Making My Case for Obama as President

Before I make my case for Obama, I feel the need to make a disclaimer. Although I am intrigued by the man, I am not starstruck by him as my previous posts will testify (see here, here, here, here).

I first made my case for Obama in a post in December of 2006 at a time when he was an undeclared candidate and most of my arguments in his favor still stand. That Obama, on November 2, 2008, looks more like a conventional American politician of the Democratic party should not come as a surprise. The American presidential campaign process inevitably pushes candidates toward the mainstream, the center of their respective political party. Yes, he made the compulsory visit to AIPAC and trip to Israel, and in an effort to appear tough on foreign policy he made some unsettling remarks about his support for U.S. cross border attacks into Pakistan. And yes, he has treated Arab and Muslim Americans as if they were politically radioactive, not because he thought they were, but because the Republican xenophobes made them so. It took a Republican, Colin Powell, to publicly point out that McCain "No Ma'am, he is a good family man" response to a bigoted supporter's claim that Obama is an Arab, is patently offensive.

Yet despite all of that, I will be voting for Obama because of who he is and not what he is saying in the heat of the campaign. This is unquestionably a defining moment in American and world history. In my twenty two years of living here, I have never seen Americans as angry, as passionate about change and yet at the same time as polarized as they are in these elections. Moreover, the candidate with the only reasonable choice for a new beginning comes in a flavor that Americans have never experienced in an American president: Not white and not with a reassuring Anglo-Saxon name; Christian, at least, but whose middle name is Hussein and who learned to recite the Fatiha in school in Jakarta. And yet, early on, Obama managed to mobilize and ignite the political passions of a group that are typically politically apathetic, the young. This constituency took easily to Obama because unlike older generations of Americans, Obama's exoticism was never an issue. Their classmates and friends were just as likely to be white as South Asian, Oriental, African or Middle Eastern. This a generation that is more globally connected and aware than their more insular parents. It is the constituency that created an unconventional campaign that overcame the well-heeled political machines of some of his opponents.

Obama as president will cause a paradigm shift in the way the United States views itself and the way the rest of the world views the United States. How that translates into real changes in United States foreign policy remains to be seen. Specifically, the foreign policy towards the Middle East, as ingrained as it is, is not likely to change quickly. Obama has promised to close Guantanamo and leave Iraq, all good, but he has said little about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I trust he will bring an intelligent and nuanced understanding of foreign policy that will be a radical change from the idiotic "you are either with us or against us" approach of the current administration. A less combative, arrogant and condescending president may even open up some diplomatic space to allow for contacts and talks with axis of evil veterans such as Syria and Iran.

If this is not a ringing endorsement, it is as close as I can get. For anyone still on the fence, the emergence of Dick Cheney yesterday from his cave in the Rockies to endorse McCain, should have sealed the deal. The world cannot afford another four years of neocon madness.