Ask what you can do…

            We are currently fighting three wars—two on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan and a broader, less visible struggle against terrorism.  But America does not, by and large, behave like we are in wartime.  Of course the fighting directly affects soldier and their families; and politicians broach the subject to justify either their indignation at how poorly the war is going or their hopefulness about how well the war is going. 

Still, the fight against terrorism is an ambiguous concept for much of the time.  There is no rationing, no draft, no posters that say “When you ride alone, you ride with Osama bin Laden,” no cheering in the streets with each battle won…there are not even any actual battles, per se.  On top of that, a large percentage of the country believes we never should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, and is disenchanted with the fact that we have not captured the leader of al Qaeda.

            In an opinion peace entitled “Duties That Are Best Shared,” Col. Matthew Bogdanos argues that there is too much separation between the civilian and military spheres.  While Barack Obama and the overwhelming majority of Americans are able to show deep appreciation for our troops, few of us understand military culture and its particular character of public service.  He mentions that only two of Obama’s Cabinet officials are veterans, whereas only two of John Kennedy’s were not veterans.

            Part of the reason why military service is less emphasized—though no less honorable—now than forty years ago is simply that the problems of the twenty-first century are not solely military matters.  The dual “-isms” of the last century, fascism and communism, were ones in which a state was targeted, troops could be marched, towns could be destroyed, missiles could be built and aimed, walls could be torn down, and governments could be restored. 

            But now the bad guy is more nuanced.  It’s not just people who want to destroy us, but people who, in the words of George W. Bush, stand firm against “the non-negotiable demands of human dignity.”  This involves the situation on nearly every continent where people are tormented, killed, imprisoned, or censored due to rogue insurgents or power-hungry governments.  Some of our targets will continue to evade our missiles, and some of them, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted, will evade our diplomats.

            It is not enough to roll into a village anymore and claim it for the good guys.  The new war is not for territory, it is for intelligence, information, and ideology.  Building schools, for example, will win the trust of foreigners, provide them with the tools they need to improve their quality of life, and empower them to make their own decisions in the politics of their country.  There are other ways to protect our country other than serving in the military.  Becoming a teacher in rural or urban areas of the U.S. will help combat poverty and ignorance; working at a university to develop new technology for cheap, renewable energy will disentangle us from the oil regimes of Middle Eastern dictators.

            President Obama has made national service and personal responsibility a major selling point.  He plans to double the size of the Peace Corps; he has called for fathers to take a more active role in their children’s lives; and he has equated education with patriotism by saying that “dropping out of high school is no longer an option.  It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country”.  What will make us safer years from now is that we will know more about how the world works and will have hopefully dedicated a portion of our lives to making it better.

            It won’t matter that Obama is not a military guy, or that he does not have a military Cabinet.  He does, however, have many women in charge of various compared to JFK’s time.  That itself is a powerful statement about equal opportunity and universal rights in a democratic society.  And it is leverage that can be used in combating our problems through leading by example.  With superior technology to detect threats before they result in disaster and with the superior knowledge and dedication to help decrease suffering around the world, there are many more avenues to service open now than just by learning to fire a gun.

Women in politics: few and far between

            Consider this passage from The American Voter (1960), part of a ten-page section about gender in politics entitled, “Sex”:

The wife who votes but otherwise pays little attention to politics tends to leave not only the sifting of information up to her husband but abides by his ultimate decision about the direction of the vote as well.  The information that she brings to bear on “her” choice is indeed fragmentary, but it is second hand….We believe this bias arises largely because of the female willingness to leave political matters to men.  The ultimate behavior of the dependent wife springs from the more sophisticated concepts of her husband.  On the other hand, the independent woman may well fill in a set of political concepts more parallel in quality to those employed by men.

            Now, given our more enlightened mindset and the presence of several prominent female politicians—not to mention one high-powered female almost-president—we can look back on the Leave it to Beaver era of timid housewifery and shake our heads with a combination of humor and embarrassment.  But despite legal advancement on women’s issues such as abortion and equal pay, the fact remains that women are severely underrepresented in our multiple levels of government.  For instance, the Supreme Court has a 1:8 female-to-male ratio; and obviously that rate is still a big fat zero for the presidency.

            Here are some other figures for female occupancy of various elected positions:

Governorships: 16%

U.S. House: 16%

U.S. Senate: 17%

Virginia House of Delegates: 16%

Virginia State Senate: 20%

            There will likely continue to be a slow trickle of women into federal and state elected offices in the next election cycle: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison wants to become the governor of Texas; former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is ramping up to take the same office in California; and Rep. Jan Schakowsky will look to grab the Senate seat that may be up for grabs in Illinois (depending on how soon Roland Burris will be pressured to depart).  In Virginia, no woman has yet been elected to statewide office.  Furthermore, our congressional delegation is all male and overwhelmingly white; all of the four candidates competing in the governor’s race this fall are middle-aged white dudes.

