It has been appropriately referred to as a mania: The tendency of supporters of Senator Barack Obama to WILDLY and illogically support their candidate, the tendency for his rallies to turn into something like religious experiences, where the people who witness his speeches experience a sort of ecstasy, and the tendency for people to measure their support for him in terms of charisma rather than his positions on policy. You hear it in the news, you see it on Saturday Night Live, you read about it in a million idiotic blogs written by Democrats in our country. And yet, few seem to know what he actually believes. Without wasting my time finding a citation, this has been one of the many criticisms leveled at the Senator by those who have apparently been able to resist the mania, usually because they support one of his opponents, or nobody at all.

And of course the criticism is fair. Only recently, Obama shifted from talking less like an inspirational speaker and more like a politician seeking nomination for the Presidency. Perhaps he finally got the message. Perhaps his advisers told him, “Look, we’re getting nailed on this one, and if we don’t start talking about brass tax, we’re going to have a hard time of it.” When he began discussing some specifics of his “plan” (as positions and campaign promises are referred to these days) in last week’s debate, the criticism on that front pretty much shut down. Now Senator Clinton can nail him on specifics. Her message has switched from “Hope versus action” to hitting him on negative campaigning in his comparison of their health care plans and NAFTA. Suddenly the campaign has moved to policy questions, and Clinton is probably very happy that she doesn’t have to run against “Hope” anymore.

It is probably no secret that I prefer Obama, personally. But my good friend Dan, at the Creepy Sleepy Show has called me on this support. I don’t want to do injustice to his argument, because it is actually well crafted, and if he ever goes into his blog and writes directly about it, I will edit this post to link to it. But I will attempt to recreate it, and if I malign it, or don’t give the complete argument, he can tell me to correct myself, and I will do so. His argument against Obama is that Obama’s supporters seem mesmerized by Obama, by his star power. They defend the hell out of Obama, not because they necessarily agree with where he stands, but (as near as I can make out) because they so desperately want a Democrat to win in the fall. Dan has compared an Obama rally to a rally of Nazi’s, where people are so carried up by the emotion of the entire affair and support Obama for entirely irrational reasons. But worst of all, they put their hope in this guy, and trust that this one man will come into Washington, change EVERYTHING, and save the country from the horrible mess that it has been in for decades. They place too much hope in this guy, and in a way they are setting him on this super-high pedestal. When he falls off of it, (which all will eventually,) they will be so disappointed and will look for someone to blame, and all this. And anyone who suggests that these folks are in the grips of a very solid mania are literally attacked in the blogs, the press, the twitter, and everywhere else. The crux of Dan’s argument, I believe, is that Obama’s fans are just that, and abandon reason and rationality in the cause of their man, and this is NOT a good criteria upon which to select a President.

Dan is, of course, absolutely correct. When Obama whips up a crowd, he uses imagery that is not of this world, as if he were some anointed by God savior of the country. He has three things going for him at these rallies: He has great speech-writers (who themselves could not produce the same effect if it was them delivering the same exact speeches); he has a great delivery (again, which alone would not produce the same result if he delivered an unintelligible speech); and finally he has the expectations of the crowd which makes it all gel together. He is a man of the moment, without a doubt, and all three of these ingredients combine to make it so he doesn’t HAVE to address any issues. It is not entirely personality, it is not entirely great staff: it is ALSO that people expect to see the second coming of Jesus and usually they are not disappointed at an Obama rally. And they will defend Obama from ANY comments that they perceive to be attacks, with the faith of a convert. Then- when he is elected, and turns out to be just another human like everyone else, they will desert the process, become apathetic again, and curse the system which let them down yet again.

Dan is right for a number of reasons. First, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, there is a structural prohibition against substantial change in our country. It goes back to the founding of the republic. Madison wrote this check against the passions of the masses into the constitution, and his exposition of this can be found in the Federalist Papers, if you care to read them. No person, not Clinton, and not Obama will fundamentally alter the way politics is carried out in this country. It would require an abolition of the republic itself to fundamentally alter things, and make these people who stupidly place so much of their hope in Obama really happy with what they get. Most people in our country have, however, not read the Federalist Papers, and so there is no way they can know. But if you want an exposition on why third parties don’t do well in this country, which touches this very issue on a number of points, especially for real progressives who put their hope in Democrats, check out my paper on third parties. (This paper also points to the error in Nader’s recently stated argument that something like 61% of Americans think both major Parties are failing and 80% of Americans say they would consider voting for an independent. The answer to Nader is “So what? The US system will not allow third Parties to successfully compete in National Elections.” In fact this was the intended consequence of the structure of our system, to keep regional or parochial interests from seizing control of the national governing apparatus. It’s all in Madison.)

