Picking Your President

Epicurus gave me a copy of the Atlantic featuring a profile of Barack Obama, which I have heard much about but not seen since apparently my copy was lost in the mail. At the time I sent a nice email to the folks at the Atlantic about it, but now I have to confess I might well stop worrying about it.

Sullivan's central premise seems to be that we should elect Barack Obama not for any political reason, not for any ideological reason, indeed not for any reason at all except - get this - he would make American look good.

Now, I thought it was bad enough when people discuss in all seriousness after candidate debates that they liked the candidate who "looked more presidential." (Always reminds me of one of my favorite Bloom County cartoons - "shrimp or wimp.") Bad enough indeed that Americans want to elect a "regular guy" - apparently we reserve demanding excellence from our sports stars, who can be fired on a whim no matter how nice they are for failing to win 30 games in a season (sorry Tubby).

So we're going to elect Barack because he can help us put Vietnam behind him. Make Americans respected again just by being him. Close the ideological divide and magically make Bush v. Gore a memory.

Now, I think this might put a wee bit of heavy burden on someone, being the savior of a generation, but perhaps I'm wrong. Personally, if I'm Barack, I think I would be insulted. That's really saying I'd be President only because I'm black and inoffensive and didn't serve in the military but was young enough to not have that be a question for once. In short, it would be because I fit what the country should need, not what the country should want.

I've got a suggestion. One way, just perhaps, to put all that behind us is to...put it behind us. (Every time I sit through some endless story about the baby boomers all I can do is wonder how one generation lasted forty years. I mean, this has to be the longest generation in American history.) Sullivan says each candidate is trapped by a past, by a sense of who they were in a past career. Instead of being a quite legitimate part of a political inquiry into a candidate's, or reflecting badly upon those voters who can't or won't admit that all our candidates have a past, Sullivan somehow sees this as an ultimate failing of America. This mess is really all our fault, America, and by this mess, I mean whatever might be making you unhappy: war in Iraq, same-sex marriage, right on down the line. Obama by contrast is a man of the world who has arrived to save us all from those thorny little problems. (I should note I don't blame Obama for this piece - unless that's really how he sees himself.)

So now I read why I should elect a candidate to atone for past mistakes of American policy, society or just plain human nature. That might be the dumbest reason I've heard to choose a president. If the job is really a figurehead position, then go ahead. Elect someone to make you all feel better about things you did or didn't do forty years ago. But the rest of us have to live for the future, in the future and we are more interested in understanding where our candidates want to take the country than how our candidates reflect the country.