For All You Other Cynics

I've tried to get into this race. I really have. I should be excited about the first female and first African American presidential candidates who actually have a chance to win. It is historical. But unfortunately my enthusiasm for the great achievement this race represents in overcoming long standing prejudices and unequal opportunities, especially for African Americans, is tempered by my disfavor of being manipulated.

Many won't like to believe this, but Barack and Hillary were chosen long before today. Before even the 2006 midterms. Here was the plan: The Clintons return to the White House with Obama as running mate. Then, hopefully, the groundswell of dangerously populist sentiments rising among the utterly disgusted electorate will be drowned out by the historical reemergence of racial and gender politics.

Then, according to the plan, the 2008 presidential race, and by proxy the congressional races as well, will not be about corporate power, the corruption of our government, the real causes for the destruction of the working class, the real causes for the Iraq war, the real crimes of George Bush and company, or anything else that threatens the establishment power structure in the US. If all goes accordingly, we'll be so caught up in the Big Firsts that we'll put those concerns aside.

There's just one problem. Obama appears not to have gotten the memo. A ticket with Billary and Obama is the dream of the movers and shakers in the party establishment, and especially their Wall Street backers. But it was supposed to be Clinton/Obama 2008. Not the other way around. Nobody thought Obama would run away with this thing. No one even imagined he would give the Clinton machine, which by the way had the full Democratic establishment behind it, a run for its money. And yet it looks like he actually could win. Unlikely, but possible.

And so you watch as the corporate owned, establishment controlled media starts to make sure that Obama places second next Tuesday. There's a catch there too though. Some of the establishment is peeling off for Obama. And it goes beyond the Kennedys. Whether this peeling off affects the manipulative coverage on the big networks remains to be seen.

So the question for all the cynics is, is Obama worth getting excited about, all things considered? Does he represent a chance for real change or is he just a Hallmark postcard with the word change written on it. Is there something he's not telling us? Some trick he has up his sleeve that will revolutionize this country? Or is he the New Left distraction card the establishment has been playing since the CIA was sneaking money to Gloria Steinem back in the 60s?

I honestly am not sure. But there's one thing I am sure about - he knows what it means to be a Democrat. And that's something I can't say about most Democrats - ironically enough.

Read these words carefully:

It's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we are all connected as one people.

If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child.

If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent.

If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work.

It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: "E pluribus unum," out of many, one.

Think about what Obama is saying here. He is redefining, for our lost party, what it means to be a Democrat, and an American. "Out of many, one." This was the great covenant of FDR's New Deal. And this is what it meant to be a Democrat, all the way up, until Bill Clinton came in and sanctified the mantra of Reagan selfism with the new era of "personal responsibility." And the Clinton campaign slogan of "It's the economy, stupid." offered the perfect segue from the Me Generation of the 80s to the Mine Generation of the 90s.

Obama is reminding us that there is something more important that our own individual interests. That is our responsibility to our neighbors, communities, and our country. This is a solid and desperately needed rejection of the radical and immoral philosophies of Ayn Rand and Isaiah Berlin which were embraced by the Clinton New Democrats. It is a call to restore a higher purpose to American life.

Is Obama the real deal? A whole lot of people in Illinois, including a couple of hard core cynics who worked in the state legislature there, truly believe so. Me, I'm just not sure. But I'm willing to give him a chance.