I really like Barack Obama - anyone who reads this blog knows that. And it's not just his ideas that are so attractive; his style is just stunning. I'm no starry eyed kid; I've been around the block with many candidates who looked better than they turned out to be. But in this case, it feels like the more you look the better it gets. It's scary, in fact, because it can't be true - there are sure to be grim and discouraging moments and long dry periods. Even so, there is so much room for hope. I wanted to share a couple of moments that add to that hope as we look forward in these very scary times.
First, last week's issue of the New York Time Magazine included a piece by Ron Suskind, author of A Hope in the Unseen, called Change. You really should read it, but for now consider this story that Valerie Jarrett told Suskind as evidence that I'm not delusional to be so excited about the basic qualities of this man.
It was in Iowa, just a year ago. Obama was way behind Hillary Clinton. The heavyweights were called in, 200 members of Obama’s national finance committee. The money people. Many had given mightily. And now, it seemed, nothing was working. Obama said that before they all gathered to pass judgment, he wanted them — all 200 — to meet his grass-roots field team in Iowa.They did, then gathered in a room at an Iowa arts center. The room was tense. Obama explained that day that they were running a different kind of campaign, a real grass-roots campaign, one that grew from the bottom up, from the dirt, and that it takes time for those roots to take hold. And the heavy hitters nodded; yes, they understood that idea, but it wasn’t working. The polls were the proof. They showed Clinton with a double-digit lead. And Jarrett can remember how Obama looked at them, hard-eyed, everything on the line. “ ‘Did you think I was kidding when I said this was the unlikely journey?’ ” Jarrett recalls him saying. “‘You thought this would be simple? No, change is never simple. Change is hard.
“ ‘Listen, I know you’re nervous,’ he went on. ‘But if you’re nervous, I’ll hold your hand. We’re going to get through this together. And if we win Iowa, we’ll win this country.’ ”
Jarrett said: “He turned their emotion around. He made sense of it. He told them why we were there and what was within our grasp. And people became jubilant. You never heard cheering like that. That was the turn, where it happened.”
To me that says it all. There's lots more in the piece though; I just read it last night and was just knocked out by it.
Then, thanks to RoadKill Refugee, who always seems to find things no one else has noticed, I came upon this remarkable interview between Obama and my old boss Bryant Gumbel. Again, everything that is revealed seems positive. Wise, funny, unpretentious - a man, as so many have observed, who is comfortable in his own skin; a man who doesn't have to prove anything to anybody.
Make of these what you will - but amid all the staffing speculation and bailout talk, school choice, puppy shopping and Inauguration gossip, this is a look at what appears to be some of the real stuff behind this person we've chosen to lead us for the next four years.
I know there are more important things in the world - I write about many of them, but losing the enchanting, original Eli Stone makes me sad. ABC announced its cancellation Thursday apparently. I'm a sucker for a bit of the supernatural now and again but how can you abandon a guy who has hallucinations featuring George Michael? I mean really.
There was something sweet and inspiring about this lawyer tilting at the windmills emerging from his hallucinations, and converting those around him to believe in his quests. The wonderful Victor Garber (Sydney's dad on Alias) and adorable Loretta Devine (also The Chief's wife on Grey's Anatomy) didn't hurt either. I will miss them all. Once in a while a TV series speaks to you for no apparent reason; I think in this case I just loved the story and the struggle. Maybe Eli will find a new life on SciFi Channel or something so we can at least relive his past adventures. And see him in production numbers with George Michael one more time.
Grant Park 1968 - in the heart of Chicago. Grant Park -- where my friends and I were gassed and beaten - terrified and abused - during the Democratic Convention in 1968. Grant Park - haunted by so much.
Here's how I remembered it on the 40th anniversary this summer:
I wonder if you can imagine what it felt like to be 22 years old, totally idealistic and what they call "a true believer" and to see policemen behave like that. To see Chicago Mayor Richard Daley call the first Jewish Senator, Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, a "kike" (you had to read his lips - there was no audio but it was pretty clear) and to see your friends, and colleagues, and some-time beloveds with black eyes and bleeding scalps. To be dragged by a Secret Service agent from your place next to Senator McCarthy by the collar of your dress as he addressed the demonstrators, battered, bruised and angry. To see everything you'd worked for and believed in decimated in the class, generational and political warfare.
Why does this matter, you ask? Because, this moment - 40 years later -- as Barack Obama assumed the leadership of our country with such an elegant speech, informed and supported in part by the values, and people, who fought, bled and wept through those awful days and by a majority of those as young now as we were then and just as committed to the vision they've been offered and by an enormous, excited turnout, black and white, -- he did so on this same site, in the shadow of the Hilton where we put all the kids with broken heads -- and tried to keep the tear gas out of our eyes. We've been haunted by that time for so long, and as far as I can tell, this was an exorcism. As I heard a commentator say this morning: "The culture wars are over. The Vietnam War is over." And not a moment too soon.
What's happening is far larger of course. Yesterday morning we voted in our lovely DC neighborhood, middle class, well-kept, bikes and an excellent walk-to-it elementary school, so of course
there was a long line waiting to vote in a riot of autumn color. We stood for two hours even though Washington would clearly choose Obama, (and did so with 92% of our votes.) Each individual vote
wasn't urgently needed. Instead, it was the need to cast the vote that
was urgent.
Diverse in age and history, largely African-American, our community stood together, talking, laughing, meeting new friends in front of or behind us in line. People had their kids with them, called grown kids on the phone from line and waved at late-arriving neighbors. It was one of those moments where you feel history all around you, and a remarkable privilege to be voting in such company, who've worked through all the years of discord to maintain a civil, multicultural community. A bonus.
