman president would be to all the downtrodden woman across the world. She needs to say what a statement having a woman president would make to the rest of the world. How America gives its woman rights, how America respects its women.

[Kungfublood]

Which presidential candidate can lead us to do more good than we think we're capable of? and get air play? none, the answer is none- NONE!
Turn off your TV's and wise up!
Hay! You dopey people did you know that your- hair is on fire and it burns brighter every time you turn on your TV?

[raker]

This irrational Obama love - not for anything substantial but for his "inspirational" qualities - is the ultimate combination of religion and politics, and religion fouls everything it touches.

[twanda]

To use the all popular sports analogy succintly: Hillary Clinton is the Quarterback who will participate and run the Team America game [country]. Barack Obama is the cheerleader who will urge Team America on and make most everyone feel good.

[mamacat]

I prefer to wait until I see some results before bestowing my admiration on an elected official. So far, every single one of the Democratic candidates (before most of them dropped out) would have gotten my vote if they were on the ticket in November. As far as comparing anyone to JFK or MLK or anyone else for that matter, it is just too soon to tell.

In other words, lets not put the horse in front of the buggy. First, a decent, honorable, hardworking, sensible candidate has to be selected. Then, that candidate has to get elected. Then, history will tell who compares favorably to whom.

[BarryChamplain]

Probabaly as good a time as any, to remember what better angels our current president has inspired us to follow, for the past 7-odd years.

After an attack on American soil: "Go shopping".

When confronted with the real-world tragedy of war: "We all got to die sometime".

When challenged by the failures of his own policy: "It's my job to make the tough decisions. It's your job to go about yer business".

(Interestingly, it was right around the time of this last little outburst of petulance, that W's arrogant cowboy act began to slow down a bit; his public behavior and halting, convoluted speech patterns began to descend into a parody of themselves. You know. Like, when someone has been heavily medicated? Possibly, by someone else's decision? I'm just sayin'.)

Anyway, after 7-odd years of this type of uplifting inspiration on our collective psyche, from the leader/daddy of The Greatest Country In The World [tm], please go easy on those of our fellow Americans, who today might fall for for a candidate whose well-crafted platitudes will actually make them feel something again.

[crmr22222]

How sick we are of hearing the comparison of Obama to John F. Kennedy and/or Martin Luther King JR.? It was started by Obama in one of his preachings and these blind fools keep repeating it as though there was an iota of reality to it. He has nowhere near the work experience, life experiences, knowledge or competence of either man!

How about we let Obama practice at being president after Hillary has cleaned up some of the many, huge messes left by Bush/Cheney! Oh yah, Obama’s wife said that ‘if he was not elected now, they would move on to another place and would not run again’…I wonder how deep their convictions go. He is a young man! Makes you think doesn’t it?

And why are the Men in this country content to sit home and take the risk of having another inexperienced, incompetent elected president in this time of so many problems, rather than vote for a Woman? Show some guts man! And don’t worry, you’ll be in the booth alone…None of your macho friends will know it was you…

[jmundstuk]

Well, I'm no dummy and no kid but I find myself convinced by Obama's rhetoric, past actions in his life and in his legislative career, and more importantly, in the turn of mind he shows AT EVERY TURN to become involved in the political process more actively, when the endlessly exaggerated, strident, stupid attitudes of the transitional "activists" leave me cold at best and deeply suspicious of their motives.

As for experience: Clinton has intense experience in policy development/policy wonkishness, lawyering, behind the scenes strategy, handling protocol, and as a hard-working, extremely well-informed legislator. These are not executive skills, folks, as laudable as they may be. From what I see, she will have a tendency to try to micromanage, as did another extremely bright, divisive former president did. (Clue: It's not Bill.)

A president has to be popular before he or she can do anything. Unless I am completely off base, she will never be a popular president, popular enough, with enough approval and, well, permission from we the voters to get her way in the governmental battles that a president fights. TR was right about the "bully pulpit" remark with its reference to religion. You gotta be able to rouse people to follow you.

[blaze]

What a larf,
I have already tapped the better angels of my nature. I have served in the military, I'm a career firefighter, a lifelong musician who gives pleasure to folks, and a spiritual counselor to many. I'm looking for a solid Democrat who can achieve the goals of the party. Most modern Progressives want to shrink the tent to the size of a sleeping bag. Hillary Clinton worked tirelessly for womens' rights and tried to achieve national health when Obama was barely out of college. The conventional wisdom (perpetuated by your site) is that Hillary "blew the opportunity" for national health care. I remember distinctly that at the time 80% of Senators approved the plan. I remember Bob Dole standing on the Senate floor in approval. Then Bill Kristol sent his famous memo to tell Republicans that we can't let Clinton win or the Dems would be in power forever. Then the Harry and Louise ads came out. The only bad thing anyone could say about the plan was that the document was too large. Surely you remember all that hooey as well.
Many Obama supporters are, judging from the many letters I have read here and in other sites, willing to dump the Democratic party if Hillary wins the nomination and cast their vote for John McCain, while Hillary supporters have pledged to back whomever wins the Democratic nomination. Better Angels? Give me a break.