Reflections (with notes) on Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton

In political matters, as in many others, we tell ourselves stories about who we are, where we are going, and what we are about. When we grow tired of a story, or sense that a new one is needed, we go looking. These moments define periods of flux where change is both welcomed and a source of anxiety.

The late 1950’s and early 1960’s presented us with such a moment. We understood, at some deeper level, that the world had not only changed, but defined itself anew [1]. Yet there was, at a conscious level, no attendant framing story to articulate what was little more than a growing awareness.

On to the stage stepped John Kennedy. With his youth, wit, energy, vigor and intellect, he inspired us to believe we would forge a ‘new story’ to orient ourselves and move us successfully through the second half of the 20th century.

When he was killed, it all went away.

The only ones left standing were old politicians and their old politics. And they led us back to the past. It could be no other way. It was all they knew, and lacking both Kennedy’s sense the country was looking for something new, and our deeper longing for it, it was all they could do. [2]

So now, after 9/11, a new reality has shaped itself. So now an old politics, riddled with old contentions, holds our politics and politicians in thrall.

And onto the stage Barack Obama strides, calling for change. Young, vigorous, with a clear and penetrating intellect, he urges us to embrace a moment of flux, to stand forth once again as creatures of our hopes, to have the confidence we will discover a new story to orient ourselves, and our allies around the world, in constructive and purposeful endeavor.

It is in this that Obama’s great appeal resides. He is telling us: Have confidence in yourselves; working together we can do this. We’ve changed in the past and emerged all the stronger for it. We can, and must, shake off the miasma of fear the current administration has worked so hard to trap us in. Break free, and this free people can and will discover successful new stances and new strategies. [3]

‘. . . we, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility - Abraham Lincoln, message to the Congress 1863.

Hillary Clinton is everything her advocates say she is: deeply committed, highly talented, and an extremely well prepared individual, but by her life and her history, she is tied to the past. She has strategies, plans, and proposals all lined up and ready to go. The very concrete nature of all of that is ineluctably tied to past experiences and trials, and consequently cannot help but gravitate around an old politics. All of these proposals are eminently worthy of consideration, and I am confident any Democratic administration would be eager to pursue them.

However, through no fault of her own, she is also tied to the past by forces beyond her control. In a concerted, persistent, and virulent effort, the conservative right set out to bring down the Clinton Presidency in flames from day one. And it did not hesitate to go beyond the President, but eagerly sought out anything and everything it could bring to bear, ultimately trashing and demonizing both Bill and Hillary. The ‘polarization’ with which the Clintons (and now especially Hillary) are charged is largely the creation of that right wing effort. Nevertheless, ‘that ‘stuff’ is out there, and will surely be brought to bear in the coming election campaign - and after, as she would try to govern and bring her agenda into being. This reality cannot be brushed aside in choosing the Democratic nominee.

So, do we now want someone, however well intentioned and well prepared, but tied to a more concrete and fixed vision, or someone who inspires us with confidence we can ride the flux: We can, we must, do this ‘new thing’?

[1] Emerging from the Second World War as by far the least damaged and most powerful nation in the world, we proceeded through 15 years of peace and prosperity; assumed, by default, the leadership of a world wide alliance dedicated to containing a vast totalitarian threat, establishing and maintaining, in the process, an enormous and unprecedented peacetime defense establishment. Yet, by 1960 we sensed burgeoning new energies, and felt ourselves capable of more.

[2] Arguably, the great youth unrest of the later 60’s reflected the perception on the part of the young that there was nothing out there which explained or rendered purposeful the altered world they saw all about them. They ‘tuned in’, ‘turned on’, and ‘dropped out’.

[3] The ultimate strength of a Democracy may well lie in a permanent capacity for renewal, for new energies and ideas to well up from the broad base on which it resides.