An Historical Change of Course

[Photo courtesy of the excellent Joe Crimmings]

[digg-reddit-me]Updated: After reading the speech and seeing how it is being received, I am updating the tense of the piece to reflect this afternoon’s events.  For the full text or video of the “A More Perfect Union” speech, go here.

There have been many crucial tests and defining moments of this primary, one of the most invigorating in memory and certainly, the most exciting in my lifetime.

There was Hillary’s stumble in Philadelphia; there was Mr. Obama’s Jefferson-Jackson speech in Iowa; there was Iowa itself, gloriously arcane; there was an energy pulsing through the nation in the days after – and then the tears of proud woman and the resurrection of an old man in New Hampshire; there were dirty tricks and subtle slanders and oversensitive bristling; then after a few more rounds of bruising battle, it became a grudge match; Mr. McCain clinched his nomination and took shots at the two Democratic titans as they pummeled one another – one candidate unable to clinch the win; the other unable to allow herself to lose.

There have been many important days in this campaign already – subtle turning points and dramatic victories. But today, March 18, 2008 will prove the most crucial. In Iowa we learned about a man and a movement; and after New Hampshire, we learned that this movement and this man were strong enough to withstand negative attacks and setbacks. Today though is not about the “movement”. It is about Mr. Barack Obama and what he can do.

I subscribe to a variation on what is called the “great individual (or man) theory of history.” It seems clear to me that some men and women at crucial times have been able to alter the course of history. These historical figures were able to do so because their unique combination of gifts and talents matched the opportunity their time gave them. Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War; Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1960s; Mohandas Gandhi before the birth of India; Winston Churchill during World War II; and in a negative sense, Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. These all happened to be men who captured the zeitgeist of their times, who were able to channel events beyond their control to achieve the ends they sought. They achieved great successes because the forces of history – demographics, geography, cultural trends, technology, politics, and most of all chance – conspired to give these individuals an opportunity for which they were uniquely suited.

I – along with most Americans – believe that we, as a nation, are on the wrong path. I can name many specific issues – but the sum total of these specifics is more than the sum of these parts. There is something ineffably rotten in the state, in the nation that is more serious than all the specific maladies. No candidate, no leader will be able to fix all of this – or even much of it. But what is needed – more than anything – is an historical change of course. ((To reverse the trend of expanding executive power; to begin to address global climate change; to take steps to minimize the social effects of globalization; to address growing income inequality; to find solutions to the coming governmental disaster of the entitlement crisis; not to mention defusing the increasing extremism in the Muslim world and creating an effective strategy for the fight against terrorism.))

I believe that Mr. Barack Obama is the only candidate or leader of any sort in America who is capable of initiating this change of course today. I believe that now is the time of opportunity to change course – the first since 1992; and that the opportunity is ripe today for historical change (in part because of Mr. Bush’s astounding incompetence which has – as one Republican congressman put it in the Washington Post, “destroyed the Republican brand” – and in part because of underlying trends; and in a large measure because of Mr. Obama himself – because he has been able to call on many latent forces in American cultural, social, and economic life.

However, throughout the past several weeks, Mr. Obama has been deluged with attacks on his pastor, on his race, on his supposed secret religion. These attacks, designed to attack the core of his appeal, have begun to have an effect.

Today Mr. Obama has responded, and while we are still waiting to see the full effect of this speech on the political environment, he seems to have done everything he set out to. But for him to prove himself as a transformational leader, his response must defuse the attacks and call Americans to a higher purpose.  If he cannot, then he still is likely to beat Ms. Clinton for the nomination; and though weakened, he seems to match up well against Mr. McCain and has a solid chance of prevailing in November. And if elected, I believe he will still be an exceptional president.  Based on what I have seen so far, Mr. Obama has passed this high threshold.

Today we will see if Mr. Obama can re-shape the media environment and the politics to his needs – if he can create a moment that will break the poisonous spell of repeated loops of Reverend Wright saying, “God damn America!”; of a black man dressed in traditional Somali garb; of the constant iterations of black! man!; if he can become one of the “great men of history” able to shape events as well as respond to them.

Mr. Obama has shown he can hit back – and in a vicious news cycle, he wins as often as not against the Clinton press machine – with twenty years of media experience and press relationships. In this traditional politics – Mr. Obama can win. But he cannot win as big as he needs to – and he cannot be the figure we need as a nation at this moment to correct our course.

Today is not the day on which Mr. Obama’s candidacy rests; he is well-positioned regardless. But today we have seen Mr. Obama rise above the fray, the petty attacks and the identity politics – and take the first steps to becoming the transformational leader many of us hope he will be.

N.B. Although in this piece, I have spoken in generalities and of history, I have often been more specific:

• The Case for Barack Obama
• The Failure of the American Experiment
• A Dream Deeply Rooted in the American Dream
• Only If We Become a Great People
• The Paradox of Barack Obama
• The Rebranding of America: Barack Obama
• Transformational politics
• A Card-Carrying Civil Libertarian