It´s Obama
Now what? Andrew revels in the minor epistemological crisis:
When Obama passes the magic number, what to post? Readers are hereby invited to submit quotes, YouTubes, poems, songs, photographs and whatever you dream up to commemmorate the Clintons’ departure from presidential politics for, well, at least three years. This is a celebration that can unite Democrats and Republicans. Out the word “celebrate” in your email content lines. We’ll do our best to commemmorate the moment, er, appropriately.
I endorsed Obama for the Democratic nomination back when the race was interesting, despite criticizing his campaign early on for feeding a style of therapy in which the theatrical experience of superficially participatory politics provides its participant-spectators with a sense of transcending the merely political. So the rise of Obama has deepened and made more subtle a longstanding tension: a great appreciation of fun and a curmudgeonly distaste for ´celebration,´ which has become one of the great all-purpose pacifiers of the age. Celebrating for celebrating´s sake? Eww.
And yet: locking people like Hillary Clinton out of high office is cause for great good cheer. And it´s also important to recognize that if Obama were a Republican and a conservative he´d be fawned over and slobbered on as the True Second Coming of Reagan. I´ve said elsewhere that the more Americans there are who are less like Clinton, the better, and the more there are who are more like Obama, the better. Obviously I don´t mean this politically; the whole Democratic race for me has been about character, which means an Obama-Biden ticket is a holy grail I´m sure I´ll never see.
At any rate, the bottom line here is that in spite of myself it seems right to at least raise a glass to Obama. He is a good American, a cool spirit, and, perhaps most important of all, a worthy opponent. His triumph is questionable in terms of small-ball politics, but neither you, I, nor the Democratic party should worry much about that. In terms of the American character, it´s an important and refreshing reminder that we can, in fact, raise the bar when it comes to our politicians, and admire the luxury of our own high expectations both conscientiously and confidently.
All of this is ruined, of course, if Obama caves and Hillary slithers onto the ticket.