The Lonely Beacon

I live in Seattle, Washington. We just had our presidential caucuses here last weekend as reported on by my fellow co-blogger, that intrepid reporter Josh Moore. Barack Obama won in what can only be described as a major league landslide, besting Hillary Clinton by more than a 2 to 1 margin. Hillary Clinton, to me, seems to be quickly fading from the presidential landscape, likely forever.

Alas, the Clintons will remain highly visible politicians. Hillary Clinton will remain the most famous senator in the United States. Bill Clinton will see his stumbles in South Carolina fade from memory when Obama assumes the presidency because no lasting harm was done. Bill will become what he was before, kind of a traveling ambassador for the United States. But the Clintons will be slightly diminished because there is no potential for growth there anymore. This was Hillary Clinton's chance to become president and it just didn't happen.

Rush Limbaugh's dream has finally come true. The Clintons are through with presidential politics. Rush won't have the Clintons to kick around anymore. The right wing of the Republican Party will have to create new objects of their "affection," I guess. But that is what they do and they are good at it. Still, I am betting that the right wingers are embarrassed. They tried and tried and tried to take down the Clintons for years and they couldn't. They were taken down by a first-term United States senator from Illinois.

I don't agree that Obama was that much of an underdog when he started his presidential campaign in February of 2007. He was probably the second most famous senator in the United States partially due to his unique (for politics) life story. (His dad was from Kenya and his mom was from Kansas.) He had given a now near-legendary speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. At a time when most people had turned against the Iraq War, Obama was against it from the beginning. And in a time of lethargy in our country, Obama was a beacon of hope and reconciliation.

All this aside, I haven't caught the Obama wave yet. I love being inspired. But I gather my inspiration from books or movies or music or good deeds done for one's neighbor or stories on NPR. I don't really expect to gather inspiration from our political leaders. I like to consider myself a student of history and I have spent a fair amount of time looking for inspirational political leaders. I haven't found many. Even my favorite presidents (Truman, Lincoln, FDR) showed wide streaks of cunning and duplicity and political expediency. And you know why? Because they had to. The world is so complex and confusing and difficult to navigate. Sure, presidents will give speeches that aim to "inspire." But that is a tool to further their agendas. A tool by itself does not tell me anything about a person. An agenda is something different. Barack Obama is inspirational to millions of people. But what is his message underneath the way he is pitching himself? I am not sure yet.

I know Barack Obama must be an immensely intelligent man. I am a fellow lawyer so I know what kind of people made law review. (I am not one.) And he was president of the law review of probably the most prestigious law school in the country. But I think he is overly relying on his inspirational pitch. I mean, it must be hard to not overly rely on this pitch because it is working so well. Millions of people are starting to believe that Barack Obama is some kind of miracle worker. I hope Obama is able to please them by doing a good job as president. He will need to do some work to be able to get to the level he will need to be at to satisfy the enormous expectations people have for him.

In a little postscript, I wanted to say a few things about Hillary Clinton. I have always liked her. I think she is an extremely smart woman and, even more importantly, a very hard worker. She seems to be fighting the right battles. I cannot imagine what it must be like to wake up every morning knowing that people just hate you. Hillary is doing what she was supposed to do - she worked hard in school, she got into good schools, she fought to make the lives of children better. And, to millions of people, she is evil. (Witness Mitt Romney's tasteless speech when he dropped his bid for the presidency. He said that if either Hillary or Barack won the White House, they would just "surrender to terror." Can I see a future where Mitt Romney's picture will be found in the dictionary next to the term "sore loser"? Yes I can.)

The origin of "Clinton hate" spewed by Republican right wingers sprouts from a rather mundane explanation. The Clintons were successful against the Republican machine. They angered the Rush Limbaughs and the Tom DeLays and the Mitt Romneys of the world because they pushed back against the Republican machine successfully at times. Would Rush and Tom and Mitt care about the Clintons if they were losers? No.

Showing some political expediency of his own, Barack Obama has used polarization of the Clintons against them. He says he is not as hated as the Clintons. That is true of Obama. But the very success he is experiencing now means that the Republicans are sharpening their knives and dreaming up their attack ads. These knives and ads won't be enough to stop Obama this election. The Obamamania now sweeping the land is just too great. But Republicans are anything if not patient. They will have Obama's whole presidency to tear him down. By the end of eight years, "Obama hate" will rival the "Clinton hate" all of us are familiar with now.