Obama's Speeches Can Make Me Dewy-Eyed Too, But ....

This is a rather long post, but I hope you'll hang in with it on this New Hampshire primary day.

I'm all for "change." I'm all for "movements." I'm all for this being our "moment." I'm all for "changing the way our government operates." I'm all for stirring, emotive rhetoric. I love to hear Obama speak when he's on his game. He can be a very persuasive and inspiring speaker at times. He's given at least three speeches that were powerhouses: at the Democratic Convention in 2004, at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa this year, and after the results were in for the Iowa Caucus last Thursday.

However, I've also witnessed him give rather boring, banal, low key, blah blah speeches at rallies that have been televised. And his measured demeanor at debates and other more intimate events can be a bit dry. But what bothers me most about his candidacy is that he speaks almost entirely about process and generic values instead of substance.

What's Behind Obama's Lofty Rhetoric?
Change, hope, unity. Great words. But what do they mean in terms of his plans to counter the awful juggernaut against individual liberties and working and middle class economics that's being conducted by powerful forces in Washington, on Wall Street and in multi-national board rooms? We have almost no idea based on what Obama is saying or what he has said or done in the past.

We do know that he's for nuclear power, that he backed a bill promoting energy from pseudo-"clean" liquified coal, that he's taken significant amounts of money from Wall Street, the corporate and lobbying elite and PACs. We know his health reform plans allows opt outs that will almost certainly undermine its effectiveness. We know he gave support to the Peru trade bill while saying he's against NAFTA, and that he's recently been employing Repub framing and bashing some progressives like Paul Krugman. You don't hear much populist sentiment from Barack. Open Left's Matt Stoller has more on this aspect of Obama's actions:

Since declaring for President, this person has called Social Security a 'crisis', attacked trial lawyers, associated unapologetically with vicious homophobes, portrayed Gore and Kerry as excessively polarizing losers, boasted as his central achievement an irrelevant ethics bill, ran against the DC establishment while taking huge amounts of cash from DC, undermined Ned Lamont in 2006, criticized NAFTA while voting for a NAFTA-style trade agreement, compiled opposition research on the most effective liberal pundit in the country, refused to promise that American troops would be out of Iraq by 2013, and endorsed the central plank of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy doctrine, the war on terror.

And, of course, many of us have seen the Amy Goodman's story of business-as-usual advisers on foreign policy that are on the Obama team (and Hillary's and Edwards' as well). Granted, not one of the Dem candidates is without some baggage or a number of positions we'd wish they'd sharpen or change. But I think it's important that we at least know the extent of these and bring them into the equation before locking in one of them as our nominee, no matter how impressive (or not) they are on the stump.

I know I'll be tagged as one of the "cynics" now deemed so out of date in the new "post-partisan" era, but I say beware -- let's take it a bit slower.

Our Own Private Projection Screen
Obama is running an incredibly effective campaign by saying almost nothing but fuzzy wuzzy buzz words. He's putting himself out there as a kind of blank screen, available for the projections of everyone's very own version of the new change revolution. He doesn't leave anyone out, whether Repub, Independent or Dem, whatever their gender, race or ethnicity. He tries not to offend anyone, except maybe those who've been made combative by at least eight years of assaults on our person, our civil liberties, our economic livelihoods and just about everything else that matters. Reacting with anger or replying in kind to the battering coming from BushCo's side of the aisle is considered so, you  know, PARTISAN. So, you know, out of date -- like love bead, protests and speaking truth to power.

I say beware -- let's think this through. Try to picture raising the level of discourse with the forces behind and supportive of Guantanamo, torture, criminal trade deals, hatemongering on immigration issues and the subprime mortgage scandal. Try to picture being accommodating and inclusive with them, having them serve within a Democratic president's cabinet. Try to picture genteely negotiating with insurance and drug company execs and lobbyists to get a fair deal for the people. Hard, isn't it?