Second, Obama’s “plan” is really not all that radical. If it was, he would not be the nominee-apparent for the Democratic Party of the USA. Let’s look at the easiest case to demonstrate this effect. How far would the great speaker Obama get if he was saying things like Dennis Kucinich said them? You put those two side by side, and compare their programs. While it is, as Nader famously said, a disagreement of degree, nonetheless, Kucinich called for the withdraw of US troops from Iraq immediately, Obama says it will take time. Kucinich called for single-payer health care for all, Obama wants to continue using the jacked up insurance structure that we have come to believe in this society MUST be the only possible construction for the interaction between patient and doctor. Nonsense. If Obama was really radical, (and I dare say, radical enough for what some of his more fervent supporters want) he would argue that private health insurance needs to be abolished, because it is necessarily predatory. If there is to be health insurance, why not make it publicly funded? Or, better yet, do away with insurance all together and have the government subsidize doctors directly? No matter what position Obama takes, it is not nearly radical enough to REALLY truly offer the fixes that he is promising. People support him based on their beliefs that he will be able to fix things, and they are setting him up to fail, and themselves to be disappointed.

And even IF he did want to be more radical with his “plan” he would ultimately not be able to accomplish this, because he is running for the nomination of the Democratic Party, which this year still supports capital punishment, and now seems to be tending toward calling for “fiscal responsibility.” The Democrats are tripping all over themselves to demonstrate how religious they are. A good example, Obama defends himself against charges that he is a Muslim, not by saying “Well, there is actually nothing wrong with being a Muslim, though I happen to be a Christian,” but by saying, he has been going to the “same church for 20 years, praising Jesus.” He argues for tougher stances on gun crimes, yet still says he believes in the Second Amendment. The Democratic Party is not far behind, friends. The wedge issues are almost entirely social (or “moral” depending on which side of the “family” you find yourself) and debates about real policy differences have gone by the wayside. This is the Party Obama chose to run under, this is the Party people who support him generally also claim, and this is the Party who will keep him from saying anything too far out, in short, from becoming another crazy wingnut like Kucinich(!) is. Kucinich didn’t get the support from the Party elites that Obama did, and of course, Obama will have some bills to pay once he gets the nomination.

BUT- And here is my response to Dan, I am impressed with Obama nonetheless. I have not been caught up in his mania. I am not one of the lackeys he puts behind him on his stages, who hang on his every word as if they were drops of sunshine on the cloudiest of days. I am not one of the adoring fanatics of Barack Obama, and I do not defend him to people who offer criticism. I think he is perfectly capable of doing that himself, and where he is lacking, he needs to be taken to task. (His stance on Cuba is one place. He needs to lift the embargo, which is fundamentally an act of war, before anything else can or should be contemplated.) No, I support Obama because he can inspire people to do things.

1) He is not Hillary Clinton. Whenever she opens her mouth and says what her plan is, or presents me with her resume YET AGAIN, (35 years, and all), I think, “Yeah, but Hillary Clinton voted for the War.” End of discussion. It is not an issue of whether we should have a woman be President. I am all for it. As a matter of fact, I think we should have a woman be president half the time. Any woman but one who voted for the War. So I think that disqualifies most women who were serving in 2002 and 2003. Sorry ladies, you blew it. And the standard holds for men as well. I would never support McCain for that reason, EVEN IF I liked him for every other reason, and would never vote for Edwards. If the Democrats want to run a woman, let them run a woman who didn’t support the war, and I will be willing then to look at their plan. But this first screen is enough to disqualify those who lack the judgment to keep our country out of foreign elective wars.

2) I don’t really care what Obama’s plan is. He isn’t going to get any of it anyway. The Presidency is not a legislative office. Period. The President doesn’t make laws. His proclamations do not really affect the economy (though some of the people he appoints can.) The Supreme Court, if a President is lucky to get to make an appointment of someone who actually reflects the President’s policy preferences (and there is no guarantee of this- may I offer you David Souter, if you want an immediate example), only has a passive influence on society, in that they can only hear cases brought to them by people who have actually been hurt by a law (which is why Roe v. Wade still stands today: Most mothers who get abortions tend to favor abortion, and those who are against it are not hurt, at least in this world, by legal abortions.) The President gets to promote policy, and it is actually up to the Congress to put it into practice. So if you want to blame anyone for Bush, you have to blame the House and Senate GOP who steamrolled his programs through, and the complicit Democrats who let it happen. Most people don’t understand this, so I think having a vague policy programme is actually a PLUS for Obama. I don’t want a President that makes all kinds of promises, and then has to go back on them because he lacks the power to see any of them enacted.