            Does it really matter that the realm of politics still remains largely a [white] man’s world?  As we saw in January during the outcry surrounding Rod Blagojevich’s appointment of Burris and the racial implications of not seating the only black member of the Senate, distinctions of race and gender still matter.  We acknowledge that women and minorities may bring unique perspectives to certain issues that white men of privilege have not experienced or may not be sensitive to—which may include questions on military force and social welfare, for example, which are not explicitly “gendered” but where we might expect women to feel differently than men.

           And even if there is no ideological difference between the sexes, people expect their officials to not only represent their concerns, but also to represent them personally.  Black people and young people had the right to be especially excited about Barack Obama’s election because they perceive him to be a member of their “in-group,” and as such, embodying unique characteristics—like having experienced the black church (for the former group) or being technologically-savvy (for the latter).  Our most obvious indicator of political similarity is party identification, but age, race, religion, region, occupation, etc. all factor into the decision of how well-qualified a particular person is to represent you.

           As long as women have access to the traditional channels of political entry—primarily in the white collar labor force or through local legislatures—we will see more competitive female candidates winning statewide or federal office.  This may need to be accomplished by legal prodding, such as making it easier for women to reenter the workforce and resume their careers if they decide to have children; but it may also require a psychological adjustment among Americans, who still see a woman’s responsibilities to her family as her primary duty.

           Hopefully, the current generation of female political heavyweights—Clinton, Palin, Sebelius, Boxer—will inspire future or current professional women to consider knocking down the barrier to equal representation in positions of power.

The Speech Givers: DNC Redux II

This is the second part of my reaction to the important speeches of the convention.  Hopefully I will have time to perform a similar analysis next week for the RNC.

Hillary Clinton—Next to Barack Obama and her husband, Hillary’s speech was probably the most anticipated of both conventions, and she lived up to great expectations as best she could.  In a paean to the working class, she recounted the stories along the campaign trail of wounded Iraq veterans, single mothers, and people without healthcare to illustrate her commitment to improving the lives of ordinary Americans.   The audience clearly reacted to her fiery rhetoric when she urged America to “keep going,” and when she commended the women of the past who worked to allow Clinton to run in the first place.  She flippantly remarked, “no way, no how, no McCain,” and harangued John McCain for being out of touch with the reality of the American economy and being complicit that women are paid less than men; and the conventioneers were genuinely ecstatic.  Hopefully, those Hillary supporters who were still hell bent on taking out their frustration against Obama will take example from her gracious lead and put party before candidate, and nation before party.

Operative quote: “You taught me so much.  You made me laugh and yes, you even made me cry.  You allowed me to become part of your lives and you became part of mine.”

Speech rating: effectiveness: A-  eloquence: A-

Joe Biden—A tough talker who cherishes his family and who listens to ordinary Americans on the train ride home from the Capitol every night…it’s hard to top Biden’s street cred as an “average Joe.”  His son, Beau, clearly became emotional as he introduced his father—noting the car wreck which claimed his wife and daughter’s lives and a speech impediment that he overcame in his youth.  The vice-presidential candidate himself gave a stirring recognition of his father and mother, who taught him to get back up after being knocked down.  He spoke of economic security by saying, “work is about more than a paycheck.  It’s dignity. It’s respect.”   Overall, Biden showed that not only is he a committed partisan, but he has a wholly human side—a symbolically aloof congressional veteran with a father’s wisdom.  We’ll see how his emotionality plays out in the vice-presidential debate.

Operative quote: “These are not isolated discussions [of economic distress] among families down on their luck.  These are common stories among middle class people who worked hard their whole life, played by the rules on the promise that their tomorrows would be better than their yesterdays.  That promise is the promise of America.  It defines who we are as a people and now it’s in jeopardy.”

Speech rating: effectiveness: A-  eloquence: B

 

Barack Obama—Standing before faux Greek columns in a city one mile above the sea—a virtual acropolis, nay, Olympus from which to decree the law of the land—amongst tens of thousands of swarming fans, Barack Obama hit this speech out of the park (pun intended).  While not as unexpected as his oration about race in the twenty-first century, this speech combined all of Obama’s positive gifts: eloquence for those who adore his highfalutin optimism; declarations of his policy goals for those who say he lacks substance; acknowledgement of his own background for those who don’t know or don’t believe his American roots; and all of this carefully bracketed partisan assaults on the policies of Bush-McCain.  Apart from flowing praise of the hardy middle class and a call for families (and particularly fathers) to take a more active role in their children’s lives, Obama was able to abandon eloquence for energy, stating: it’s not that John McCain doesn’t care, just “John McCain doesn’t get it.”  And in response to attacks on his patriotism: “I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.”  The speech may ultimately be attacked as showy and too much of a spectacle to be taken seriously; but Obama was able to not only build the case for hope, but arouse confidence about his character.  Not only does he say beautiful things and have the gravitas of an experienced statesman, but he showed himself to be 100-percent American and, while recognizing that change is larger than just himself, seems ready to lead the movement for a better tomorrow.

