Forget telephones and tax returns and monsters; forget Geraldine and Jeremiah. Forget Superdelegates and pundits and Pennsylvanian demographics. State by state, and vote by vote, it's still a question of belief.
"I'll do whatever he says to do," said Oscar winner Halle Berry of Barack Obama. "I'll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear." As an Englishman trying to get a handle on the nature of "Obamamania", I try to imagine Kate Winslet saying the same thing about Gordon Brown. Actually I try to imagine anyone saying that about Gordon Brown. It's not easy.
In this parallel world that seems to exist somewhere between a movie set and a Bible story, the road to the White House is blocked, not by John McCain and the Republicans, but by paper cups!? The path of the mighty is strewn with the off-casts of a trip to Starbucks? While presuming that there's some irony at play here, the comment was nonetheless a curiously fitting characterization of the fanaticism of Obama's support, encapsulating both its breathless, quasi-religious excitement, and its inherent problems.
Supporting an intelligent and articulate Senator from Illinois is, of course, not some kind of cultish mass-delusion, but nor is the evangelical zeal of his supporters a spontaneous or inexplicable phenomenon. It has been created deliberately, systematically, and very successfully. The Obama campaign uses a religious calling as its central rhetorical trope. "I'm asking you to believe" reads the banner across the top of barackobama.com; his appeal to voters is an archetype of religious conversion: "At some point in the evening, a light is going to shine down and you will have an epiphany and you'll say, 'I have to vote for Barack'"; instead of being asked for support, Americans are exhorted to "join the movement".
In Georgia, he directly equated his supporters with God's people: "God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city... and when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down." Later in the speech he asked the congregation to "walk with me, march with me... and if enough of our voices join together, we can bring those walls tumbling down."
Now, if Senator Obama's people resemble God's people, I can't help noticing what that logic makes the junior senator from Illinois. This is not an entirely flippant observation, because it focuses us on the way in which his campaign centred entirely on the figure of Barack Obama himself - his appeal and his personality, his extraordinary ability to give an electrifying speech, his charisma, his much vaunted "ability to inspire". But to call this politics of personality a "movement" is a masterstroke of obfuscation.
It's a term usually reserved for the great unarguable strides humanity has made towards freedom, civil rights, and equality; and nobody wants to be on the wrong side of a "movement" like those; in the Obama campaign, however, it is a term used to disguise the fault lines in his candidacy. His lack of legislative and executive experience is declared to be his strength (he is not a "Washington insider", he is "new"); a George W Bush-like campaign based on personality rather than proven ability is packaged as "change you can believe in". More importantly, it suggests that Hillary Clinton is an impediment to progress, rather than the only candidate fighting for the Democratic ideal of universal health care.
Ironically, and this is the important point in seeing how the "movement" could have turned negative in recent weeks, the Obama campaign has taken the logic of the religious and republican right - "you're either with us or against us" - and created its Democratic alter ego. Obama has created the impression that Clinton supporters, like the Pharisees in the temple, are obstacles to change: "I want to speak directly to all those Americans who have yet to join this movement but still hunger for change. They know it in their gut... But they're afraid. They've been taught to be cynical." It's not an argument for better government, it's an exhortation to see the light; it's not a plan for the Presidency, but a leap of faith.
This idea came to a head in Obama's Super Tuesday speech, with those much talked about phrases: "We are the change that we seek... We are the ones we've been waiting for". This marked a new level of discourse, and lots of bloggers and journalists wrote warily about its "cultish" or "messianic" feel. But I think that misses the point. The real problem with this is not the cod-religious congratulation of being the chosen ones, but a quieter, more insidious message: that the campaign itself is the change he talks about.
In this way, the Obama campaign has been styling itself as a sign of change, rather than an argument for it. As he said in South Carolina, "we are showing America what change looks like." In that linguistic and conceptual manoeuvre, the goal of accomplishing the specific changes Americans urgently need - in health care, the economy, education - is relegated to the background. Because you don't worry about how to achieve change when you are the change that you seek. You're not so hungry for reform when you've already feasted at the table of self-congratulation.
