June 2, 2008

 

 

 

 

Why I like Obama

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

 

 

Ss as how my time at the Other Press is drawing
to a close, I think it’s only right that I use one of my last
remaining “letters from the editor” to do what I do best,
and offer up some bitter right-wing commentary. So let’s
talk about Obama.

If you’re even remotely politically interested, chances
are that you have several Obamaniacs as friends. People
that join all the various Obama facebook groups, and
have his poster in their bedroom, listen to his speeches on
YouTube, and all the rest of it. They speak with wide-eyed
wonder about just how darn great he is at everything, and
how he’ll change America like no president ever before.
Even if you're not a conservative yourself, I’m sure you
find at least some of this a little bit cloying and saccharine.
Yet sometimes one cannot help but pause to savour the
fantastic nature of it all.

Within my short lifetime, I’ve seen my friends and school
buddies support and defend various political candidates,
and argue—or even campaign—on their behalf. But in
all honesty, Obama is the first politician I’ve seen young

 

people genuinely like. And I don’t mean like, as
in, “I want to win,” I mean a genuine, deep-seated,
personal fondness and love. A lot of college-aged
kids may vote NDP, but at the end of the day Jack
Layton is just some dork with a mustache who
happens to be the leader of the day. If he didn’t
have the job some other knob would. But Obama
is different, Obama is cool, Obama is someone
you can see yourself in, someone you'd like to
hang out with, someone who you can support
without qualification.

I’ve written about the Great One in these pages
before, and I’ve enjoyed taking the traditional
right-wing potshots in the traditional fashion;
ie, slagging his inexperience, his naiveté, his
oddball pastor and wife, his preening vanity, etc.
But truth be told, it’s not always easy. There are
elements of Obama which are very hard to dislike,
primarily because Obama isn’t really a politician
per se, he’s an idea. And even if Obama the
person is little more than a fairly unremarkable
and decidedly flawed liberal politician, Obama
the idea is something much bigger, something
that transcends mere ideology and partisanship.
I’m still not entirely sure I understand the appeal,
but I do understand it’s value.

Even though I like reading and writing about
it, I don’t consider myself someone who really
“likes” politics per se. And I don’t think most
people do. People like culture and philosophy, and
Obama’s very good at speaking those languages,
as opposed to someone like John McCain, who
is unable to sound like anything other than the
career politician he is. A couple issues ago our
opinions editor, Aimee Ouellette wrote a fine
piece in which she espoused the increasingly-
common view that Obama’s popularity comes in
part from his ability to speak about substantial
cultural matters, like race and class, in an honest
and mature way. He doesn’t talk like a guy who
you’d see on Crossfire, or Hannity and Colmes, or
any of those other terrible soundbyte festivals, but
rather a guy who has put some genuine thought
into the things he believes. It doesn’t mean the
things he believes are any good, mind you, but
it does display a thoughtfulness that is decidedly
refreshing in an era in which everything we see,
hear, and read—including our politicians—come
pre-made and pre-packaged.

But perhaps the best part of Obama is what

he’s done for this country. In the late 1960’s and
early 70’s liberal Americans were often attracted
to Canada primarily because of the way our hip,
happening, lefty prime minister contrasted so
positively with their dour, sadistic, right-wing
president. The rise of Obama has triggered
something of a reversal in that dynamic, which
truth be told, continued to dwell in the Canadian
imagination long after Trudeau left the scene.
Canadians love to think of ourselves as the sexy
progressive alternate US, the indy radio station of
North America that plays the hits they don’t want
you to hear south of the border. Canadians would
have loved to produce an Obama of our own, but
for a number of reasons we didn’t, and instead
got Stephen Harper. And now we’re forced to
realize that maybe, just maybe, our country
doesn’t have a monopoly on all that is innovative
and progressive.

Obama’s rise thus helps dispel a number of
crude stereotypes about the United States that
would otherwise have a stranglehold on college-
age brains. America is not, and has never been an
irreversibly “conservative” country, and its proud
traditions of leftist protest and intellectualism
have historically inspired much more of the
western world than those of, say, Canada. By
evoking his country’s liberal past, Obama has
made it okay for Canadians to like America again,
and perhaps even made it cool to do so. The red,
white, and blue might still be symbols of Bushian
imperialism to some, but to others they’ve also
become the colors of Obama’s bandwagon
of hope for a more progressive tomorrow. As
someone who thinks the future of this country
is fundamentally tied to the fate of the US, any
leader capable of fostering greater cross-border
sympathy and support, even if it’s for all the
wrong reasons, can’t be that bad.

I don’t think Obama will be elected president,
and even if he is, I doubt he’ll be a particularly
good one. But he will give a great deal of people
faith in the political process; and a reason to love
America again. It would take a conservative with
a heart of ice not to view that as at least some
kind of victory.

J.J. McCullough
Editor in Chief of the Other Press