Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio?

First it was mutterings. And then, faint in the background, rumblings. No, not rumblings, sighs. Deep Bergman-esque sighs. Bergman quality, Seventh Seal-ish sighs coming from all sorts of the previously convinced.

Sighs, it seemed, brought on by the disappointment from a dream deferred. The Obama dream that so many dreamt. The dream of discovering something new in politics. Something you could believe in. A candidate who could and would make a difference. A new kind of politician who spoke to you and of you and said what had always been there in your heart waiting for someone to say for you.

All of us in the 21st Century wanting so much to believe in something. Young people, like all young people, deeply suspicious, if not hurt, by the reality of life hypocritical. Things not being what they seem or seemed. Seeking truth, seeking purity amid the imperfection of parents, school, teachers, jobs, politics, America.

The young, the old, the sixties generation who will always be young and will never age, the twentysomethings, the thirtysomethings, men, women, black and white and brown and tan, burned, pimpled, tall, thin, short, broad, athletic, shy, forward, angry, fearful, ambitious, successful, out of work--the America of America--finding and believing in Barack Obama's candidacy.

Drawn to his story. Drawn to his telling of his story. Drawn to the post-racial America that his candidacy represented. When he spoke, he spoke of an America that we all believed in, in a language that was fresh and natural and made sense. He spoke of an America that we always hoped to be able to believe in. An America we believed was there waiting for a candidate, waiting for a President who could help us realize it.

He beat the perennial old white male insider politicians in the primary like a drum. He beat the first credible female Presidential candidate by putting together a new mix of voters: a mix of, well, everyone.

Faced with controversy, a pastor and a church that seemed to be the antithesis of his message, he was forced to make a make or break speech on who he is, who he was, and why we should believe him. A speech explaining in some way why our hopes should not become sighs of a summer's night.

He made that speech. And, in what he said, he won the nomination of his party. He won the Presidency.

But, then he became the presumptive candidate. And, now the candidate. But, his words have changed. His ideas, so new, so fresh, now seem to be what we have heard before. From others. It's as if he has slipped from our fingers and into the hands of the professionals. You know, the guys that can elect anyone. By manipulating the system. By manipulating voting blocs. Hard-eyed pros in thousand dollar suits and state of the art Blackberrys, who go from candidate to candidate, from state to state, with Powerpoint pitches as to why, given their 'experience', candidates should pay them huge fees to guarantee an election.

They seem to be in control. Barack seems to be someone different. We hear it in his hems and haws when unscripted, as he struggles to remember what to say not what he believes. We see it in stage management, and tightly controlled environments and hard edged spokespeople with lock step talking points on the talk shows. In an unseemly discipline of message from the playbook.

Barack gone, Barack lost, Barack controlled and packaged into electable merchandise. Not the dream candidate elevated by our dreams to the nomination. The Barack that was a lock for the Presidency. That Barack.

He was so special and has been manipulated into something so ordinary.

Comments

[ceenik]

Buck up, Michael Jones! Do you want Obama to be President of the United States? If so, you will have to deal with the fact that he's no longer your personal icon--he's talking to a larger audience now.

Why not console yourself by watching Obama's excellent convention speech on YouTube? Perhaps his rhetoric isn't as soaring as you'd like, but the ideas are what many of us are fighting for!

[UUDDLRLRBASelectStart]

Michael, I completely feel the same way you do, and I can pinpoint exactly when I started to feel uneasy about Obama's campaign: When he chose Biden for VP. It was the first time I felt that Obama's decided to do something completely contrary to his message about change and hope. I mean, let's be honest: Before that day, did anyone ever use the words "change" or "hope" to describe Biden?

The "spin" on Biden was that as an experienced insider, he'd help bring about change faster than Obama could on his own as well as provide an honest opinion on matters. But if that was really Obama's need, couldn't Biden have done that more effectively by staying in the Senate or as Obama's Secretary of State?

The brutal truth is that Biden was chosen to attract the blue-collar white vote in swing states such as Pennsylvania. It was a pure political calculation -- the kind of decision that comes from advisors, polling experts and focus groups. It was not visionary type of decision that is Obama's real strength as a candidate.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not crying over spilled milk. Obama can still win with Biden (and quite possibly despite him), and I'm probably more optimistic than you are, Michael, at the moment. But Obama's chances would've been much better had he chosen a VP that really cemented his message of change instead of an archetypal Washington insider such as Biden.

[47th]

Obama will ultimately, be a dissapointment to the real Left.

[blaqntelligence]

ENOUGH!!!

[blaqntelligence]

ENOUGH!!!!!