Journo

A Political Animal

Man is by nature a political animal.
    - Aristotle

One of the rules of the internet happens to be that, if you can think of it, it already exists--and this rule may very well begin to apply to Facebook groups.

Barack Obama is a Character Created by Aaron Sorkin is a group I stumbled upon while looking for more serious groups about the candidates. While not strongly partisan myself, Obama is my favorite, for his eloquence, the passion of his ideas, his grassroots records that actually echoes and reflects his stated principles. If all politicians pander, than Obama panders to a group of intelligent, tolerant, free-thinking, and compassionate liberals--and I'm okay with that.

That being said, I haven't done much concerning the campaign of either Obama or Clinton (or any of the republicans) in the way of discourse, volunteerism, or activism. I don't hand out stickers or make phone calls or wear buttons. And lately, I've begun to wonder why.

The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those who don't have it. 
      - George Bernard Shaw

It isn't that my generation is slothful and ignorant and lackluster, despite what our biggest critics (our parents' generation, surprisingly) say about us. We're just hardened cynics who watched, dismayed and confused, as the country engaged in the Gulf War for reasons we couldn't understand, chattered on aimlessly about President Clinton's blowjob, and elected George W. Bush despite... well, so many things. When 9/11 happened, I can truly say that neither I nor my classmates (all freshmen in high school) was surprised. Interested, certainly, about the possible aftermath, and concerned for the victims and families--but my peers and I displayed none of the shock and awe that seemed to grip the older citizens of our nation. Perhaps we had grown up more afraid than generations past, more world-weary and world-wary, less trustful. The nation, and its leaders, seemed horrified and shocked to discover that people around the globe hated us and wanted us dead; I don't think any of my friends were the least bit surprised by the news.

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.
      - Ralph Waldo Emerson

If politicians today are dealing with a group of hardened cynics, then, it's going to take something pretty special to get us riled up enough to vote in our best interests. I'm reminded of the youth turnout in the fictional Santos campaign during the last seasons of The West Wing--Santos, a minority, running a mostly grassroots campaign that explodes into a national movement and puts him, a young, hunky, and relatively inexperienced politician, neck-in-neck in a presidential race with Hawkeye of M*A*S*H. Where's the fire for Obama, a young man of which all the above can be said, and more? I reject the notion that race is the issue. Obama's targeted voting demographic was never going to be racist, ignorant white supremacists, but rather tolerant and diverse moderates and liberals.

But with Obama winning primaries left and right and his victory speeches growing more and more inspired, the ‘pretty special' something may just be upon us.

At the Providence Place Mall the other day, a young woman stopped me and asked if I'd like Obama campaign stickers. I said yes, I'd take a few, and then, to both our astonishment, a young man to my right piped up. "I'll take some, too." Given the speed with which citified people run away from street solicitors, this was a first. I'd never seen anyone ask to be solicited; but Obama, apparently, inspires it.

We need to know more about this candidate and his policies; kids, scenesters, hipsters, punks of voting age, all need to see that this guy could do good things that affect us, our children, the way we work and dream and live. Our childhoods have been stained with an ugliness that seeped out of Washington and infiltrated even the most idealist hippie college towns of the Northeast, and I think it's time to reclaim a bit of the spirit and the hope that we could have used as youths. I hope the Obama campaign gets on it: as Josh Lyman of West Wing would say, he might be "The Real Thing." It'd be great if we were given a real chance to find out.