The Battle for America

Maik Nwosu

On Wednesday, January 30, the US presidential primaries showed up in Denver. Both Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton addressed large audiences at the University of Denver’s Magness Arena. Approximately ten thousand people turned up to hear Obama. The lines were so long that about two thousand people had to stay in the nearby basketball court because the eight thousand seats in the arena were filled. Only about three thousand people turned up to hear Clinton later the same day. There were factors that accounted for this disparity – the fact that Clinton was only appearing on behalf of his wife, Hillary, and was not the candidate himself; the fact that his address took place late in the evening; and the fact that there were snow showers that evening. But seeing the large crowd that turned up for Obama and especially noting its composition spoke to me with a deep voice. It seemed to me then, as has become quite clear now, that the Obama campaign was gathering an almost unstoppable momentum, the sort that could result in his emergence as the Democratic presidential nominee.
In the beginning, Hillary was the clear favourite to emerge as the Democratic nominee. Her campaign machinery had long been in the making, but Obama was probably right when he suggested that she was running because she feels that it is owed to her, that it is her turn. From her days as the First Lady to her strategic relocation to New York to her emergence as a US senator, Hillary’s campaign had long been gradually unfolding. When, recently, the Nobel Prize-winning author, Toni Morrison, explained her public support for Obama as a choice of courage over ambition, she was apparently referring to Hillary. Notably, Morrison once described Bill Clinton as “the first black President.” Another sign of the new Obama momentum was the recent declaration of support by Bill Clinton’s former campaign manager for Obama. All across America, there is a swelling Obama enthusiasm that is sometimes somewhat difficult to explain given the racial tension – both understated and statistically explicit – in everyday America.
There are those who explain the Obama phenomenon by reference to the Clinton campaign as almost over-scripted and the perception of the Clintons as capable of at best bringing about cosmetic changes. Some others refer to the manner in which the Clintons – particularly Bill – injected race into the Democratic primaries in South Carolina. Bill Clinton’s comparison of Obama to Jesse Jackson and Hillary’s statement that having a woman in the White House for the first time would be a bigger change than having a black man are usually cited. Hillary also infamously said that it took a white president to actualise the dreams of Martin Luther King Jnr. She is wrong, of course. Having a white female president will be a noteworthy first for America, but it will certainly not be as significant as having a black President for the first time. And Hillary’s reading, or rereading, of Martin Luther King is remarkably strange for a presidential aspirant in twenty first century America. But none of these reasons adequately explains the Obama phenomenon. The fraying of Hillary’s campaign began at the beginning – in Iowa, the very first caucus – because her belief in her inevitable emergence as the Democratic nominee dulled her into a surprisingly unimaginative campaign, in sharp contrast to Obama’s charismatic and brilliant flourishes. More important, Barack Obama signifies the purgation – both conscious and unconscious – of the soul of America. His triumph so far is a pointer to the inevitable return of the sign: the ideal of freedom – the freedom to be, regardless of race and other such considerations – on which the American nation was founded. Barack Obama is the millennial renewal of America, finally activated by the inexorable forces of history that had been amassing even before the 1776 Declaration of Independence.
There is of course always the possibility that President Obama, if he eventually wins, may turn out differently from Candidate Obama. When Bill Clinton described Obama’s campaign as a fairy tale, there was some truth in what he said. But Obama is largely an American fairy tale – the son of a black African and a white American who was born in America, grew up as an American, went to Harvard, and is now in a promising contest to become the president of America. In comparison, a Hillary Clinton who could afford to donate five million dollars of her own money to her campaign – five times more money than Obama and his wife, Michelle, jointly earned last year and then decline to make public her tax returns until after the Democratic primaries – seems overly privileged.
While Hillary speaks of experience, Obama talks of change, the classic vote winner because change is always in vogue. Besides in an America in which the current Bush presidency – after an earlier Bush presidency – has in fact affected the aura of the presidency, in an America in which ‘experience’ has not been able to stop a slide towards economic recession, what can be more inspiriting than change as a rallying cry? It is also difficult to see how Hillary can win by selling experience to American voters if she ends up running against the eminently experienced John McCain as the Republican nominee. It is not as difficult to imagine the effectiveness of an Obama presidential campaign structured around the theme of change. It also evidently helps the Democrats that Obama has so far understated the issue of race, preferring instead to be seen as a presidential candidate who simply happens to be black. This inclination, while effective as a political strategy, sometimes makes the Obama campaign seem rather romantic. A lot has changed in the world, no doubt. But so much more still needs to change. Meanwhile, it is a good sign that the presidential primaries, particularly among the Democrats, have turned into an intense conversation – with and without words – about the new, or the future, spirit of America.