Earlier in the campaign season, once Democrats and Republicans
identified their presidential candidates, respectively Senators Obama
and McCain, the next question for the chatterers was "Who will be the
Veep (Vice President)." This exercise qualified as fun for everyone
with prognosticators pondering over the pros and cons of inter alia
Senator Clinton (amusingly Republicans argued that Obama shouldn't
pick her), Senators Dodd, Biden, and even Senators Hagel and Lugar
(both Republicans), but not former Senator Edwards, after he "blotted
his copy book." For Republicans the fibrillation included former
Massachusetts governor Romney, Florida governor Crist, former Secstate
Powell, and former Pennsylvania governor Ridge (but nobody mentioned
obscure Alaskan politicians).
During the process, it was those who didn't know who were talking;
those who knew said nothing. But selecting Senator Biden and Governor
Palin as, respectively, the Obama and McCain running mates is a
personnel decision; the reality is a socio-psychological issue.
For the United States in this seminal year, the real running mate on
both tickets is fear. Setting aside as persiflage the various campaign
slogans such as "we are the change we have been waiting for," "real
change," or "spare change," this is not a good time for the United
States. The country faces many serious problems, each generating a
quotient of fear.
Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, when 80 percent of the
population believes that the country is headed in the wrong direction,
you cannot be happy. A Democrat may be pleased at the political
opportunities this affords his party (and a Republican desperately
discouraged), but there are no "happy campers" when contemplating the
forest of extended costly combat in Iraq/Afghanistan; the anticipation
of another "9/11" later if not sooner; a struggling economy (including
rising energy prices, the housing bust, health care increases, massive
federal deficits/trade imbalances, rising unemployment, and a falling
dollar); and a plethora of racial and gender issues that the political
campaign will exacerbate rather than heal.
Each of these substantive challenges generates its own level of fear;
it has been rare that so many challenges have arrived simultaneously
with so few obvious solutions and so many bitterly debated and
divisive/mutually exclusive decisions pending a change of
administrations in Washington.
We are, for example, afraid that the long hiatus in terror attacks on
the United States will end just at a point designed to influence the
election. For those with a scintilla of imagination, every air flight
is a test of courage. It is approaching seven years since 9/11, but
Osama bin Laden remains at large, and no one can be confident that it
has been counterintelligence vigilance that has kept new assaults at
bay. We fear both loosening the security strictures and the abrading
social consequences of this security over the long term. For those who
believe some U.S. citizens are paranoid about security when we should
merely be neurotic, one observes, "he laughs at scars who never felt a
wound."
We are afraid that the tentative progress toward stabilizing Iraq and
Afghanistan is subject to the "two steps forward and one step
back"—and that the "step back" will arrive in the autumn. Such will
generate still another round of bitterness between those who believe
both military actions were a nefarious Bush plot for oil as directed
by VP "Haliburton" Cheney and those who see them as bitter but
necessary politico military decisions that U.S. strength is driving
toward an acceptable conclusion. We fear the prospect of new military
confrontation (Iran) and "paralysis by analysis" from invidious
experience in Iraq/Afghanistan. And now there are resurgent/revanchist
Russian challenges starting with Moscow's pressure for regime change
in Georgia.
We are afraid that the extended U.S. economic boom has deflated. We
fear that the many "chickens" let lose in the form of massive trade
deficits, huge budget deficits, and exuberant energy consumption are
circling round the roost. Nor do we see any quick fixes; many
"answers" look akin to deprivation in the form of higher taxes, higher
unemployment, reduced energy consumption, and retrenching at home and
abroad.
We are afraid that the challenges coincident with the unprecedented
number of illegal immigrants (guesstimated at 12 million but who's
counting?) will overload societal acceptance. Immigrant absorption is
eased by a booming economy, but the semi-recession will generate even
more tension for those at the bottom of the economic ladder regardless
of their race, ethnicity, or gender.
It looks like years if not decades of bitter pills with the blame game
being the only game in town.
We fear that these challenges require transcendental political skill
but, unfortunately, many Americans are not satisfied with their
principal candidates; both are significantly, perhaps fatally, flawed.
Senator John McCain
In some respects, Senator McCain's flaws are less obvious. He has been
in public life in many dimensions for 50 years—which is his weakness
as well as his strength; what you see is what you get and will get in
a McCain presidency. He is well tutored in national security and
practical politics. He is 72, not the oldest man ever to run for the
presidency (Robert Dole was older), but if elected, he would be the
oldest ever to become president for a first term. McCain deflects age
questions by suggesting that his 96 year old mother would scold them;
but perhaps genetically more relevant is that his father died abruptly
at 70. And nobody can say that Senator McCain has not lived an
extraordinarily stressful life, notably 5.5 years as a POW in Vietnam.
