Edwards to Obama: Why I May Make the Move

Up until this point in the presidential campaign, I have supported John Edwards, as the candidate who I believe has talked most about the issues I care about – and who has taken positions which most comport with my own. But with an Edwards nomination increasingly implausible, I am considering a turn towards Barack Obama.

In his victory speech Saturday in South Carolina, Senator Obama made one of the most compelling cases yet that his focus on the process of politics matters as much or more than anyone else’s promises about what the product of their election might be:

And what we’ve seen in these last weeks is that we’re also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It’s the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon. A politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won’t cross over. The assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor, and that the poor don’t vote. The assumption that African-Americans can’t support the white candidate; whites can’t support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can’t come together.

As a political campaign manager, I constantly have to make decisions about what direction our campaign and our message will go. The pressure to make decisions quickly and strategically often leads many in politics to accept the very same status quo assumptions that Senator Obama ticked off one by one last night. But it is also terrible to feel trapped inside of assumptions not only that our political process is deeply flawed, but also that there is not that we can do to change it.

Some observers deride Obama’s message of hope and optimism as reflecting political naivete. Another critique is that his shying away from the textbook political messaging of being a “fighter” means that he will give in too easily to the unyielding forces of the right wing.

But once we have completely fallen into the cynicism that sees such a message as naïve, why would we even invest ourselves in the political process? If the best we can hope for is a “fighter” who promises to accrue many bruises but little in the way of progress, then why would we be convinced to spend hours going door to door, let alone spend a half-hour to vote?

The brilliance of Barack Obama is that he has propagated a message of unity while still maintaining a more progressive agenda than Sen. Clinton. After many years the tired punditry which says that whoever captures the “middle” will get the most votes, Senator Obama has outdone Senator Clinton among Independents while outflanking her to the left on Iraq. After years of a post-9/11 consensus that the only way to win an election is to be “tough” on terrorism to the exclusion of all reason, Obama has beat Clinton among Independents while being less belicose about Iran. And after years of consensus that no one cares about issues like ethics reform, Obama has outdone Clinton by refusing to take any money from lobbyists.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has spent more time bashing George Bush, criticizing Republicans, and reminding voters that the right-wing has long loved to attack her. But when it comes to offering voters a real vision that would move the country past the division of the Bush era, it is Obama who has the most to offer of the pair.

Obama should be lauded, too, for asking voters to put something of themselves into the process. While Edward pledges to be the “voice” for those who support him, and Clinton says she will “stand up” on their behalf, only Barack Obama asks voters to stand up on our own - and not just so that they can elect him. In South Carolina Saturday he said:

Because in the end, we are not just up against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling against our own doubts, our own fears, and our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.

The truth of this comment reminds me also of the tiff over Senator Clinton’s comments about Martin Luther King, Jr - and how it "took a president" (i.e., Lyndon Johnson) taking the action of passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for Dr. King's dream to "[begin] to be realized". While I do not believe that Clinton intended to be disrespectful to Dr. King's memory, I still think the comment reflected a top-down view of social change, a view that Obama rightly rejects.

For months before this scuffle, Obama has been telling voters that “real change happens from the bottom up.” If you consider for a moment that it was Richard Nixon who instituted affirmative action on a federal basis, you will know that change does indeed come from below. We need to elect the best leaders, but we also need to hold them accountable, and demand that they act on the pressing challenges we face. There is no one candidate or politician of the status quo – our political system, deeply flawed by the influence of money, pulls everyone in that direction. Even a President Obama would have to be held accountable. But at least he has called on us to do the job.

In the end, then, it is not what he promises voters but what he demands of them that makes Barack Obama’s campaign so inspiring. The president who Obama has been compared to famously said to “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Forty-seven years later, your country needs you more than ever.