Hail to the Chiefs Part XLIV: Obama
“…the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes America has a place for him, too.” – Barack Obama
“I serve as a blank canvas on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” – Barack Obama
There is a joke that during Mozart’s childhood his father sometimes had problems getting the spoiled little prodigy out of bed. So Leopold would go to the piano and play the first 7 notes of a scale: “Do re mi fa so la ti…” This would so annoy little Amadeus that he would leap out of bed to play the last note of the scale.
That sums up how I feel about this Obama entry. On the one hand, as he has not even begun his second term yet, it is still premature to write about his presidency. However my inner Amadeus is insisting that I complete the set and write about President number 44.
The story of Barack Obama’s childhood is rapidly becoming an American myth. The product of an interracial marriage when such relationships were still illegal in several states, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. His mother was the Kansas born Stanley Ann Dunham. (Her father hadn’t ever really gotten over wanting a boy.) His father was a Kenyan graduate student. Obama Sr. was out of the picture by the time little Barry was a toddler. Except for a visit when the Obama was 10, he never saw his father again. From what I’ve read about Obama Sr., that was probably a blessing in disguise.
Obama’s childhood gave him a unique vantage point. A good portion of his childhood was in Indonesia, which gave him some understanding of 3rd world nations and a more international mindset. However he also spent several years living with his white Kansan grandparents. (Now and then that will slip out in a speech, particularly when he uses old-fashioned language like “shellacking.”) He was a child during the Civil Rights era, but living in racially progressive Hawaii, a lot of the time he was not feeling the effects directly.
Obama started college at Occidental College in Los Angeles and finished his degree at Columbia. At the time he did show some interest in politics. However during the Reagan era, the main issues on college campuses were ones like being anti-apartheid. After college he became a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago. He moved to Chicago during the first term of Harold Washington, first African American mayor of the city. Obama learned a lot, positively and negatively, from Washington’s example.
Obama ultimately decided that the best way to make a difference would be to go back to school and become a lawyer. He went to Harvard, and became the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review. One of the more memorable moments from that period was he was giving a speech at the Law Review’s banquet. The audience was pre-dominantly white. During his speech all the African American waiters and bus boys stopped what they were doing so they could listen.
The publicity he got from his years on the Law Review and his unusual life story lead to a book contract for what eventually became “Dreams From My Father.” At this point in his life, back in Chicago, he also worked for a law firm, taught constitutional law, and met and married Michelle Robinson.
While Michelle, a lawyer herself, understood Obama’s ambitions, she did not necessarily have in mind becoming the wife of a politician. Nonetheless, before long she was the wife of a state senator. Obama often sound the Illinois senate frustrating as, being in the minority party, he felt limited in what he could accomplish. In 2000 he ran a failed campaign for a seat in the House against former Black Panther Bobby Rush. At that point it looked possible that Obama’s political career had reached a dead end.
However, in a last ditch effort to take his political career to the national level, Obama ran for the Senate in 2004. Lady Luck was smiling on him throughout the campaign. First his main competitor in the primaries crashed and burned thanks to a sex scandal. Then Obama was picked to give the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, almost unheard of for a relative political novice.
My mom and I were eager to see the keynote speech. We’d first heard about Obama several months before in a New Yorker article that featured him. At the time, I remember thinking something like “Maybe in 2016 he’ll be a presidential candidate.” A prediction which is almost as funny as John Adams predicting parades and fireworks on the 2nd of July. The speech was a success and made Barack Obama a household name.
Then, in another major stroke of luck, Obama’s Republican opponent Jack Ryan (or as I like to call him, Mr. Seven of Nine…) also became implicated in a sex scandal and dropped out of the race. The Illinois Republicans scrambled to find a replacement candidate they settled (and I emphasize the word SETTLE) on Alan Keyes. Not a resident of Illinois, the impression was that the Republicans said to each other “Quick, find a Black Republican! ANY Black Republican!” Obama won the Senate seat with 70% of the vote.
Freshman Senator Obama used the exact same desk that Robert Kennedy had used decades before. I found this appropriate partly because both men were bright, restless, and totally unsuited to the Senate. The most productive use of Obama’s time in the Senate was working on his second book “The Audacity of Hope.”
