Now we come to it: the real fight for Obama in the harsh light of day. What Obama is up against is essentially the jeering section of the national lunatic asylum. What America is up against is the very real possibility that this jeering section will out shout the rest of us. Beware lest we let them sneer us into oblivion.
The battle lines of the contest for the Democratic Party nomination and the White House are clear. Strip away the euphemisms and we see that the choice before us is not a choice between various candidates and various positions but a choice of historic magnitude about the character of America.
Before saying more let me say that I am an optimist. I believe that Obama will be our next president because his support comes from a widely diverse group of people, from some like me -- a white middle class 55-year-old lifelong Republican, now reregistered as an independent -- to traditional Democrats, blacks, young people, women and men of all races and beliefs. We are united in our hope for a better future. I believe that our disparate group of individuals outnumber those firmly stuck in the past. We will win if we hang tough together and tell the truth.
At the core of the Obama candidacy is the belief that freethinking openhearted people in America outnumber cretins, racists, the willfully ignorant, the gleefully hate-filled, the small minded, the backward looking, jingoistic morons, the frightened, the addicts of brain-wrecking soundbites, and above all those stuck in a pattern of thinking that leads inevitably to shrunken horizons.
What are the spoken "arguments" against Obama? He doesn't wear a flag pin... His minister said harsh things... The blue collar vote don't all like him... In the words of the inimitable George Stephanopoulos; Obama can't say for sure if his minister is as patriotic as he is...
Since these banalities can't possibly explain why there is even a discussion about the choice between Obama and the Clinton hack machine what's really going on?
Here are the real reasons that the Democratic Party has not yet embraced Obama overwhelmingly:
1) This country has a racist streak running through it that is well entrenched in both parties.
2) We include amongst us an undereducated geographically ignorant nation-within-a-nation who are afraid of the world outside of our borders, terrified by the eternal "other," that perpetual "threat" that takes new forms but never changes -- from the late Saddam Hussein to the last Mexican to crawl over the border.
Clinton and McCain cater to those with a bad case of paranoia. Obama does not.
Combine the latent racism that the Clintons so handily embrace when they euphemistically describe the "blue collar" vote as unwinnable for Obama, with the willful ignorance of too many Americans about the world, and the idea of voting for a well-educated, worldly wise, kind, openhearted, unafraid, urbane, hard-to-ruffle, charismatic black man is a scary proposition. He just isn't scared enough! He just isn't keeping his place! He is just too decent! He's just to sane to be "one of us!"
In Obama we have a choice that will set the stage for the foreseeable American future. On the one hand Obama faces McCain; the aging war making enthusiast, the next "prophet" of American exceptionalism, a true believer in military sacrifice as the highest value, even sacrifice for "victory" in unwinnable wars. On the other hand Obama is trying to overcome the perpetually ambitious Clinton machine, fastened to his ankle like a rabid dog, unable to bring him down but very able to distract and draw blood.
Here are the actual choices:
Obama or war without end.
Obama or ambition without moral boundaries without end.
The Clinton/McCain partisans will never say it but they are counting on the worst in the American character in order to "win." Without the support of the racists, the stupid, the undereducated and the perpetually paranoid neither McCain nor Clinton stands a chance. They count on the worst in our national character in the same way that oncologists count on new cases of cancer -- pay lip service is to the cure, but thank God for the sickness! (And by the way the Clinton canard that the blue collar vote is un-winnable for Obama is an insult to most working people.)
This election is a moral test of our national character. If we fail this test, if we allow the mainstream media to derail the process with their insanely tawdry, lowest common denominator soundbites, if we allow the Clintons thinly veiled "I'm more electable" (e.g., more white!) racism to triumph, or worse yet, if we vote for the perpetuation of four (and perhaps eight) more years of the Bush regime reincarnated as McCain, we will have not only turned the clock back but slammed the door on the best chance our country has been given in generations.
It is no accident that the rest of the world is so incredibly interested in this year's American election. Obama is liked (actually loved) all over the world. What an incredible opportunity for us to elect someone who brings such a favorable worldwide standing with him to day one of his presidency. How do we really make America safer? For a start, put a president in charge who is liked and respected and who changes the way others see us for the better.
It is up to those of us who support Obama to fight like hell and make sure that we do not become infected by the insidious despair inherent in the arguments made by the Clintons about who is "electable," or by the Republicans, whose bellicose rhetoric presupposes that America will be hated forever.
Which line would you rather be standing in; a line leading to a future where America is liked and respected again, where our president represents the best about us, or the line back to a world where we are disrespected hated and, moreover, hate ourselves?
Let's state our case openly. Let's trust most of our fellow Americans to rise to the occasion. The choice is clear. The time for euphemisms is past. Let's confront our worst national faults head on. This year's contest for the presidency is between all that is worst about America and all that is greatest.
I believe in America. I believe in Obama. If we hang in there we will win.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back"
Posted April 27, 2008 | 11:56 PM (EST)