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I start out with the word "Musing" because that is all this is. This is speculative, not factual, and it's completely subjective.
I was in a (large) room with Obama once, it was in 2008 at what was then called Yearly KOS. He impressed me and I liked him intuitively, but I wasn't ready to back him for President over some other Democratic possibilities. Three years have passed now and not that much has changed about those first feelings about Obama. He still impresses me, and I still intuitively like him. I'll support Obama over a Republican for the Presidency in 2012, but with less conviction and greater reservations than I had in 2008 when the decision had narrowed to him or John McCain. He'll have nome of my money next time, and very little of my time.
The Democratic Party accepts Obama as its leader. I accept that Obama is a Democrat. I'm not trying to be coy in saying that. There are some elected Democrats who are Democrats in name only by my standards, but I don't say that about Barack Obama. I accept him as a genuine Democrat who would like to have our nation achieve much of the long time Democratic agenda.
Some people who like myself are troubled by some choices Obama makes, increasingly are calling him essentially a corporate tool, or a front man for ruling class interests. That's far too simplistic in my opinion. I don't believe that Barack Obama is any more a tool or front man than the overwhelming majority of the relatively tiny group of Americans who had any chance of running for President and actually winning during the last 40 or so years.
A lot of you probably don't relate to the title I gave this OP. Enigma is a term that feels right to me while exploring my perceptions of our President. Others I realize are much more emphatic in their assessment of Obama. But I think what I label an enigma is sharply evident in starkly divided feelings about Obama that have surfaced on this forum for years now.
Barack Obama is an inspirational leader to many Democrats who trust in his vision of our nation and the sincerity of his efforts to fulfill it: Democrats who appreciate the difficulty Obama faces seeking solutions for America in the face of a rabidly obstructionist opposition. They watch Obama confront a determined Right wing willing to seize every opportunity to not only thwart him, but to turn Americans against him personally through vile and vicious slander, and they see him rise above that with the dignity of his office preserved, the adult among raucous children.
Our President often is a model of grace under fire, using reason deftly wielded to rebut rhetoric madly flung. There is something deeply likable about someone who can do that. There is a lot that is deeply likable about Barack Obama. I trust that Obama is genuine; that he believes whatever course he takes is what is best for America as a whole under the circumstances he is facing at that time.
I believe that Barack Obama is a man who thinks creatively inside of the box. I think he is willing to turn over every stone necessary to find the best solution possible within the usually unspoken boundaries of what is deemed possible to achieve. Unlike most politicians, I think Obama has been fairly forthright about that. He has always defined his political philosophy as more pragmatic than ideological, and has never been guarded in saying that. In 2004 Obama proclaimed that there wasn't a Red America and a Blue America, but just one America, and a Democratic National Convention gave his a standing ovation. Though his working political agenda has sometimes morphed significantly from earlier campaign promises he made, Obama tended to clear about the approach that he would use in governing, and for the most part he has done so. Pragmatism leaves the door open for virtually any adjustment deemed necessary in pursuit of a larger goal.
I think Obamas larger goal is to make America work again as well as it possibly can: Under the existing circumstance. Preexisting circumstances are part of the box I believe that Obama thinks inside of. It factors in assessments of what is and is not possible, which then rank higher as guiding principles than what theoretically could be better. You can find that for example in Obamas seemingly conflicting comments about single payer health care. As an abstraction he agreed that it is the model that makes the most sense, but in practice, here in America, he deemed it unfeasible to pursue. Sometimes I can visualize him as a super skilled mechanic who knows where all the wires are and the exact limitations of the engine. He is not off in some lab, trying to invent a better car, he is trying to get the one in front of him working as well as it can.
Obama promised us change, and in a real way he has delivered it. After an ideologically driven Presidency under Bush, he is giving us an honestly pragmatic one. The bigger change Obama promised us which I feel he is determined to keep his word on is his willingness to grapple with some of the stickiest big issues in America, ones that previous Presidents showed a preference to kick further down the road for the next guy to worry about. And so he tackled health care insurance, and so too he takes seriously the long term viability of core safety net programs in America if nothing is done to alter the predicted curves of rising costs and falling or stagnant income.
I believe our President's motivations are sincere, well intentioned, and fully consistent with basic values of the Democratic Party. Many of us intuitively realize that about Obama but just can't understand then why he is making some of the choices that he is.
In musing about all this the best that I can come up with is this. We elected a man who is nimble while thinking inside of the box. We elected a hard working President who is focused on ways to keep America as we know now, viable for all Americans at a time when America as we know it is becoming impossible for most of us to prosper or even survive in.
We are at one of those defining times in American history where the box that was constructed with walls of conventional wisdom will soon be suffocating millions of us if that box is not broken out of. We have entered a radical, some would say approaching revolutionary time of a sort last seen here in this country during the Great Depression. There are no solutions left inside the box for the majority of Americans. The box has become the problem.
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