3) He inspires people to do something. I offer as a demonstration of this point his fundraising tactics. If he is to believed, and his donations come primarily from small time donors, individuals dropping 50 or 100 dollars on his campaign, and not from GE or Viacom or whoever finances Clinton’s campaign, then his message has inspired people to at least get off their asses, go to their computer, and log onto his site and give him money. Consequently, Democrats have out-fundraised Republicans by 50% this year. That turns the conventional wisdom on its ear. Every student of American Government at a 300 level knows that the GOP always out-raises the Democrats. But not this year. There is something of an arms race between the Democratic candidates in terms of fundraising and all the money in the system is getting soaked up by these candidates, keeping the GOP from even matching them dollar for dollar. If you believe money makes Presidents, then Obama will have not only the nomination, but will thoroughly whip McCain in the General election, to the degree not seen since 1996.

But, we should grant that money isn’t the only thing that wins elections. Obama (and to some degree, though apparently, lesser Clinton) gets people to turn out to the polls. And these aren’t just ordinary people. A huge percentage of them are young people, idealists, who are not easily swayed to give up their other pursuits in life (whether they be legitimate, like working and raising a family, or illegitimate, like texting their stupid friends, shopping, and writing their blog) for a short time, and go vote. Getting people to perform their civic duty, most importantly young people, has been a real chore for politicians. But Obama inspires them to go out and exercise their rights for once, for some other reason than masturbatory egoism. Anyone who can do that is worth my qualified support. And I think that a good number of those who support Obama feel this way too. They are not, I am sure, all star-struck morons the way SNL or Mad TV suggest, hypnotized by Obama Girl and MSNBC into supporting Obama. Some of them, I am sure feel the way I do about his candidacy.

If you can mobilize a relatively ignorant (though, paradoxically, HIGHLY informed) population, there is something special going on that those who spend their time looking for trends like this can’t immediately identify. We shall see what it was in time, no doubt. But right now, in the midst of Obam-ania, it is difficult to specify, which leads people like my friend Dan to suggest something which one can immediately gain from personal experience, that these people are in a brainwashed rapture. I can tell Dan that this is not the case, although it may seem that way for him. I mean to say, that this is not the case in all those who support him. For a good portion of the crowd, of course they are star-struck. But they will be let down soon enough. For the rest of us, I hope that let down comes after the election and not before it. Because then, there is a 95% chance that Obama will be re-elected, and I think something approximating real change (of course, within the VERY narrow constraints of our society) will then begin occurring.

As I say, only time will tell. But Obama should nonetheless continue talking up the hope and optimism, because more than any other reason, this is something people need RIGHT NOW. Someone to let them know that their faith in their society, or in the society of humanity, for that matter, is not entirely misplaced. That not all politicians are George Bush or Don Rummsfeld, that maybe there can be something better to come out of this society that that sort of bottom feeding. In closing, I will say it reminds me of a program I saw some years ago, and I wish I had the citation, but you will have to take my word for it. The program was talking about 1979 in Chicago. In 1979, when Jane Byrne was running for mayor of Chicago, there was a huge snow storm, apparently one of the worst to hit the city. The incumbent Mayor was seen as ineffective in dealing with the snow removal and the city shut down. Jane Byrne got on the TV and told the people of Chicago that help was on the way, but everyone in the city had to do their part too. People had to get out in the streets and shovel stuck cars out (which were the reasons that snow plows couldn’t get through). And people, who were stuck at home all day, saw this, got out into the streets and shoveled the city, to the point where slowly the plows could start clearing the streets. Byrne was that inspirational to the people of her city. Consequently, she was seen as a person who possessed superior leadership skills, and it was repaid in her being elected the first female Mayor of Chicago, thoroughly upsetting the incumbent. Byrne had her own problems, but if a politician can get people to go out and take an active role in the operation of their society, to take some ownership of the process, then by all means, I say that is the person who needs to be elected. Clinton can’t inspire that in people, Obama can. So I say he is the one worth electing, and then we should judge him later on how he does as President.

Serenely,
The Reverend,
W Doc Stodden