Beyond this landmark day, though, the next months are going to be tough. As the new White House staff, cabinet and administration form, all this free-floating joy will take on concrete forms that remind us of the huge challenges and risks that face us. There will be things that disappoint us, and things that make us mad. The reality that caused people to elect this man will descend upon us in a relentless economic, social, military and persona avalanche and we may be hard-pressed to remember the joy we felt last night; the promise that has so engaged us.
When that happens, I will think of the older African-American man who called out "shalom" to us in the canvassing orientation when he saw my friend's yarmulke, of the excited first-voters -- just 18 or newly naturalized -- whom we met as we walked through one Virginia housing complex after another, of our four-year-old door-bell-ringer beside himself over "Obama" and asking everyone from the supermarket checker to his teachers to vote for him, of my sons last night calling and texting literally across a continent and an ocean, of the day I was electrified by the broadcast of Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, of the fact that 66% of under-30 voters, so long detached and cynical*, voted for Obama, and, finally, of the distance we have to go - and won't -- unless we work together to resolve each challenge and, perhaps more importantly, each disagreement.
This is a great day. And a scary one. And now, as our new president-elect prepares to do his part, we have to resolve to do ours: to work through those disappointments and disagreements, to accept the call to contribute and to sacrifice and, as he and Abraham Lincoln before him asked us, to heed to the "better angels of of our nature." They're there - and we're going to need them. If they can show up, and Barack Obama can show up, so can we.
* (speaking of younger voters): A friend of my sons (a third son, really) sent me this from one of his favorite blogs. It's just so sweet.
I am so nervous I can barely breathe. We're going canvassing again Sunday and I will try to do more phone calls before then and after but seeing these polls closing - listening to Chuck Todd on MSNBC talk about states that are "tightening" - it's really scary. I've felt all along that everyone is putting this election away way too soon. As I sat with friends and listened to Joe Trippi this week, all three of us were troubled by the seeming assumption that the race is "in the bag." It's so easy to get complacent and stay home, make fewer calls, do a bit less, if you think things are going your way anyway.
In addition, we don't know what the "young people" and first-time voters will do. Will they show up? Can they translate quotes like this one from college student Lauren Masterson, on the NewsHour:
"We see ourselves in him, I think. Even though he is of another generation, people are excited about him because he seems to understand young people.
into turning out and waiting in line and casting that vote? Here's a nice consideration of younger voters and their commitment.
I suppose if I just watched TNT and the endless, comforting Law and Order broadcasts instead of MSNBC, Your Place for Politics, I'd feel better but after all the years I spent covering campaigns, I can't imagine avoiding information when it's available. And it's really the first presidential election where I've had no editorial responsibility (except my blog) so I have all these habits and nowhere to put them. I have to sit and listen and worry and watch and bounce from website to website, and to the links provided by friends on Twitter. Can't stop. It's not that I think I'll miss the Important Moment, it's that I keep hoping to hear some good news. We all know that races tighten at the end but many states are moving into the margin of error and that's really scary.
At least I have to go offline for Shabbat, which is going to make me nuts but may be healthy. Keep an eye on things for me, will you?
VIDEO REMOVED FOR TECHNICAL REASONS. VIEW IT HERE.
My younger son sent this ad to me this afternoon. It really is something, isn't it? As I write this I'm listening, on MSNBC, to the mean-spirited, spiteful stump speech that now identifies John McCain. What a difference.
Then, the much-admired Liza Sabater at Culture Kitchen posted this and tweeted to be sure we'd all see it. Since we don't always travel in the same corners of the blogosphere I'm sharing it with you here.
I keep thinking there must be a catch someplace but I hope she's right - that it's part of the impact of what we hope will be the political climate of the next four years. Respect breeds respect. Michelle Obama wrote about it on BlogHer.
She also reminded that there's only a week left. With that in mind, today I went to hear Joe Trippi speak with Simon Rosenberg, founder and president of NDN - mostly talking as if the election were over but so interesting about what would/could happen. My favorite fact: You know those Obama-produced videos on YouTube (like the one I've posted here)? TechPresident found that people have watched 14.5 million hours worth! Think what that would cost if you had to buy the time: somewhere around 46 to 47 million dollars, according to Trippi. And that doesn't even count citizen/voter-created videos that voters have watched. Obama got free, on YouTube, views worth the equivalent of half of McCain's entire federal campaign budget. And he got it because he, and his team, have figured out how to use the web.
To Trippi, Obama is a real 21st Century candidate and has built relationships with supporters unlike any ever before. It's their campaign too. I've always been enamored of the concept of "taking ownership." Back when I worked at iVillage in its early days the message boards helped to create communities of women who saw the site as theirs, and helped iVillage become the dominant destination for women online. They were contributing to the content, and its home became their home. That's what is happening, says Trippi, with Obama. All those volunteers, all those canvassers and phone bankers and sign painters and outreach workers - and all the open conference calls and two-way communication created a new kind of electorate. Think about this - from Orson Scott Card, author of the beloved Ender's Game.
Those deep hungers for human connection, for the ability to remake ourselves, for a sense of control over our lives and reputations - those are the senses that the web will speak to does a remarkable job of feeding these senses, despite the relatively primitive technology and laughably low quality of most Web offerings, that people sign on and keep signing on. They aren't there for the content. They're there for each other. Trapped in an apartment building or suburban neighborhood of strangers, they come to the Web to find their tribe.
Orson Scott Card in Yahoo Internet Life - December 2000
What says it better than that?
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