Obama For America. That's the official name of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Just three words, but they sum up an entire political philosophy. John Edwards For President. Hillary For President. Obama For America.
Today is the final of three essays on what Obama For America signifies. In Part I, posted Wednesday, I showed how Obama For America lives and breathes a 50 State Strategy, unheard of in a primary campaign. Yesterday's Part II analyzed Barack Obama's model of governance -- FDR meets social entrepreneurship.
Today I complete the series by analyzing Obama For America as a framing strategy - defining progressive values as fundamentally American, challenging us to live up to them, and convincing us we have the power to make change. Obama's unique ability to sell the Democratic party to Americans makes him a potentially realigning political figure.
This series of essays are my answer to the question "Why Barack Obama?" The answer - because he is running For America.
What does Obama For America signify? I can think of at least three critical ways that Obama is campaigning For America, and not just For President. First, Obama For America is the true heir of the 50 State Strategy - a national and inclusive campaign that springs from Obama's own personal political philosophy. Second, Obama For America represents a new way of governing on behalf of the nation as a whole - open, transparent, democratic and keenly attentive to the public good. And third, Obama For America means framing progressive values as fundamentally American, reclaiming a lost part of our national identity as the key first step to a broader political coalition in support of activist government. All three of these aspects of the campaign will move us toward progressive realignment, and truly differentiate Obama from the others.
This conversation is aimed at those who have not made a final decision about their candidates - if you truly believe someone else is the right choice for the Democrats, best of luck to you. And perhaps we will talk again after Iowa and New Hampshire.
In Wednesday's essay, I looked at Obama For America as a map-changing electoral strategy. When Barack Obama famously challenged the red state/blue state dichotomy in his 2004 Democratic Convention address, it was appealing rhetoric. Now we know it is more than just words. Obama for America is running a bold national electoral strategy right out of Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy playbook - a strategy that is good for Obama, good for the Democratic Party and good for progressive politics.
Yesterday's essay considered Obama For America as a transformative model of governance. Obama has become famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) for his interest in maximizing stakeholder participation - negotiating with enemies, giving everyone, including the Republicans, a "seat at the table." What may be less obvious is his focus on citizen engagement and transparency. Obama isn't afraid of having them at the table as long as all of us are watching over his shoulder. Rather than mere "passive beneficiaries" of policy change, he wants us to participate in shaping that change - as he says repeatedly:
"When it comes to what is wrong with America, the American people are not the problem. They are the answer."
Today I want to talk about Barack Obama's framing strategies. "Framing" is perhaps the most overused and ill-defined concept in contemporary political discourse. And I am not an expert in linguistics or cognitive processes. Yet I believe it is useful to think about the language he has been using consistently since his appearance on the American scene and why it is an asset to his candidacy and to the Democratic Party.
If there's one thing everyone recognizes about Barack Obama, it is that he can give a speech - he has the kind of rhetorical power that seems to come along once in a generation. What even his supporters sometimes have trouble articulating is why his speeches are so powerful. They frequently don't spend much time on policy. They can seem long on soaring phrases and short on answers. In fact, they bear little resemblance to the kind of speeches Democrats are supposed to give.
For Democrats, usually the firebrand or the policy wonk shows up, and the focus is either a brilliant and passionate explanation of a serious social problem, or "here's my 14 point plan to solve it." John Edwards is probably a good example of the first, Bill Clinton was master of the second. No one else could make a laundry list of legislative initiatives sound so interesting (if frightfully long). Most policy wonk Democrats are not nearly that good. Instead they are earnest and smart and they get destroyed by charismatic Republicans in national elections. Regardless, Barack Obama rarely does either of those things.
What is different about the speeches Barack Obama gives? "Hope" and "change" are his buzzwords, but what is unusual about Obama's speeches is how much they are about what it means to be an American. In his words, Americans are united by a common destiny and a common set of values. Remember the red states and the blue states ?
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states.
(APPLAUSE)
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.