Operative quote: “When Washington doesn’t work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it’s best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.  I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical pedigree, and I haven’t spent my career in the halls of Washington.  But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about you.”

Speech rating: effectiveness: A  eloquence: A 

Citizen Kaine; Charlotte’s Webb; the Obaminable Snowman — bad pun-ditry? Or winning combination?

            On a hazy, muggy evening in Dixieland, a stone’s throw away from the national capital, there whipped into town the electrifying sensation that was touring the country by storm.  No, not Van Halen with David Lee Roth, but Senator Barack Obama, who on Thursday drew ten thousand supporters to fill the Nissan Pavilion in Northern Virginia to hear the firebrand sell himself.  His opening act came in the form of the comedic stylings of our Governostess with the Mostest:

He would retire backstage, leaving the crowd to incite sporadic cheers to victory among themselves.  Spirits were rising, as was the sweat cloud; if Obama could find a way to keep the mosquitoes at bay for the next hour, he would have my vote hands down.  Shortly, the time grew nigh and, waving and grinning, out strolled Timothy “Tim” Kaine, Jimothy “Jim” Webb, and the man of the hour, Barack Obama.

The good senator from the commonwealth took to the mic and wagered in his opening remarks that this was the most important election in our nation’s history (a point which may have been disputed by Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, or FDR) and remembered the circumstances of the election forty years ago—the year he graduated from the naval academy—as one occurring in the midst of the RFK and MLK assassinations, the Chicago riots, and the Tet Offensive.  To be frank, the senator could have used any rhetorical approach he wanted; so long as he didn’t nonchalantly call Obama “Macaca,” I think his constituents were satisfied.  He closed by mentioning that he was hopeful that Virginia, which has not elected a Democrat to be president since 1964, would make the right choice (he was preaching to the wrong crowd: Northern Virginia did elect a Democratic president in 2004):

            Obama took center stage to work his magic.  He gave his support for Webb’s GI Bill (paying full tuition, books, and housing for any state college to most veterans) and thanked Kaine for not only being a supporter in a red state but also for being a friend: 

 

          Obama (bottom) with Kaine and Webb 

 

            The speech itself was primarily a direct read from his address from Minneapolis at the conclusion of the primaries.  He spoke of how we expect too much of our soldiers overseas and too little of the Iraqi government; of how John McCain may have been to the Middle East but Obama has been to the middle of inner cities and rural America to get to know the average citizen; of how college should be more affordable and automobiles should be more fuel efficient; he even told the story of the unemployed man who could not put gas in his car to search for a job.  Each of these was an actionable idea but what was more impressive turned out to be the way in which people reacted to the address:

            An emphatic Barack Obama had a proselytizing effect—similar to the way a rock band can get its audience fist pumping, head bobbing, and singing along, this man was clearly getting a sincere reaction from this assembly.  I use the rock band comparison, but others may prefer referencing a style akin to Martin Luther King or maybe even a chip off Jeremiah Wright’s block.  Regardless, it was clear that his cheering, waving supporters—black, and white and everything in between; old and young and everything in between—believed that this man truly would bring hope to country.  Not because he was saying something revolutionary—indeed, Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that all men are created equal should not be celebrated as new and bold.  Jefferson just said what the people of the eighteenth century knew to be true but that no one in positions of power would acknowledge: that we all have certain rights and responsibilities that cannot be taken away.  Similarly, Obama represents what the American people know that we need—policies that work and respond to our critical problems.  When Americans want a president who is “like them,” they don’t necessarily want a candidate to bowl or drink with them.  They want a person who looks upon the people of the country with warmth and empathy and who looks out on the world with respect and the desire to cooperate and make globalization beneficial to each nation. 

So in reality, Barack Obama’s agenda is, as he has already concluded, “just words.”   He cannot help us any more than the preacher who excites his congregation can save their souls.  It is up to each person to live a more virtuous life and likewise each person must commit to bettering the country and world.  If we elect Obama, it is not significant that a young, black, inexperienced politician has changed the system; the significance is that we have changed our attitudes about how we prefer to fix the planet’s problems.  One man alone cannot give us hope and make change—those values existed before he came along and his job is to unite everyone into realizing, “Wow, everyone cares as much about our nation as I do.”  And that is Obamania.

 

I could not slide this last tidbit in eloquently, so I will not even bother with a segue.  Can we give those Hillary supporters who have vowed to vote McCain now that she is out of the race a reality check?  This is akin to storming off the dance floor because you were not voted prom queen.  Besides, she and Obama are almost the same person—two sides of the same policy coin.  The close nature of the primaries shows that we pretty much could have solved this by a coin toss and avoided months of agonizing news speculation.  I am not saying that the Democrats should unite in order to gang up on John McCain (that would be partisan), but if you thought Hillary would be the best candidate for this country, Obama is a healthy substitute.  She is one of the most powerful politicians in the country and still has a lot of fight left in her as a legislator.  But if that doesn’t work out, maybe Fred Thompson could get her an acting gig.

 

6/7