Obama's Realignment

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright November 2, 2008
All Rights Reserved.                    

            Steaming toward Election Day, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.) continues to build what looks like unstoppable momentum.  His campaign unofficially began when he delivered July 17, 2004 a spellbinding keynote address for failed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).  Obama officially launched his campaign Jan. 17, 2007 in Springfield, Mo, relying heavily on his DNC speech, promising to mend a divided nation, sliced-and-diced into red and blue states, polarized by religious conservatives. He stands at the threshold on an historic win, the first African American to capture the White House.  Obama’s race heightens the suspense before Election Day, until the networks call the election, one way or another.  All signs point to a decisive victory but few are willing to go out on a limb making a bold but clearly conservative prediction.

            “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776, a slap in the face to England’s King George III and the “Divine Right of Kings.”  Two-hundred and twenty-two years since the Amercia’s offical birthday and 401 years since the founding of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, an African American has a real chance of fulfilling Jefferson’s promise.  Twenty years later, the first African slaves were brought to the New World.  It took a bloody civil war fought between 1861-1865 that the nation finally passed Dec. 5, 1865 the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. Nov 4 promises to be an historic day in U.S. history, finally breaking the color barrier.

            Obama’s election should do much more than reparations for slavery to heal mistreatment of the black community.  Civil rights leaders toiled and died to see Jefferson’s immortal words redeemed.  While Obama has rightfully avoided race and stuck to the issues in campaign 2008, there’s going to be a profound change in American culture should Barack win on Nov. 4.  Ironically, campaign 2008 witnessed the most vicious discrimination inside the GOP against former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney for his Mormon faith.  Christian evangelicals, now controlling the Republican Party, attacked Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) perhaps best-qualified VP choice, pushing him to pick Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the least qualified choice.  After the election, the GOP will have to deal with the insidious forces that eviscerated the credibility and civil rights of a Mormon presidential candidate.

            All eyes are focused on Election Day, when newly registered voters get to express their preference for change.  Blacks, Latinos and youth voters promise to hand Barack a decisive victory.  Traditional voting groups, e.g., single white mothers, blue collar workers, Catholics and Jews, also promise to vote their pocket book, worried about today’s economic mess.  While the GOP tried to paint Obama as a partisan Democrat or “tax-and-spend liberal” [“the most liberal voting record in the Senate”], he’s a post-partisan candidate, committed to bringing unprecedented numbers of Republicans and independents into the White House.  Calling him “socialist” plays well to “the base” but doesn’t match his promise to end partisan pettiness, causing Washington’s inaction.  Barack wants to govern not from the left-or-right, blue-or-red, but what’s best to grow the middle class.

            If Barack prevails by a sizable popular and Electoral College margins, a new post-partisan majority will emerge.  Built on the promise of economic opportunity, the new governing majority pulls from every ethnic, racial and religious group, not concerned about promoting Party, ethnic, religious or racial agendas but about advancing the middle class to economic prosperity. Jefferson’s immortal words ring in the compelling oratory of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., imploring a racially divided nation Aug. 28, 1963 in his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:  “I have a dream that one day my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” said Dr. King.  Obama’s election will go a long way in redeeming Jefferson and King’s hopes for a diverse, colorblind America.

            Nov. 4th promises to realign the nation around a new economic and social paradigm built on Jefferson’s powerful words in the Declaration of Independence.  Obama has done his best to keep race out of the campaign, preferring to focus on pressing economic and national security issues.  Obama’s victory should go a long way in healing lingering resentments.  It will also force the GOP to deal with its current takeover by religious conservatives as represented by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.  If the GOP believes she represents the future, it could spell the end of the Republican Party, no longer tolerant within in own ranks of Mormons like Romney or other minorities entering the political mix.  Record numbers of new voters seeking change and a new electoral alignment promise to propel Obama to victory on Nov. 4.  Those holding onto the past risk getting left behind.

  John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

©1999-2012 Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.
(310) 204-8300
All Rights Reserved.