Bringing Out The Vote

They seem to be locked in a death-grip battle of wills, descending to character assassination, but deftly, subtly, with nuance. The hand-wringing in the Democratic Party throughout this process of candidate selection in the United States, is growing ever more pronounced, as the veneer of civility and courtesy wears thin.

A foreign policy adviser from an ivory tower prominence for Barack Obama declares Hillary Clinton to be positively hateful, a veritable "monster" and she resigns her advisory position.
Hillary Clinton's chief strategist muses that Barack Obama cannot possibly win the U.S. presidential election, squaring up against Republican John McCain.

He hasn't the experience, the knowledge, the interest, the gravitas, the support. There they are, a groundbreaking woman candidate, a new-millennia-candidate black man, with an exotic background and heritage - opposing one another as their party's candidate for an historical run at the White House, sliding from comradely civility to outright hostility. She bespeaks establishment, he echoes a break from the familiar, the tried and the failed.

Senator Clinton's opportunity seems to be slipping inexorably away by the come-from-behind candidacy of an opponent whose message of "hope" and "change" has mesmerized his audiences and catapulted him into surprising prominence for a junior aspirant to the highest position in the land.

Her detractors are exulting in her desperate appeals for support, in her team's last-resort succumbing to colourful tactics verging on questionably tasteful. The race for the White House has become transformed into "race" for the White House. And then there's the uncomfortable intrusion not only of race, but also of race coloured by experience.

Questions were already being raised in many quarters, for a handful of reasons, about Senator Obama's attachment to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose own colourful, combative and questionable pronouncements on America and American blacks versus whites make him a controversial figure, at the very least. The Reverend Wright's association with personages such as Louis Farrakhan increases the apprehension of controversy.

Senator Obama takes his Christianity seriously, believing that there is a religious obligation to do the right thing; to help those who cannot help themselves; to abstain from waging war; to live moral lives. Yet his very conservative religious base cannot help but passing judgement such as speaking of the scourge of AIDS as indicative of a moral crisis.

He does not support his pastor's condemnation of America-the-oppressor-of-blacks, he does not present as a black opportunist ready, eager and willing to overturn his country's social fabric, but pledges to mend that torn fabric. The mendacious Louis Farrakhan may have endorsed his candidacy, as have so many others from among the black community who once withheld it, but Senator Obama could well live without that particular endorsement.

The country's Jewish population, influential within the Democratic Party, is uncomfortable with the vision of an Obama-Farrakhan tie, but truth appears to lie elsewhere. He recognizes and celebrates the staunch activities in support of black rights by committed Jewish civil rights activists which the black population appears to have handily forgotten, and he challenges the black community to repair that split. Senator Obama has spoken directly to blacks for their latent anti-Semitism.

Some of Obama's closest advisers, like his pastor, aren't advocates for Israel, supporting the Palestinian cause openly. But he is busy courting the Jewish vote with full knowledge that Clinton has a sizeable edge in that voting demographic. He affirms support for Israel's right to defend itself, and understands the need to stop Iran from threatening the Jewish state.

He has unequivocally rejected the controversial anti-American spoutings of his pastor, despite describing Reverend Wright previously as having had a major influence on his moral and social conscience. Still, the Reverend Wright's outspoken criticisms of some aspects of U.S. foreign policy has resonance: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye", he said. Give honesty its due.

It is the gospel of Jesus, preached outstandingly, it would appear, by this selfsame man of god, that Senator Obama is devoted to as a Christian. Yet, the reality of politics in America is that because of his background, raised as a secular intellectual, despite his larger family's Muslim heritage on his father's side, guarantees suspicion will remain focused on this man.

Traditional, conservative Christians will find it exceedingly difficult to view him as a viable candidate expressing their views, their opinions, their values. Not surprising, since he will not and can not. Not because he isn't every bit as much Christian as they are, but because his brand of Christianity appears to be of a more forgiving, accepting, charitable variety.

And that, precisely, is what is helping him to energize peoples' imaginations and hopes for the future. That's what is helping him to bring out the vote.