Despite denials that it was too soon for him to pursue such a course, Obama became a presidential candidate in 2007. The entire last 2 years of his lone term in the Senate was dominated by the campaign.
In the 2007 primaries my initial choice was… John Edwards. As I’ve said before, if there is an adulterer in the campaign, nickel bet I’ll be supporting him. However he was out of the picture before the Wisconsin primary. Obama concerned me as a candidate. He reminded me a bit too much of JFK. I worried what sort of things he’d do as a young president to try and prove himself. Then my mother gave me “Dreams of My Father” as an argument in favor of Obama. But what ultimately did it for me was the Teddy Kennedy endorsement. So yes, I was worried about Obama being too much like JFK and then voted for him partly because JFK’s brother thought he was like JFK. My inner Vulcan flinched at that total lack of logic. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the Kennedys.
There was an exuberance surrounding the Obama campaign. Probably it was a combination of Obama’s charisma and Bush fatigue. Although whenever I think about the 2008 campaign, I picture the Jibjab video “It’s Time For Some Campaignin’” The image of Barack Obama as an almost Disney character, singing and riding on a unicorn, seemed to fit the over the top, usually exaggerated, image many had about who he was and what he would be like as president. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adc3MSS5Ydc
I’d say Election Night was special because I can remember exactly where I was, but I can pretty much do that for every presidential election since 1984. I had choir rehearsal that night, and asked one of my friends to text me election results. I learned pretty quickly which candidates my fellow Oshkosh Chamber Singers had voted for. I was at home and on the phone with one of my friends when it became official, and suddenly was a blubbery mess. I thought Salon’s Heather Havrilesky did an excellent job in capturing the spirit of that election in her article “An Open Apology To Boomers Everywhere.” http://www.salon.com/2008/11/07/havrilesky/
Of course the honeymoon ended pretty quickly. When I was researching the Clinton administration, I was surprised in some ways how much it resembled the beginning of the Obama administration. High hopes, and getting tackled by the opposition right away. It was not long into the first year when the Tea Party emerged and we began hearing phrases like “take my country back.” One interesting term of events was the use of the term “socialist” to describe Obama. According to author David Remnick, that was one of the code words Governor George Wallace began using later in his political career when it was out of fashion to use overtly racist terms. Some may think I am being overly paranoid, but it is an interesting coincidence.
One friend of mine recently commented that she figured if Obama were elected either “He would accomplish great things or wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything at all… and it turned out to be a little bit of both.”
While there was no way Obama would be able to live up to the expectations of him, he did have some major accomplishments in his first term. Among them: The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, passing healthcare reform for the first time since Lyndon Johnson, the successful capture and assassination of Osama Bin Laden, and ending the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy so gays could openly serve in the military.
Obama also had his fair share of flaws and missteps. I thought The Economist did a beautiful job of covering those aspects of the Obama administration in their (just barely an) endorsement of him. http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21565623-america-could-do-better-barack-obama-sadly-mitt-romney-does-not-fit-bill-which-one
There were points in the recent election where it seemed pretty tough and go if Obama would be elected for a second term. I for one was relieved that I would not have to end writing about Obama with a phrase like “just like Jimmy Carter.”
It will be interesting to see where Act 2 of the Obama Administration takes us. My only prediction this point is long term, I do not see him as being what I call a “game changer president.” I do not think the Presidency will be transformed, or take a different role because of Obama. Although I do think he will have a long term impact on American culture, and how we view and talk about ourselves. One thing I found interesting to note in the 2012 election… a little over 50 years ago it was a big deal when an Irish Catholic was elected to be President. 50 years later, both vice-presidential candidates for the major parties were Irish Catholic, and it was not an issue at all. It makes me wonder what sort of issues that we see as obstacles and barricades right now will be a non-issue for our grandchildren.
Resources:
“America Could Do Better” – The Economist http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21565623-america-could-do-better-barack-obama-sadly-mitt-romney-does-not-fit-bill-which-one
“An Open Apology to Baby Boomers” – Salon http://www.salon.com/2008/11/07/havrilesky/
“Dreams From My Father” – Barack Obama
“Audacity of Hope” – Barack Obama
“The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama” – David Remnick