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
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7.
Back to the endorsements: I know enough about Caroline Kennedy- I saw her father's funeral. She's of my generation, or close to it.
Her support of Obama means something to me. I deeply admire her for her endorsement.
And I remember "Little" Stevie Wonder, from when he was 13 years old, and the hit song that summer was "Fingertips Part 2".
And I remember growing up during Vietnam listening to Joan Baez, who, along with others, was one of the greatest unifiers, through her music and activism, against the Vietnam War. Now she comes forth again, and I tell you, dear HuffPost readers, it makes me cry. That is how serious the times are.
And Michelle Obama has all the grace, beauty and intelligence of Jackie Kennedy, (if not more), to be our new First Lady.
Never underestimate the power of love when it spreads like wildfire. Just go with it. Go with it. It may cure you, or it may break you, but go with it.
It is our best choice: either Hillary or Obama, and then hope the nominee chooses the very best Vice President and the real "best and brightest" for the Cabinet Posts and lesser positions.
Can you imagine if, for example, a year from now, we actually had a White House Press Secretary who was truthful? When is the last time we saw that? As John Lennon sang: "Imagine".
6.
I remember Kent State, when our own National Guard purposely shot down unarmed college students as casually and thoughtlessly and uncompassionately as men shoot deer out here in the so-called "Heartland", which seems more like the "Hateland" these Bush years (I live in a beef-red state).
I read Arianna's excellent, even profound aricle above and am further inspired. Then I read the comments, and some are seemingly from trolls from the Bush side, but even all you Democrats, Ron Paul fans, John Edwards supporters, and Dennis Kucinich believers - you must see that we must stop this bickering, all these putdowns of either Barack OR Hillary- because if we don't, we will be saying "President McCain" a year from now.
"Bomb Iran" is HIS mantra. Is that better than "Hope"?
And why is he called a war hero? Why was he a P.O.W.? Was he not part of the air war against civilians as well as Vietcong and NVA? A killer in an illegal, unjust, undeclared war?
Hero? Not to me. I believe he wants to get elected so as to finally "win Vietnam"; in short, for his own selfish sick psychiatric purpose.
So do you want McCain, or do you want something else?
We must unify. Every bickering and disagreeing comment on this and other such threads is one more point for the hawks, for the Masters of War, for the mega-death corporations. And another point for probably another million or more deaths, maybe even World War Three, maybe even nuclear war, which has come back "on the table", really, for the first time in my lifetime, and in such an arrogant,almost casual way! My God! Have people forgotten what nuclear weapons ARE?
5.
The Republicans speak so much of God, yet all I see is wilful disobedience: to not only the Ten (or six, or whatever) Commandments, but to the recorded words of the very Jesus they claim to worship. Surely, they will be the ones to whom Jesus will say "I never knew ye" if the Second Coming ever really happens (I have no idea, personally).
So- "you may well arsk..." [John Lennon quote]- what's love got to do with it? (Thank you, Tina).
Well, is love of a potential leader who is our best bet available to unite our nation a bad thing? If so, why?
Why not take a chance? Can you not feel the energy that is growing? Nothing like this has happened since JFK. I was young, but I remember. And I remember Vietnam, and every day Bush's war on Iraq continues is like one more day of the horror of Vietnam in my heart and soul; although I was spared having to fight there, it deeply affected my life. I remember Watergate, which brought down Nixon and was so important in ending the war, and I remember how Nixon also lied and lied, as Bush has, only not as much; I remember that there were war crimes and illegal bombings and men saving other men's cut-off ears as souvenirs of their kills, and a door gunner who, when asked how he could shoot women and children, said "It's easy...you just don't LEAD 'em so much." Now, that is so sick, but that was 'Nam then- and it is Iraq now.
4.
I was only ten years old when JFK took office,so memory is limited. But that time was also the era of Lerner and Loewe's great musical "Camelot", with Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, and "Camelot" is one of the most powerful love stories ever written, although historically the tale is accepted as legend, not fact.
In that "one brief shining moment" that was America's "Camelot" time, (the Kennedy Presidency, as we know, was widely compared to Camelot) - the election of JFK was seen as part of a new age of hope and possibilities, and was, essentially, a Camelot-like love affair between the nation and John Kennedy, and a love affair between our country and the only "Princess Diana" we've had in my lifetime, Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who was at that time so young, beautiful, and mysterious, and we called her the "First Lady", but in America's heart of hearts, Jackie was almost our national princess, or even our queen.
Yes,this is silly and sentimental. I'm a dreamer. Yes, love always flies in the face of reason and cold realities.
Yet love, and the unity love can bring, whether in a couple, or a parent and child, or a leader and a country, is the most powerful force in the world.
3.
An old saying tells us: "When a pickpocket looks at a saint, all he sees are his pockets."
That's a proverb from, I believe, ancient India. I am not implying Obama or any other candidate is a saint.
Dostoevski wrote in "Notes from Unerground" that Man should be defined as "ungrateful biped", and I see a lot of that in all these bitter and negative comments.
No one, least of all himself, claims Barack Obama is the perfect man, or could be the perfect president. But it seems, more and more, that there is no other man in the running who can unite us as a nation as much as he can.
I believe he has that mysterious "it" factor that could take him all the way to the White House. I want to take a chance on him.
We revere John F. Kennedy today, but when he was running for President, he was criticized as too young, and criticized as a Catholic. Now, Barack is criticized because some people think he is somehow a Muslim. And what if he was? Anyone ever hear of the separation of church and state we almost used to have, way back when?
I live in a Fundie-land state in the midwest, full of neocon-Christian-Nazi-Republican churches (I call them that), who,in Jesus's name, support this bloodletting in Iraq; and to do that is obscene, and it is blasphemy, and it is supporting war crimes. It is not Christianity. It is, instead, the evil doings of the wolves in sheep's clothing.