Should one of our top priorities be to make country club Republicans feel better about the atrocities they've helped to elect and enact over the past eight years -- just so they could keep their taxes low? Are we to sidle up with charm to those who have been branding GLBT folks like me as abominations that shouldn't have equal rights under the law? What kind of bipartisan agreement or accommodation can there be on issues and conflicts loaded with the kind of explosive consequences that once brought our nation a civil war and are now creating the pathways to an eternal state of war and constant surveillence?

A Little History
Open Left's Paul Rosenberg riffs on the theme of "bi-partisanship":

Democrats have been trying to make nice-nice with Republicans in order to put an end to polarization and divisiveness at least since the days of Jimmy Carter. The results have been quite satisfactory... for the Republicans. Barack Obama says that this time it will be different. If he means to inspire us, that's one thing. But if that's really his game plan, then he is reading from speeches given by Lucy to Charlie Brown: this time, for sure, she won't pull that football away at the last moment.

Okay, folks, there are so many examples, it's impossible to choose. Should we look at:

(A) Jimmy Carter takes "bipartisan" advice from Henry Kissinger, lets the deposed Shah into the country, and precipitates a hostage crisis that costs him the presidency-with a little help from the 1980 Reagan/Bush team, which is not above a little bit of treason, if that's what it takes to get elected.

(B) Michael Dukakis refuses to get down and dirty. "It's about competence, not ideology," he explains-perhaps the most incompetent thing a presidential candidate has said since Hebert Hoover adopted the theme song "Happy Days Are Here Again" in the midst of the Great Depression. In Ohio, Senator Howard Metzenbaum ran as a full-throated economic populist and cruised to a 57-43 victory, while Dukakis ran away from the "liberal" label, and lost badly, 55-45. [Ohio SOS Raw Totals]

(C) Bill Clinton ignores a whole raft of Republican scandals [Iran-Contra, Iraqgate , October Surprise, etc.] in an attempt to make peace with the Republicans. He caves on a whole series of issues, and-voila!--the Republicans win control of Congress for the first time in 40 years, and launch a scorched earth campaign to drive him from office.

(D) Al Gore plays by Marquess of Queensberry rules, and has the Presidency stolen from him.

(E) John Kerry refuses to fight back when , then starts to think better of it, until John McCain tells him "no fair hitting back." Then he reverses his earlier pledge to fight to ensure that every vote is counted.

Can't We All Just Get Along?
Obama's vision of a calm, friendly, fair-minded rennaissance of American politics is an alluring one. Dreams of Eden always are, especially in an America that clings to Walt Disney-esq images of itself, its motives and its goals. Imperialism, empire, economic criminality and a surveillence state are ugly and brutal concepts. Envisioning a political scene full of Bambi-like good government types is appealing and comforting. But what do you think the next eight years will bring in terms of problems we won't be able to avoid confronting? Opportunities for abundant nicey nice, or continuing and increasingly ominous challenges to the very basis of our democracy and planetary survival?

Will we need the skills of someone unafraid to get their hands dirty or someone who seems to feel uncomfortable -- or even above the fray -- when confrontations arise? I do know that genuinely dark forces are afoot in many places in today's global landscape. There are corporatist Robber Barons everywhere, calling way too many shots solely for their own gain. Does Obama understand how determined and entrenched they've become -- and the kind of fortitude and sustained battles it will require to take them on with any degree of success?

Let's Take a Breath
Don't get me wrong. I, too, got chills listening to his last Iowa speech. I, too, am thrilled with the prospects and historic breakthroughs presented by an Obama candidacy. There's much I admire about Barack Obama, and he may well turn out to be as good as the rhetoric he's using. But how do we know at this point? Before we all get in line to follow the pied piper, I think we ought to demand to know much more about what he really plans to do and how he intends to go about it. Most of us are positively yearning for a real leader, a visionary of sorts who can carry us into a future of critical paradigm change and enlightened problemsolving. Obama is putting himself out there as the one who can fulfill these needs, but what kind of specifics has he provided so far? How has he been tested?

I hope we can keep our options open for now. I'd like to see this race play out among two or three candidates until well after Super Tuesday. We all deserve an opportunity to reassess their strengths and weaknesses once the initial rush of Iowa and New Hampshire starts fading, don't we? There is so damned much at stake.