It is great politics. But it is also an insidious strategy, because for families in America whose most pressing choice is not between two Senators in a Primary, but between paying their mortgage or their medical insurance this month, the change they need is not symbolic, but urgent and real. The result of this self-referential campaign is a shifting of focus from the two key questions Democrats should be asking themselves: who can be relied on to get things done in Washington, and who is most likely to win the general election against John McCain.
While Clinton's campaign sets out her credentials and her plans for what she describes as "the most difficult job in the world", Obama's is a campaign deliberately operating on a symbolic level. Clinton is asking Americans to hire her to do a job; Obama is asking them to believe in him. Accordingly, they offer two different models for the Presidency: put it in terms of the much discussed "day one", the Obama model is about the inauguration speech, and Clinton's is focused on the moment she gets back from the Capitol, sits down at that desk, and starts work. It is no coincidence that the Obama campaign wins wealthier voters, and Clinton wins the majority of those earning under $50,000. His is a creed that appeals to those who can afford to make this choice for how it makes them feel.
The less sound-bite friendly creed of Clinton, in contrast, is a creed of policy and problem solving. Her "vision" is an economic blueprint for a strengthened middle class. The "inspiration" she offers is in detailed, and achievable plans for universal healthcare and overhauling the student loans system; the "hope" is a moratorium on home foreclosures; the "change" is in fostering a green-collar sector that creates local employment and cleaner energy production; Instead of abstract nouns, she is talking about the mechanics of mental health reform, and increased state support for veterans, and a return to the fiscal responsibility of the 1990's. Her campaign may be losing the battle of language in the media, but she is still winning the arguments among people who have been hit hardest by the failings of the Bush Presidency.
To finish, let's look to November. Barack Obama frames up the general election as follows: "It is about the past versus the future. And when I am the nominee, the Republicans won't be able to make this election about the past because you will have already chosen the future." It's a perfect turn of phrase. And the media have been allowing Obama to frame up the Primary contest within these same abstract parameters. They poll endlessly on whether people want "change" or "experience", as though the terms were mutually exclusive, and as though "change" was about personnel rather than policy. But let's stop and ask ourselves amidst all this: will the election in November really be about "the past versus the future"?
I will alienate Obama believers for saying this, but many Democrats I've met have been "taught to be cynical". They have been taught to be cynical by the elections of 2000 and 2004. And that cynicism makes them ask some questions: Will it really be a question of "the past versus the future" in the general election, or will the GOP re-frame the choice around national security? Will the infamous Republican Attack Machine (Karl Rove is conspicuously now "consulting" for the McCain campaign) make Hillary Clinton's question of who is best suited to pick up the phone in the middle of the night look like a glowing endorsement in comparison?
The "movement" that has carried him to this point in the nominating process might not seem so compelling when the media start to reframe the question; when Obama looks increasingly like a politician. "Unity" might be less important than a record of getting things done when the Republicans are fighting a partisan campaign against extending healthcare, against troop withdrawal, against spending increases for schools and veterans and the vulnerable. The nice-sounding idea that the "United States" trump "red states and blue states" might seem obsolete when Democrats start to focus on the colour the map is turning in November. Dare I say it, the whole thing might even stop looking like a movement, and start looking like the election campaign of a junior Senator from Illinois.
I worry that the democrats will kick themselves if Obama is their nominee: they will kick themselves for allowing a "movement" to distract them from keeping their eye on the prize. They will kick themselves for not picking a woman who has proved she is tough enough to have survived 16 years of Republican attacks, and who can stand toe to toe with John McCain on National Security; they will kick themselves for not picking a candidate who has been winning the demographic groups, and most of the states that will be in play in the general; and they will kick themselves for not seeing that offering struggling families help in November might just be even more inspiring than offering them hope.
An edited version of this article appeared in The Daily Telegraph.