The consequence of this experience, including both injury and torture,
has left him physically handicapped, unable to raise his arms above
shoulder level. Ask your father or grandfather whether he feels as
capable now as he felt in his 50s?
Moreover, Senator McCain has been defined by anger—perhaps the emotion
that kept him alive and sane as a POW, but one that has generated
animosities among those who might have been allies. He claims to have
conquered his bad temper, but this new McCain has not been tested, and
he largely ignored the motto of "to get along; go along" in his
political career. Never an intellectual, it is unclear whether he
would be creatively flexible in addressing national domestic and
foreign challenges outside his exiting paradigms. Can he build
alliances both at home and abroad when facing skeptical and/or hostile
interlocutors?
Senator Barack Obama
The (in)experience question is overwhelming. Senator Obama's
substantive credentials for the presidency are the thinnest of any
Republican or Democratic candidate since World War II. He has never
run anything larger than a senate office, engaged in business, or
served in the military. If elected Obama would be younger than all but
Clinton, JFK, and Teddy Roosevelt (who became president in 1901 after
McKinley was assassinated having been elected vice president). Obama's
6 years as an Illinois state legislator are irrelevant so far as
national effectiveness is concerned
(ref Stockwell Day's experience in Alberta provincial politics as
illustrative). His books are most inspiring to those who consider
Oprah Winfrey to be a literary critic.
When one has no experience comparable to an opponent, you claim (a)
judgment is more important than experience; and/or (b) yesterday's
experience is irrelevant for tomorrow's challenges. Convincing
Americans that is today's reality is Senator Obama's challenge.
Much of the presidential campaign to date has been devoted to seeking
insight on Senator Obama. His soaring and inspirational speeches are
juxtaposed against comments that bitter working class whites cling to
guns and god. Should he be defined by the company he kept for 20 years
(the odious Rev Wright with his "God damn America" rhetoric)? Has he
become a prisoner of his own rhetoric with critics now caveating
rhetoric with "empty"? What would his credentials as the most liberal
U.S. senator mean for domestic policy positions? Was his decision to
start wearing a U.S. flag lapel pin after ostentatiously refusing to
do so an appreciation of political reality or an act of hypocrisy—or
both?
Race will be another significant element in the election along with
the fear associated with what a minority member president would mean
for the United States. This is not because Senator Obama is African
American as trivial observers of the U.S. scene would instantly
surmise. To be sure, there are those voters who would never support a
candidate not of their race (or gender) as well as those who would
support the proverbial "yellar dog" if it had the correct political
label on its ownership tag. Pollsters suggest that the United States
is ready for an African-American (or a woman) as president, but
definitely not this woman (Senator Clinton) and perhaps not this
African-American, who has yet to provide a comfort level for other
Americans. The task would have been easier for a figure such as former
Secretary of State Colin Powell, with his decades of exemplary public
service. Senator Obama may end by demonstrating a U.S. success story
by being elected president. Or he may also epitomize the ultimate
level of success—being rejected on his merits with race having little
to do with his defeat.
Does Senator Barack Obama have a middle name? The media never
hesitated to identify "Hillary Rodham Clinton" or "Martin Luther King"
or even with a bit of a sneer for upper-caste pretensions, "George
Herbert Walker Bush." But Senator Obama's middle name ("Hussein")
largely goes unmentioned, primarily because the political reality of
"a name is a name is a name" may prompt those who see "Barack Hussein
Obama" as a Muslim name—and thus unsuited to be U.S. president.
Senator Obama's name also leads into one of the
dare-not-speak-its-name fears: assassination. It has been 40 years
since there was a political assassination in the United States (1968
with Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King) and not since 1981 has
there been an identified attempt (against Ronald Reagan), but the
trauma associated with these attacks and presence of Senator Obama has
raised the stakes. Thus the scare at the Democratic convention
involved arrest of several drug-addled males with rifles in their
car—ultimately being charged with illegal drug/gun possession but not
worse crimes.
There is, for example, the quiet appreciation that while Senator Obama
doubtless is a Christian, he may well be viewed in Muslim countries as
having once been a Muslim. For some strict interpretations of Islam, a
Muslim who converts to another faith is an apostate—and subject to
death for this action. Thus in 1965 Malcom X was murdered by three
black males ultimately identified as Black Muslims. And while Secret
Service security and personal protection have become ever more
sophisticated, the fear of the lone "James Earl Ray" type assassin
cannot be set aside.
Nor is Senator McCain immune to threat. At one point earlier in the
primary campaign, he was reported to have refused Secret Service
protection. While one assumes that is no longer the case, the open
nature of democratic politics places him at risk as well.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once proclaimed that "the only
thing we have to fear is fear itself." That observation was and
remains true—but it is likewise true that failure to recognize and
appreciate the power of fear may lead to exactly the consequences that
inspired the dread. And fear will surely stand at the shoulder of
this presidential election.