Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Make Mine Obama!
filed under: barack obama
Got a call this week from Claire, the former editor of the French section of Expatica.com. She’s got a column at a British paper now, looking for black Americans in France to talk about Obamamania. (Barack made the latest cover of French GQ as the #1 stylish man of 2008.) I’ve had a few furthermuckers ask me to blog about Obama up on here, but I’ve never said my piece too extensively. Obviously I’m for Obama; what more is there to say? Commenting on the day-to-day dog-and-pony show (the same spectacle that 10-million other bloggers track passionately) isn’t really my thing. I got fresh thoughts on things, sure, but even I can’t bring too fresh an angle on Obama vs. McCain.
Let’s get it over with, I say. Obama raised $66 million in August. August. As in one month. The whole presidential race is incredibly uneconomical, the conceit of a hugely wasteful nation. If this money were put to a hundred other things (the homeless, the construction of real New Orleans levees, research into alternative energy sources), the world would be a much better place. But anyway.
My vote goes to Obama, and “not because he’s black.” If Clarence Thomas or Colin Powell ran for president, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass. I’m feeling Obama’s politics, but even on that score, I’m not entirely certain what they are on every single point. I still haven’t gone through that New York Times Magazine piece on Obamanomics. I’m reading The Audacity of Hope right this second, and I knocked out Dreams from My Father earlier in the summertime. The man has definitely become an icon of King/Kennedy stature, and we sorely need one in these desolate times. I love what he means for the post-race aesthetic (the civil righters get shown up for what they’ve become while the happens-to-be-black Harvard Law grad becomes leader of the free world).
But I just don’t presume to know enough about politics to pontificate about the man and his candidacy. In fact, I hate armchair political commentators with all the intellectual masturbation, jerking off their ideas in front of me when it’s clear they probably couldn’t cogently explain the Cuban missle crisis, Vietnam, the Iran-Contra affair or anything any earlier than Monicagate. I can’t either really. That’s why I keep my mouth shut, for the most part. But, vote Obama!
madeleine at 8:56 PM on 09/23/08:
I went to the Jacksonville, FL Obama rally this past Saturday, and I am so glad I did.
Not just because I got to figuratively “look the man in the eye, and take his measure,” but because I discovered a couple of things about myself, and, I think the others in my community.
It was a not-so-hot-day, but with 12,000 people crammed into a space for 10,000, and 8,000 more waiting outside…just wanting to be there, it got close. But we waited, we waited four hours and even though Obama was an hour and a half late due to traffic coming out of Daytona we still waited, we didn’t sit, and we only grumbled a little.
But this is what I noticed: his rally lacked the rabid furor of other political rallies, it was as if he and his message transcended mere politics. I stood there and realized that I have ben cynical for so long, the opportunity to believe in someone and something larger than myself made my heart feel like breaking.
When the man finally appeared, it didn’t feel like we were greeting a man who deigned to walk among us, it felt like we were welcoming home a champion.
Oh, and not only did the 18,000 attendees beat the pants off of McCain’s rally that pulled in (on the outside) 6,000…my next president made a few jokes and even threw out the words: bamboozle and hoodwink.
Now I understand:
1. It is okay to hope.
2. We can do this.