The Tide in the Affairs of Election 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 11:31AM Pundits make their living trying to tell us why politics happens as it does. They are always arguing about what the one driving factor was in a given election. Well, take it from someone who has worked in campaigns from the lowliest grass roots to the highest halls of power--not a one of them looks from the outside like what they look like from the inside. I don't care how "perfectly executed" the campaign might be. There's a lot of luck involved and there is never just one deciding factor.
But the biggest factor in 2008 was: it's just damn time.
People are ready. People are fed up. Enough trumped up war. Enough high gas prices and mortgage meltdowns and corporate greed taking the hard working middle class's life savings down with them. Enough slashing and burning of women's rights to equal pay and reproductive justice. Enough of a president who you might want to have a beer with (I personally don't) but who can't string a sentence together, and who squandered America's global standing at the same time he lost his dice roll that our economy wouldn't crash till he got out of Dodge with his cronies' fortunes safe.
The deciding factor in 2008 was simply that "tide in the affairs of men", and more especially, of women, that when it crests, get out of the way because that force for change will not be stopped.
That said, Barack Obama, unlike Al Gore and John Kerry who both snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, ran a strategically brilliant campaign. Obama saw the tide and repeatedly took the wave that leads to fortune. He did what leaders must first and foremost do: create a story we can all see ourselves in. He did it with his personal narrative. He did it with the race speech. He did it by tangibly engaging an enormous chunk of America, including millions of newly activated voters, in his quest.
We must also remember that Hillary Clinton would have represented transformational change too had she become the first woman president. I am sad I won't see her inaugurated in January. But the truth, much as it hurts me to say it, is that it is just damn time in America for Barack Obama.
(The full quote, lest someone accuse me of plagiarizing Shakespeare):
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. |
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 William Shakespeare (English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet, 1564-1616) |
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Reader Comments (3)
Well said.
It was clearly the right time for Obama and as you said, he ran a brilliant campaign and for the most part, stayed above the fray. He was future-oriented, remained hopeful in a time of despair (for many) and crisis and most importantly, he made his appeal to the best in all of us, not the worst.
McCain-Palin came across as cynical, desperate and angry and tried to appeal to the "darker angels of our nature" by fear-mongering, characterizing Obama as "different", unpatriotic and unsafe and even went so far as to play on people's racial fears and anti-Muslim sentiment.
Perhaps the lowest point in the campaign came when the GOP and their surrogates tried to scare Jewish voters into voting for McCain-Palin by alleging an Obama Presidency would pose a direct threat to Isreal's existance as they tried to cast him as a terrorist sympathizer and allege that he was Muslim (and so what if he was?). The smear campaign was not successful, thank God, because people have simply had enough of the divisive cynicism that has been a staple of eight years of Bush rule.
Gloria- I was wondering what you thought of Obama's selection of Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff? My first reaction, honestly, was frustration- I won't easily forgot how Rahm actively sabotaged Iraq war veterans who came home inspired by their experience in Iraq to run for public office as Democrats- Rahm helped ensure that many of them received little to no funding because they were against the Iraq War and thus perceived as too "liberal."
That said, I can see the strategic reasons for Obama selecting Emmanuel but I am worried he will try to move Obama away from some of his progressive ideals. I accept that Obama will have to (and should) compromise at times and can't please the democratic base all the time but he shouldn't forget the idealism and thirst for justice that helped inspire a huge movement that swept him into office.
There has also been talk on Firedoglake about the possible selection of an anti-choice individual for the coveted and important position of Secretary of State.
Obama has sent a clear signal, to those who do not have blinders on, that the force for change crested on Tuesday. Now it is time for the Democratic style of business as usual. Triangulation! Did anyone really believe Obama intends to get all the troops out of Iraq in 16 months? Yeah, he ran a brilliant campaign, but how much of it will prove to be real, and how much was just marketing?
Lawrence Summers, one of the top Obama economic advisers, may get another stint at Secretary of the Treasury. Somehow I doubt the opinions of feminists are going to carry much weight in this new Administration.
Aletha said:
"Somehow I doubt the opinions of feminists are going to carry much weight in this new Administration."
I certainly hope that is not the case, but it is one of the reasons I am not pleased with the selection of Rahm Emmanuel- Rahm likes to push Democrats to the center-right and I don't believe Obama's mandate was a thumbs up for continued right-wing policies.