We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
What do you notice about that speech? Most people focus on the unity aspect. I focus on what we are united about. I notice that he says Americans in the red states care about civil liberties and their gay friends. He equates being a good American with resisting the Patriot Act overreaching. In this account gay rights aren't for Democrats - they are something universal that Americans share. He also defined Democrats as sharing "mainstream" values. In two lines of deft rhetoric he demolishes the ongoing Republican claim that to be a "blue stater" (i.e. Democrat) is to be at odds with American values. And finally, he makes a straightforward appeal to racial inclusion. This last aspect is a standard part of a Democratic political speech, but there is something really compelling about hearing it from a man with both black and white parents and a personal connection to Africa and Indonesia. As Frank Rich tells us
For those Americans looking for the most unambiguous way to repudiate politicians who are trying to divide the country by faith, ethnicity, sexuality and race, Mr. Obama is nothing if not the most direct shot. After hearing someone like Mitt Romney preach his narrow, exclusionist idea of “Faith in America,” some Americans may simply see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself.
On the campaign trail, as I diared this fall, his 2004 Convention speech has "grown up". Now he talks more broadly about how to be American means to be a compassionate, justice-seeking people, and a creative, active and powerful force for progressive change. Here's my notes on that speech:
It is "time to find our stake in each other" and "reach out for a common destiny. The American people are "ready for sacrifice. . . honesty and integrity" . . . . "I will ask you to be involved in your democracy again" and this is a difficult challenge. . . . The idea that I am my brother's keeper/I am my sister's keeper "must express itself through our government." . . . "We are here to transform our nation". . . ."We can be the last best hope again"
Here Obama makes a powerful call to reclaim activist government ("I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper"). It echoes his earlier theme of unity, but again we are united as a nation behind progressive values. It suggests that as we have strayed from these values, we have strayed from American ideals, but that we can, and should reclaim them. ("We can be the last best hope again.")
Obama also challenges us to work together to make this a reality. In his well-known 1982 book about the civil rights movement in America, social movements scholar Doug McAdam theorizes that what he terms "cognitive liberation" was one key to its emergence. African-Americans had to believe that change was possible before they could make it happen. Obama gives us, as he says "change we can believe in." It is a classic community organizer call to action - we have the power. And in the end, it is up to us to act. As I explained yesterday, this aspect of his rhetoric aligns him with an emerging social entrepreneurship movement that uses bottom-up strategies to shift power. Nothing could be closer to describing what we try to do every day on this site.
So why is it so important that Obama is explicitly talking about what America stands for? In the last two decades of the 20th century, the Republican Party successfully convinced large numbers of Americans to follow their radical agenda by defining Republican goals as patriotic. They did this by how they framed issues, and by linking their agenda to one very powerful, and very real American value - individual freedom.
The Democrats, for all their talk about values, have yet to provide a compelling response. In fact, we have become mired in a tiresome conversation about whether we just need to talk about going to church more. Obama shows us how to talk about values as Democrats, the kind of civic and secular values of justice and democracy the left already supports. But he shows us how to talk about them in a new way, a way that will draw new voters into the party.
So let's talk about "hope." Critics deride Obama as speaking in vague platitudes about "hope" and "change," or as being too "naive" to keep us safe in the nasty world we live in. The tone of his speeches is relentlessly positive and optimistic. He is not the traditional Democratic firebrand. He isn't fighting for us. He wants to give us the tools to fight for ourselves, and he thinks the most important tool is this hope in the future. It is a really hard thing to be hopeful, especially in these dark times for our nation. It is no accident he titled his latest book "The Audacity of Hope. It takes a certain audacity to try to beat the Republicans by running on hope.
And yet, I think Democrats do far better selling hope and participation, selling a vision of what it means to be an American, than they do selling critiques of the system or 14 point policy plans. Frankly, so do Republicans. Remember "the man from Hope?" "Morning in America?" Americans are a fundamentally optimistic people. By and large, they do not want to believe there is something wrong with their nation. And if there is something wrong with their government, they want to believe it can be righted.
That brings me, in closing, to the holiday ads. Each campaign is currently running a holiday adin Iowa. I've seen all three, and they sum up the framings of each campaign perfectly. Clinton's ad shows what she promises to "deliver" in the form of wrapped packages with labels like "health care" and "pre-K." Edwards runs an ad reminding us of the problems of inequality in society. Obama's ad?
In this holiday season we are reminded that the things that unite us as a people are more powerful and enduring than anything that sets us apart. And we all have a stake in each other, in something larger than ourselves.
I don't know what will happen on January 3. But I do wonder if what people really want for the holidays is hope. We will find out very soon. Good luck to all the candidates, and to the many activists here, whoever you are campaigning for. And best wishes for a hopeful New Year.