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The power of Obama

James Forsyth

Sunday, 15th June 2008

Barack Obama’s address to mark Father’s Day shows why he has the potential to be such a transformative figure in US politics and why he is going to be so very hard to beat. The speech is an exhortation to fathers, particularly African-American ones, to step up to the plate. It is, in many ways, a deeply socially conservative speech. He criticises music that glorifies violence, families that plonk their children in front of the television, and talks about the need to glorify “achievement, self respect, and hard work”.

As with his Selma speech, to my mind the finest he has ever delivered, the language Obama uses is striking and far blunter than what many white politicians would dare to say when talking about this problem. For instance, Obama accuses these absentee fathers of “acting like boys instead of men” and tells them that they need to realise that “responsibility does not end at conception” and that “what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one.”

This speech will strike a chord well beyond the Democratic Party faithful. Its belief in the importance of family shows why Obama has such an opportunity to win over independents and Republicans this November despite having the most liberal voting record in the US Senate last year.

The critics will point out, rightly, that Obama couldn’t give this address at his usual church in Chicago because he has to quit it because of the racialist views of its former minister and other inappropriate things that have been said from the pulpit there. But few could take issue with this speech and the values it professes. It is also indisputable that is has a distinct power coming from Obama.

I’ve pasted below two paragraphs from early on in the speech which give you a sense of how forcefully its message was delivered:

You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled – doubled – since we were children. We know the statistics – that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and twenty times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.
How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child? How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom? How many are sitting in prison when they should be working, or at least looking for a job? How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty or violence or addiction? How many?

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Ian C

June 16th, 2008 9:45am

Powerful stuff - yet the world as a a whole and America in particular has been forced into a situation where only a black man can say what it has known for a generation. And it is not just a black problem, which these words don't deem to credit.

While his legal/social work background may qualify him as a good 'home secretary' it does little for what matters most in a presidential candidate - his defence and foreign relations credentials which he seems to think can succumb to the same sort of insights.

Ganpat Ram

June 16th, 2008 12:12pm

Obama is the god of the media concubines and harems.

He is not the god of the average US voter.

Even after the no-holds-barred hullaballoo by the media about how great their god was, after Hillary quit, the fellow got only a trivial rise ion the polls over McCain. And now, says gallup, they are again dead even.

This, after the most fawning, crawling, swooning media treatment he can ever hope for.

Nope.

I think on current showing the average US voter ain't biting, and McCain is in with a good chance.

Hit Obama hard on his long Black Power background. That's the key.

Get tough, Mac !!!! Don't be mealy-mouthed like Hillary.

fleety3000

June 16th, 2008 2:04pm

I think that any post primary bounce will not be apparent for another week or so as this primary season was so different to the previous years.
Conversley,Obama currently has an average lead of around 4 points and as Chuck Todd points out in 2004 George Bush never had a lead larger than 4 points and never trailed Kerry in the months leading up to the election.
And to be honest McCain didnt take a lead in the polls even when the Democrats were slogging it out and he probably wont have a better chance again.

Trafalgar

June 16th, 2008 2:48pm

I respectfully disagree Ian. Defence/foreign affairs are important but the economy and social justice are key to this election - and the next election in the UK. It also forms the bedrock of Cameronism and is not just sound politics, it's also crucial for framing the society we want to live in.

Obama has his faults - chiefly his inexperience - but there can be no denying his power and ability to capture both the media's and ordinary people's attention and for that reason I think he will be the next president.

Ganpat - talk of gods, harems and concubines just makes you sound weird.

Ganpat Ram

June 16th, 2008 3:39pm

fleety3000:

If Obamam doesn't take a big lead soon, he will look like a loser, especially given the vast advantage his media harem ought to be giving him.

It is becoming embarassing: it seems like everybody is this Chicago political huckster's drooling sycophant, except the average voter.

At this stage of the game, Dukakais had a 17-point lead against Bush senior, and still lost by a landslide.

The Republican moarale will shoot up, and Obama will be cooked.

Ganpat Ram

June 16th, 2008 5:05pm

Trafalgar:

Obama and his supporters are weird - that's why one has to talk in terms of gods (hopefully with clay feet) harems and concubines.

What else can one do, when a leading Obamaniac - the TV news presenter Chris Matthews - says he gets a vibration in his left leg when in Obama's presence?

I have followed UIS politics a long time, and have never known the media to lose its dignity and any semblance of intelligence or balance as on this occasion.

They worship this measly Chicago political huckster who quickly gets into the threatening language that his native to him if anyone challenges him instead of sucking up spinelessly: as when he swore recentty: "If they get a knife we will take out a gun."

Ian C

June 16th, 2008 6:59pm

Trafalgar,

Defence (and thus foreign relations) is the first and foremost responsibility of any government. Part of the west's problem is that it has put social matters before security - because it has felt particularly wealthy and secure in the post WWII and Cold War eras and, I would argue, that it has felt so secure it could afford to screw up in Iraq and still get away with it.

As a result of this false security western societies have lost a clear identity of their values and have consequently socials norms have deteriorated to a level of what we have been too politically correct to put right for over a generation. Now, at a time when we are being challenged almost subliminally from within AND without, the USA has a choice of someone who will continue that self-deception or of one who will deal with the day's security issues as they need to be (and as Bush should have), so beginning the return of the self-respect and values lost because of the external security that Obama is prepared to take risks with.

So we have a fundamental disagreement here. At the core of the Obama phenomenon is in fact just a law lecturer and a voluntary social worker who knows about the worst of society at home. But the phenomenon arises simply from his (black) origins and greater powers of oration than most, and certainly McCain. There is little by way of vision that is novel although he can put into words much of what many recognise as truths. which is indeed a gift.

If - and I accept it is a large IF at this stage - Obama is seen in this correct light, McCain will get the job and be allowed to concentrate on ‘first things first’ in his efficient no nonsense way with concern for the domestic issues and tried and tested steadfastness on the issue that without it we are all in trouble – security. This does not include what Obama was talking about yesterday, important yes but it is a topic that has been around for years that will take at least another generation to sort - and only then once there is strong agreement that it's acceptable to do anything about it. It does not require a President but a society to sort those sort of issues. In the meantime, there are more pressing matters for which Obama is patently unqualified.

fleety3000

June 16th, 2008 7:06pm

ganpat
I think your Dukakis references are weak at best. You know far well that 2008 is not 1988 and that the landscape has a number of crucial differences and holding on to the hope that it will be the same is wishful.
And a quick note, a ABC poll from june had Dukakis leading by three and Gallup had Dukakis up by 5 somewhat wide of the 17 point lead you referenced.