The question about Barack should be one that can only be answered, rightly or wrongly, by each person's heart: Is he a good man, or a bad man?
I think he is the best choice we have
2. Just a day or two ago- was it that short a time?-I saw Stevie Wonder, and Barack Obama, and Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle Obama, and Caroline Kennedy, and then Maria Shriver, and was tremendously inspired. It made this old hippie idealist peacenik cry.
Shortly following that, Joan Baez's endorsement came, which alone would have cinched the matter for me.
It is very important to note that most of these mentioned are WOMEN coming out for Barack. Very influential, respected, and loved women. Joan Baez is one of the most respected and loved women on the planet, and with good reason. Her whole life has been about peace, music, love, and helping others. Her endorsement is a very powerful thing, although not everyone knows enough about her to realize why she is loved and admired so much.
So maybe, to some folks, it's an Obamarama or Ophrama party for the latte' set, or whatever you want to call it. So what. The name the phenomonen is called has little to do with the reality.
Call it a love-fest or an hallucination if you wish. Or call it the first new hope for the country in almost eight years of hell.
I am talking about this: "A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest". It's all about what we WANT to see.
1.
"When this bloody war is o-over
No more soldiering for me
When this bloody war is o-over
Oh, how happy I will be."
- soldier's song from World War One, sung to the tune of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus".
Hello HuffPosters, and Arianna of course, thank you for being here. I am going to try and write something that I hope will help. A rather long essay, but no one has to read if if they don't want to. I'm not saying it will help anything, but it's a try, and like all the rest of us here, in our own different ways, I want to try for a solution to solve the mess our country is in.
We must stop the infighting, or we will lose in November. The consequences are far too dangerous- dire beyond imagination, potentially-to let that happen, IF we can prevent it with a united Democratic front.
It is life or death time for the United States of America in a "which direction" sense, and possibly a very real sense.
I read so many posts by Democratic candidate supporters here that are, it seems to me, too often so full of venom, and defeatism, and squabbles among ourselves when really, we need to unite, not further divide. It's as if more than half of this forum is unwittingly working for the Bush and the McCain side.
United we stand, divided we fall. The Republicans will unite, you may be sure of that; they are very good at that, by fair means or, mostly, foul; (at least, compared to Democrats)- and we must change that and unite as much as the Republican side is guaranteed to do. More so, in fact.
I think Senator Obama would make an excellent morale officer. I think Senator Clinton will make a great President. The difference is Obama has a great oratory style and blazing charisma, but Clinton has the brilliance, determination, grit, confidence, shrewdness, experience and connections that make an outstanding leader. Obama has a lot of living to do before he can claim to be in Hillary's league. With all due respect to Caroline and Maria, they have stars in their eyes, which is blinding them to reality.
this is going to be a long night. good luck to all candidates!!! regardless of what each persons vote that was cast was, i wish all the best and *cheers* to all :)
Hillary Clinton has heavy support from the status quo in the global political arena, including many who make up the machine politics of the Democratic Party, those seeking global rule by a few. She cannot, on the other hand, win in the general election. The Clintons basically are not honest people. She does not inspire. She in an incrementalist, a posture which will leave America in the blow back while other countries pass us by. She is a war monger, owned by AIPAC and the military industrial complex and big corporate interests. Her judgment is seriously flawed, she has psychological issues far beyond our understanding. She will be a disaster for this country, what with her sleaze and scandal baggage ahd her absolute lack of vision fit for the new world we find ourselves in at this moment. I won't vote for her. Voting for Hillary Clinton is like voting once more for George Bush.
I don't buy it. The reality is. As bad as many people's lives are. It's the apathy thing again. Obama is everyone's idea that they are actually doing something to bring about change. He's the fairy tale, the savior. Americans can still sit on their big asses and let the savior do all the work. Good luck with that! That's why the poor and middle-class weren't necessarily for Edwards. He spoke the truth and it wasn't pretty. Too real. Too much work. That's why I don't understand why more people aren't going to vote for Hillary. She can actually get things accomplished....duh?
this black man with very little experience is going to inspire the country's white people to do better--get serious, dreamers---this is not Camelot---its greedy ,corporate owned America--run by the powerful white families who will not relinquish their wealth nor position in life to make the ultra liberal fantasy come true---the GOP can't wait to start their hate machines rolling!
I have been hearing so mamy positive feedback from all sources about Obama. They all seem to think he is the one. I know I do.
Gemma
Arianna, tell us who is pulling Obama's strings?
Obama is long on oration and empty on issues.
For a president to inspire "us", how about a candidate/president who speaks about ISSUES and how he will specifically solve problems for real people that the empty suit HOPEbama and his Oprah/Maria Shriver movitvational speakers omit?
HOPEbama supporters are hilariously becoming caricatures of that naked king in THE EMPERORS NEW CLOTHES.
With John Edwards gone, it appears unlikely there will be any real changes in governmentt policy during the next four years. John Edwards’ message was always focused on the crucial issues; healthcare, jobs, education, ending a worthless war which has been responsible for bankrupting and sucking the life blood from the U.S and Iraq. .
There is absolutely no doubt that Warhawkish McCain will be ready to pick up where Cheney/GWBush left off and very likely will expand military operations in the Middle East.
Hillary, inspite of her denials, has been an avid supporter of this inept administration and its failing policies and she is not expected to deviate from that.
My second choice after Edwards is Obama, whom I believe will fulfill his promise and return the country back to the people. If he fails to win the Democratic nomination, you’ll have to contend with the same old status quo, in other words, a Cheney/Bush/Lite Hillary Clinton.
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