Whatever happens in November, I think the Obama candidacy will fascinate historians for years to come. Why? Because the enormous footprint of the press and cultural atmosphere of the campaign suggest the media itself is a co-candidate in the race. I know this will sound a little bit like a stretch and I’m speaking metaphorically but the core idea is this: the old intellectual elites are seeing their power fade under the impact of globalization and the Internet. Being the next CBS anchor, the next Gore Vidal or Norman Mailer or the next Noam Chomsky ain’t what it used to be.
Obama is physically young, but certain parts of his ideology are very old. Randy Barnett’s review of BHO’s law school syllabi suggest that he is not quite the candidate from 1968. He’s far too intelligent not to have some new ideas, some originality of his own. But for a whole fading class of intelligensia, Barack Obama represents the last chance to get the President they never had.
That’s why these Jurassic ideologies can’t help jumping into the hustings, if only vicariously, to hog the limelight with their fantasies. The phrase “He is the One We’ve Been Waiting For” is almost true, but the pronouns are wrong. It should be “He is the One They’ve Been Waiting For.” From time to time a spasm of doubt roils the waters. Did he change his position on Iraq? Did actually say he was pro-Second Amendment? What if BHO betrays us? They’ve waited all this time. They’re too old and weakening too fast to wait for another.
I should hasten to add this doesn’t necessarily mean that conservativism as we know it is the wave of the future. I don’t know what the wave of the future is. But whatever it is won’t resemble the Summer of Love or the Days of Rage.
McCain for all his faults — and being ideologically shapeless is one of them for a politician — is ironically intellectually more modern than Barack Obama. He seems able to break his own stereotype and adopt “new” ideas. Unfortunately, many of the new ideas he seems to like, such as Global Warming, aren’t to my taste. But be that as it may, he is more venturesome, relative to his orthodoxy, than BHO is to his own.
If BHO loses this election the defeat will be more than personal. It will mark the last hurrah of the MSM. Never again can they claim they could “make” a candidate. It will also signal a watershed for the old Civil Rights movement. I think they will be embittered. And if one thinks the hue and cry over Al Gore being “cheated” in 2000 was great, just wait to see what happens if BHO is defeated, even if by a large margin.
If he wins — well that’s another story.
