Obama a Bomb on Stage

Is he an unstoppable rhetoric machine?

Barack Obama is the scariest person in politics today. I say this not because of his platform or of his past performance. He is not alarming because of his progressive message or his marketing presence. The reason is much simpler than any of these facets.

Everyone I know who listens to the man speak, without preconceptions or partisan bias, end up liking him.

In a culture driven by the rhetoric of lifestyle, where a product’s most important feature is its ability to improve or enrich a person’s existence, the most important feature of a politician is whether we like him or her. I offer an experience from yesterday afternoon as anecdote to this phenomenon.

Walking past the MUB, I was compelled to browse the Campus Store’s business attire section by a display board in front of the building. As I’m checking out a few suit coats, I hear the familiar, bright, baritone timbre of Barack Obama on the television. Turning from worsted wool, I wander to watch the set as the presidential hopeful began orating on the issue of race in the United States. Another gentleman posted up beside me as we listened intently to the orator expound on the statements made by his home-church pastor and the condition of prejudice in our country today.

He did not lament simply over black cultural debilitation. His was not a message for the universal success of affirmative action and its sister legislations. He stood, narrow shoulders set in front of a fervent audience, and beleaguered for the disdain of the white middle class watching their jobs taken by immigrants and minorities.

He addressed the “lack of economic opportunity among black men” was “a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.” And he made a rather unheard of statement: “Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch.”

I was floored. The sentiment of the moment was summed quietly by my compatriot, who commented “I’ve voted Republican for 20 years now, but he’s got me.”

In greatest frequency I hear variations on this common theme. Very often an Obama supporter will tell me he supports the candidate because of the hope for “change,” and because they “like him.” McCain is “too liberal” though he is a social centrist and a fiscal conservative. Clinton is relegated quickly as a socialist. But Obama, who promises such misguided efforts like universal health insurance and a flawed immediate withdrawal program from Iraq (he proposes removing troops and replacing our military support with “mandatory” UN negotiations), who would increase federal spending through new “change” initiatives (the Fed can’t close one office until its replacement is fully functional), and who has a support base most vociferously comprised of university students (we developmentally have a predisposition to idealism) is the Golden Child.

This condition of voyeuristic fetishism, our national desire to align with people we “like,” rather than people who are objectively the best choice, is dangerous for our great nation’s longevity and security. Instead of falling in love with a candidate’s prose, our citizens need to investigate the plans these presidential hopefuls propose, identify the potential and level of maturity in these plans, and decide who will best lead our country with the scientific objectivism we hold as writ on this campus. A voice is misleading; too easily their throats may be open graves and their tongues practice deceit. Use reason, not emotion, to form your opinions.