“I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them,” Caroline Kennedy wrote in January in her endorsement of Barack Obama. From the start of his campaign, Barack Obama has wrapped himself in the mantle, and the myth, of the Kennedy family. But by turning down public financing for the fall campaign, voting for a FISA compromise that he had pledged to oppose; and adjusting his position on offshore drilling, Obama has, in the minds of his opponents and the media and even many of supporters, invoked the ghosts of other past Democratic nominees: John Kerry, Al Gore, and Michael Dukakis. In attempting to synthesize idealism with pragmatism, Dukakis was perceived as weak; Gore and Kerry, unprincipled. Will Obama instead fall into this less exalted tradition?
The Kennedy legacy has proved so elusive because the political truth at its core can appear paradoxical. John F. Kennedy referred to himself as an “idealist without illusions.” Robert F. Kennedy committed himself to the improvement of blighted communities across America even as he criticized welfare. Since then, the only two Democrats who have won the presidency have succeeded on a platform that sought that combination of civic renewal and old-fashioned good governance. Even they struggled with the Kennedy legacy. Ted Kennedy challenged the dispirited Jimmy Carter in 1980. With Bill Clinton there were successes but, also, a lingering unease, borne of dashed expectations. “Clinton appeared to be promising greater things than he could ever deliver,” Joe Klein later wrote. “In fact, nothing less than a political renaissance, a return to the days when public affairs seemed central to the life of the republic, when government was seen as a moral force.” Given this past, many are skeptical.
But voters inclined to dismiss Obama should keep in mind three considerations. First is that the Democratic nominee, even as he pushes citizens to deepen political conversation in this country, is also a onetime community organizer grounded in the history of civil rights and social change. He recognizes that “revolutions are illusory, that real change is slow,” Larissa MacFarquhar wrote. “If he thought his winning would take a revolution, he wouldn’t have run.” Second is that acting without illusions for Obama not only involves an appreciation for the processes of politics but is a matter of intellectual style. That style not only offers the promise of uniting Red and Blue America but, in its openness, improves deliberation and challenges groupthink, thereby informing judgment. Third is that politicians not only must sometimes be tough but that Americans expect them to prove their mettle. “Half the time,” Bill Clinton once noted, “they like to see somebody hit us between the eyes with a two-by-four just to see how we react.”
The cool-headed approach has some voters upset that Obama may be forgoing the principles that motivated his campaign. “Liberal Bloggers Accuse Obama of Trying to Win Election,” noted a recent post from Andy Borowitz. And the bloggers are right: Obama wants to win. Anyone who dispatches Hillary Clinton understands, as James Baker was fond of saying, that “politics ain’t beanbag.” But at key moments in this cycle, he has proved neither unprincipled (choosing not to second Hillary Clinton’s call for a gas tax holiday) nor weak (confronting John McCain on foreign policy). We are right to hold him accountable, but for now he has earned the benefit of the doubt. His intellectual style, and the pragmatic political tradition from which he has emerged, continue to offer hope not only of a winning candidacy but an inspiring presidency.
Vivek Viswanathan, Managing Editor