I first noticed Barack Obama on the campaign trail for the New Hampshire primary. He annoyed the shit out of me. Granted, I was dispatched there by my union to campaign for Hillary Clinton. Neither of them would ever get my vote, but at least Hillary had a track record. You knew what you were getting with her. With Obama, a very eloquent and inspiring (to everyone but me) speaker, he was so vague that it seemed supporters projected onto him what they wanted to hear. After all, what does “Change” mean? Reagan was a change from Carter. Lenin was a change from the czar. The Good and Fruities with the jelly bean center were a change from the Good and Fruities with the licorice center.
Obama’s zombie teenage hordes of supporters really annoyed me. Were they excited about politics that looked like a Hollywood movie? It’s one thing to work like hell for his election once he was the Democratic nominee, but what made him so special in a pack of candidates who all essentially stood for the same issues? Was it that he had not been in politics long enough to disappoint yet?
Like any good organizer, I got competitive. I lustily counter-booed the Obama kids who made a fiasco out of the NH Dems’ annual dinner by booing Hillary during her speech and rushing the stage during Obama’s speech like there was a mosh pit up there or something. I’m not sure what that proved except that Obama’s campaign bought more tickets to the ball than the other candidates (and that Hillary should have followed John Edwards’ lead by boycotting the event). I cheerfully teased the inexperienced Obama canvassers and tore down every door hanger I found. (The rental agency where I returned the car must have been confused by the trunk full of Hillary lawn signs and the back seat full of crumpled Obama flyers.) Of course, Hillary won, forcing the protracted primary fight between her and Obama. She simply had the better ground operation (if I do say so myself).
After New Hampshire, I got a break from campaigning until the final two months of the general election. Up until the last minute, I expected the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as usual, and didn’t breath a sigh of relief until around 10:30 on Election night. In the final estimation, the Obama campaign was a modern marvel. It was an extraordinarily well-run campaign with almost no missteps or gaffes, that consistently put together a powerful ground operation, that really harnessed the power of the internet for spreading talking points, recruiting volunteers and, obviously, impressive fundraising.
The McCain campaign, on the other hand, was inept in ways that I thought were impossible in the modern political era. Like, aren’t Vice Presidential candidates supposed to undergo deep background searches? Shouldn’t a campaign worker check out “an average voter” before the candidate name checks him in a debate? In its own odd way, the McCain is an inspiration. The office politics and back-biting, the hare-brained schemes, poor communications and lousy marketing. This was a campaign staff that reminds all of us of the ridiculous offices where we have worked. Where the Obama campaign reinforces that hoary old notion that anyone can grow up to be President, the McCain campaign encourages us that truly anyone can run for President.
But this week belongs to the American people in a way that politics rarely does. If we had a real socialist movement in this country, the Obama campaign is what we would have called a real popular front-type of campaign. We were organizing across broad swaths of the public, from the center to the left, from the labor movement, to the pro-choice and civil rights movement to the peace movement to defeat the extreme reaction of the modern Republican party to elect our first black president. The spontaneous celebrations that broke out across the country and the very real and deserved pride of African-Americans is an inspiration. We are in a unique historical moment. Socialists should respect this moment, and we should respect Obama for what he currently represents, even if we suspect he will ultimately be a disappointment. We need a November 5th movement in this country to keep pressure on the President to pursue a more progressive agenda. But we should take care to be a loyal opposition for the time being.