For Obama, chips off the old voting bloc
Unlike some countries, the United States combines in the presidency the roles of head of government and head of state. A candidate's policies are the benchmarks voters look to in considering a government leader. For head of state, Americans tend to consider a candidate's values -- is the politician someone they're comfortable with?
Perhaps that explains the perennial intensity of the focus on the personal qualities of presidential candidates. The historic nature of the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama this year further contributes by magnifying issues of gender and race. But at the bottom, Americans want to have a good feeling that they know the person they put in the White House. That's why we've heard so much about Clinton's likability and her history as a polarizing figure. And that's why for a couple of weeks, the spotlight has been on Obama and his values.
The most explosive episode, of course, revolves around the poisonous anti-Americanism of Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Though Obama finally repudiated Wright, a big question remains: How could Obama have sat in the pews for 20 years, listened to and talked with a man who was "like family to me," and not picked up on Wright's disturbing, twisted views of America and responded to them? At the very least, Obama betrays a tone-deafness not unlike his buying a home in a real estate arrangement with Tony Rezko when he knew that this influence peddler was under federal investigation.
No one except Wright has suggested Obama shares the pastor's views. But the controversy resonates because Americans are still learning who this newcomer to the national political stage is.
Obama supporters are perplexed by the staying power of the issue of Obama's acquaintance with Bill Ayers. It's guilt by association to link Obama to Ayers, they argue. And the bombings attributed to the 1960s radical Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn happened 40 years ago. Now the couple are members-in-good-standing of the Chicago academic and social justice community.
Let's change one aspect of the Ayers-Dohrn narrative. Suppose, instead of government buildings, they had bombed abortion clinics. Would they be working today at major universities in Chicago, or would they have been welcomed into the liberal conclave that is Hyde Park? No. Just as some on the right will excuse anti-abortion terrorism, some on the left find anti-American terrorism forgivable. But the broad swath of middle America sees both as offensive, and some of those voters look at Ayers, who remains unrepentant, and wonder about Obama's world.
Obama supporters will argue this is a minor thing. But it's one piece in the puzzle voters are putting together as they decide who Obama is. Another piece is the flag pin issue. Obama is certainly right that no one needs to wear a flag pin in his lapel to be a patriot, that the wearing of it can be an easy, even empty, gesture. Then why put it on in the first place? Was taking it off during the campaign a calculated appeal to the far left anti-war wing of the party? That question wouldn't be there were it not for other parts of the puzzle.
Then there's Michelle Obama's remarks that she is proud of America for the first time in her adult life and that America is "just downright mean." Are those echoes of things she may have heard listening to Wright's sermons?
And there's the question of elitism raised by Obama's comments to affluent Democratic contributors in the liberal bastion of San Francisco. He said small-town America clings to guns, God and antipathy toward immigrants in troubled times. Small-town America felt insulted. Obama responded by pointing to his background as not one of privilege. But elitism is not a measure of where you came from, but where you are now.
Individually, each of these things has an explanation. The problem is that together they chip away at Obama's message, that he represents a break with the cynical, bitter politics of yesterday.
