[DEBATE] : Gary Younge's excellent take on Obama

[Sean Jacobs]

Obama could set an earthquake under the established electoral map

He has roused black and young voters as never before, but he has to  
maintain the rest of the Democratic base
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     * Gary Younge

           o The Guardian,
           o Monday June 9 2008


The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has a compelling  
personal and political biography. One of eight children, he could not  
read until he was 10, left school soon after and by the age of 12 was  
working as a shoeshine boy. Lula was instrumental in setting up his  
own leftwing political party, the Workers party, risked jail as a  
trade union organiser during the dictatorship and ran for president  
three times before he was finally successful in 2002, capturing the  
imagination and hopes of many Brazilians - albeit with a vastly  
watered-down programme.

Having finally won the presidency, a moment many of his supporters  
thought would never happen, he was then cruelly mugged. The invisible  
hand of the market grabbed him on his way to the inauguration and  
shook what was left of the socialism out of him. In the three months  
between his winning the vote and being sworn in, the nation's currency  
plummeted by 30%, $6bn in hot money had left the country, and some  
agencies had given Brazil the highest debt-risk ratings in the world.

"We are in government but not in power," said Lula's close aide,  
Dominican friar Frei Betto. "Power today is global power, the power of  
the big companies, the power of financial capital."

In any democracy the link between the electoral and the political is  
essential but not inextricable. Between the trappings of democracy and  
the trials of legislating, there is power. The balance, distribution  
and strategic exercise of it shapes the relationship between  
expectations and possibility, marking the distinction between being  
the will of the people and the work of government.

It is the very tension that lies at the heart of Barack Obama's  
candidacy and the energy it has unleashed. To attract 75,000 people to  
a rally, as he did in Portland, Oregon, recently, shows immense  
drawing power. The question is, what to do you say to them when they  
get there?

On the one hand, he has managed to articulate the aspirations of many  
people from whom we previously heard little, if anything, in American  
politics and mobilise them into a formidable voting bloc. On the  
other, the progressive forces that have gathered around him have now  
wedded themselves to a decidedly mainstream, tepid political agenda.  
Lula, at least, resisted the assaults on his base; Obama, at times,  
appears to embrace them.

That an Obama victory would mark a radical improvement on George Bush  
and be far preferable to John McCain, there can be no doubt.  
Electorally, that is important. But politically, it leaves open the  
question of whether he is prepared to adopt an ambitious programme  
that can address the mess he will inherit. Politically, this question  
could have been asked of any of his main Democratic rivals in the  
primaries, none of whom pursued radical agendas. But electorally, more  
has always been claimed of his candidacy and more has also been  
expected of it.

Let's start with the obvious. Electorally, Obama's nomination marks a  
truly exciting and historic moment in US history. In a nation that  
prides itself on relentless progress and social meritocracy, the  
symbolic importance of a black president can be over-exaggerated. But  
that does not mean it should be dismissed. He was born before he had  
the constitutional right to vote (secured by the 1965 Voting Rights  
Act), to mixed-race parents who did not have the constitutional right  
to marry (the supreme court only legalised miscegenation in 1967). His  
campaign represents a milestone in America's scarred racial landscape.  
Of the 10 blackest states, he won nine; of the 10 whitest, he won  
seven. He has broken a mould. And it can't be reset.

Moreover, his candidacy has sparked a realignment in the coalition of  
forces that comprise the Democratic party, by rousing dormant and  
ignored constituencies - notably the black and the young. The  
Democrats have consistently won the youth vote since 1992 but have  
failed to galvanise a sufficiently high turnout for it to be decisive.  
The black vote, on other hand, has long been both crucial and taken  
for granted. The party has only won the majority of the white vote in  
a presidential election once since the second world war. In the past,  
both groups were at best treated as junior partners and at worst  
simply forgotten.

Not any more. Obama's campaign helped raise the share of young  
people's (18-29) votes in the Democratic primary by more than 50%  
compared with 2004. Between them, the young vote and the black vote  
comprised 28.8% of the Democratic primary electorate in 2004. This  
year it was 35.1%. Their swelling numbers and contagious enthusiasm  
will give them considerable leverage within the party.

If - a big if - he can maintain the rest of the Democratic base, this  
could bring into play states like Virginia and North Carolina, which  
the Democrats have not won since 1964 and 1976 respectively. His  
candidacy could set an earthquake under the established electoral map.

He has also transformed the model for funding, creating a broad  
popular base of small donors. Unprecedented numbers of people have  
invested in him. The question is whether they will see a return.

The earliest signs have not been promising. The day after he clinched  
the nomination, he went with Hillary Clinton and McCain to genuflect  
before the pro-Israeli lobby to declare himself a "true friend of  
Israel". But good friends sometimes tell each other things they need  
to hear, even if they don't want to. America's uncritical support for  
these past eight years has been deeply unhealthy and has been neither  
in the interests of America or the Middle East. Correcting it is  
central to the US improving its dire standing in the Arab world and  
gaining international credibility in general - two things his  
supporters crave. Instead he pandered, stating that "Jerusalem will  
remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided", and  
promising not to withdraw from Iraq until the conditions on the ground  
were right.

Meanwhile, the economy continues its precipitous decline. Unemployment  
is increasing, the dollar is slumping and inflation remains high.  
House prices are nosediving and fuel prices are skyrocketing. Each  
month more and more Americans find themselves at the precipice. One in  
11 mortgages are either in arrears or foreclosure. More than one in  
six homeowners has negative equity or no equity in their house. By  
June, claims Moodys, that will rise to one in four.

Yet Obama refuses to call for a moratorium, an interest rate freeze or  
substantial government spending, preferring instead a tax credit for  
homeowners that would amount to little more than about $500, beyond  
which only some borrowers could get more help. Over-represented among  
these sub-prime borrowers are the very African Americans who have  
propelled him to victory.

The great thing about Obama's candidacy is that he has raised  
expectations about what American can be and do in a way that nobody  
else has or could in recent memory. Whether they develop into pressure  
or descend into cynicism is an open question. Will he be a vehicle for  
their hopes, or will they be a vehicle for his political ambition? The  
two are not mutually exclusive. But their connection is far from  
assured.


g.younge at guardian.co.uk
------------------------------------------------------
Sean Jacobs
http://theleoafricanus.com/

“Only intellectuals love poverty. Poor people love luxury” (from a  
Brazilian samba).