Like anyone would care, I'm not "declaring" for Barack Obama, but I confess I've never seen any young politician get off to a bigger, better, or more impressive start. Sunday -- and this is hard to believe -- this presidential contender made a first-in-his-lifetime visit to the Blessed Shrine of New Hampshire Annointment, where he was received with a swarming enthusiasm that made the frequent visitors cringe.
The nearly singular but persistent doubt universally expressed about Obama is his lack of experience. It was echoed by one participant in the N.H. crowds: "I think he’s a serious candidate, but I don’t think he has great potential. No track record, and there are too many guys ahead of him in line."
The sentiment puzzles me, since Abraham Lincoln, who eventually acquitted himself rather well as president, also had an official political bio that contained only stints as an Illinois state legislator and all of one term in the U.S. Congress prior to running for the White House. To understate the matter, such a scant record failed to reflect his abilities. And Lincoln, too, had a long line of vastly more experienced politicos ahead of him in 1860. He outwitted them all with a political finesse that trumped common seniority.
What's more, in 2000 the media blithely overlooked candidate George Bush's lack of experience. It was left mostly to Al Gore to point out that his opponent's official past reduced to that of an ineffectual, "bumbling governor" with little power. The media preferred to address Bush's "affability." Wouldn't you rather have a beer with George? Using that presidential measure of a man, Obama is affability with a brain -- and he has both by the bucketful.
The only other Obamian doubt regards issue unknowns (the "known unknowns," not heaven forfend the "unknown unknowns," as Rummy would pose it. God I'll miss him). Yet he is quickly dispelling that one. "In two speeches and a news conference" in N.H., "Mr. Obama called for universal health care ..., a battle on global warming and a timed redeployment of troops from Iraq."
Those are impressive, not to mention popular, starters: saving lives, saving Earth and saving our troops. For some unfathomable reason, it still hasn't registered with Obama's Democratic colleagues that 60 percent of the public supports national health care. Furthermore, Al Gore revitalized his image on the sole issue of impending environmental disaster, and virtually everyone outside "The O'Reilly Factor" echo chamber now endorses an Iraq withdrawal. (In another striking Obama-Lincoln comparison, Abe's only splash in Congress was made in attacking a disingenuous president, his illegal war, and unchecked executive power.)
Downplaying specifics, however, in his N.H. debut Obama mostly "talked about what he decried as a toxically partisan atmosphere in Washington, clearly signaling a central theme of a presidential campaign."
"We’ve come to be consumed by a 24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative ad, bickering, small-minded politics that doesn’t move us forward," said Obama. "Sometimes one side is up and the other side is down. But there’s no sense that they are coming together in a common-sense, practical, nonideological way to solve the problems that we face."
I'm ambivalent about politicians even bothering with this approach, although I well understand why they take it. It's the "Can't-we-all-just-get-along" Happy Face of American politics that most every newcomer initially tries, but ultimately abandons. Voters claim they want it, newcomers oblige, things move along swimmingly for a while, then the Happy Face is systematically smeared and muddied by desperate opponents' 24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative ad, bickering, small-minded attacks.
What's a saint to do? Retaliate. Hard. And soon. He damn well better, or it's good night and good luck.
So what's a fair assessment of Obama's candidacy? We can't yet know. That won't come until the above-mentioned crucible. If Obama learns to counter the coming assaults with a kind of gentlemanly manslaughtering touch, he'll do fine. If he smiles and lets them pass, he'll go down like Sonny Liston.