Obama-rama

I haven’t seen Obama up close yet, and when he was at Washington Square a few months ago, I didn’t bother to go down and see him because his positions seemed so skim-milky and centrist. But what has happened since has convinced me that it doesn’t matter—we’re not voting on a platform, we’re placing a bet on a vision.

I’m now curious about the live-concert Obama because he obviously has some sort of magical impact on our tender youth. Jaded cynics fear disappointment, so we creep nervously toward the proscenium, eyes shielded. We are wary of hypnosis and even more unhappy if it doesn’t take, confirming that we’re going deaf in that ear.

But the question remains, for now, why all this enthusiasm for the man when his soundbites reveal nothing out of the ordinary to anyone immune to preaching? Perhaps that’s one key right there: maybe he doesn’t translate well into sound bites. A recent column in the LA Times mentioned that he called the anti-immigrant panic ‘scapegoating’ and ‘demagoguery’. Good for him! Why haven’t we been soundbitten with that? Maybe his speeches really do probe our multiple national crises and offer cogent lines of response.

Whatever it is, it’s certainly catching if it convinced Mainers to pour into the blizzards to caucus for the guy.

I agree that it’s kind of embarrassing to fall for sappy slogans like ‘Change’ or ‘Yes, we can!’ but it sure would be cool to actually experience either. The fact that the two parties’ powerful machinery were unable to impose their visions on the voting public is a refreshing sign that there is still such a thing in this country as the people’s voice and that the byzantine nominating process hasn’t managed to smother it. In fact, the endless, goofy, anarchic procedure may accidentally be giving it a boost.