Only four years after being the speaker who set the tone for the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Barack Obama will officially be named the party’s presidential candidate at the end of August in Denver. The road he’s taken here, from being no more than a candidate for an Illinois senate seat in 2004, is astounding. In electing this biracial 46-year-old to attempt to conquer the White House, the democratic electorate has paid honor to their country, and to the talent of this young and inexperienced politician.
Obama’s success has much to do with George Bush’s presidency, which has been condemned by many Americans. The “conservative revolution,” which began with Ronald Reagan nearly 30 years ago, has run out of oxygen. The “culture wars” that came to a head in the 1960s, fought between the liberal left and conservative right, belong to a distant time. The economic crisis, consciousness of looming environmental disaster, the growing cost in money and lives of the war in Iraq, and criticism of inside-the-beltway thinking have provoked a massive rejection of the Republican Party. This new spirit of change may also explain in part why Hillary Clinton was so successful in the Democratic primaries.
For those who want “a change you can believe in,” will Obama keep his promises if elected on November 4th? To win this election, Mr. Obama appears ready to abandon some of his core positions. Thus, he has decided to refuse public financing (and matching funds) for his campaign, which removes any ceiling on fundraising. He also voted in favor of a new Bush policy allowing for more wiretapping, changed his position on the presence of troops in Iraq, and assured pro-Israel organizations of his support.
His Republican adversary, John McCain, has evolved as well–shifting his positions to please the more conservative electorate. It’s the way the game is played, and one cannot exaggerate the importance of these tactics. You can’t dream that politics will cease to be politics, or that one can win an election in the United States, or anywhere else, without being a political realist.