Coming today after Hilary's angry vitriol about Obama's use of misleading campaign mailers, and after much soul searching about why I should like Obama, I just want to set my stance down.
To begin, I should say that I don't like Obama for all the usual reasons. 1) I don't think he'll "change" Washington, any more than Jimmy Smith, or now DNC-chair Howard Dean, or say Jesus Christ. 2) I don't find him an incredible speaker. Maybe because as a lawyer I study rhetoric, and maybe because I've never experienced him in person, I find his delivery slow, halting at times, and yes, lacking in substance. 3) I don't find the fact that he's half-black compelling (note how the "half-" is usually left out of the commentary). I think the symbolism is a nice side benefit. But I also think that we can have a lot of figurehead symbolism---Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Bill Richardson---without changing the fundamental racial inequities in this country.
So bear with me, this is my cynical/realist view.
A president has three main practical functions. 1) He is head-of-state, which means that he is the embodiment of America abroad and its chief diplomat and solider. 2) He is head of the executive branch and the administrative state. 3) He is a point-man for generating legislation and pushing through legislation through the bully pulpit. (There are other tasks, e.g. killer of thanksgiving turkey, but they're not important.) On all three tasks, I believe he would be superior to Hilary.
As head-of-state, I think we should look to his well-known talent as a conciliatory figure, someone who can listen to divergent positions, synthesis his own, and exercise persuasive authority. This talent has been attested to both by former colleagues of his at Harvard Law Review, as well as his students at U. Chicago, as well as those who've served with him in politics. It is also a talent that America, at this point, needs. For the past eight years, we've had a president who has liked to hear himself talk, and who has often turned a deaf ear to the international community. It is well-accepted by now that a different tack is needed: someone who can build consensus and engage in multi-lateral action, someone who is not reliant on the projection of [expensive] military force, someone who will listen first and talk second.
I believe that that person is Obama. Of the major candidates, he has come out and said that he will talk with Iran and Syria. Clinton has dismissed this as naive. But is it really? Given the influence of Iran, is it really possible to imagine a lasting peace that does not engage all the stakeholders, however morally objectionable we find them to be? Multi-lateralism, to me, means not only talking with those willing to listen, but finding common ground with those who don't. Can we be multi-lateral only among our "coalition of the willing"? Can we still afford that type of deafness? As commander-in-chief and chief diplomat, we need someone with Obama's people skills.
As chief executive of the administrative state, the area he is arguably weakest in, I still would argue he has proven his strengths. Note that neither candidate has any executive experience: not counting her years as wife-in-chief, Clinton's years were in the Senate, in a legislative role. And Obama has come out and stated that he is not a careful reader of paperwork. Yet their performances in the campaigns---their remarkably different abilities to organize and mobilize a political campaign---has shown me how much Obama might be trusted to run the machinery of the administrative state.
Compare their two performances. Clinton started off with name recognition and a database of fundraisers left over from Bill and from her own Senate campaign. Obama had to build a campaign from scratch. Clinton had front-runner status most of this race, with all the advantages that come with increased media coverage and better rally turnouts. Obama was the long-shot. Yet it was Obama who built an effective national grassroots campaign, Obama who learned the lessons from Howard Dean and made a truly Net 2.0 type effort that generated momentum and fundraising from non-conventional sources, and Obama who time-and-again won the "ground game" in states like Iowa. Simply put, Obama has run a much more effective and efficient campaign, one that played to his strengths, stayed on message, and avoided internecine conflict.
In contrast, we know from the fallout from the resignation of Clinton's campaign manager that her campaign was in some ways a picture of dysfunction. She picked a long-time loyalist to manage her campaign, without regard to the scope of the challenge. It was a campaign plagued by turf wars, by inconsistent messages, and by self-inflicted wounds. Would she be down in delegates now if she could've reined in Bill "Obama's a fairy tale" earlier? If she could've avoided the Obama-used-drugs fiasco? As someone who supposedly "works hard" and is incredibly focused on the details, one cannot help but note the sheer incompetence of a campaign that has veered from message to message, championing change one day and experience the next. If this is how her campaign is run, I don't want to see her White House.
Lastly, the President does have his own policy-agenda. Of course, this is not a Constitutionally allocated role, but I think the modern presidency, by virtue of the electoral mandate and the bully pulpit, has certainly become a source for initiating legislation and coaxing it through. And it is here where, admittedly, Clinton bears more credentials. She has been in the Senate longer, knows how it works, and has more bills to her credit.
In contra-pose, I believe that Obama---as has been demonstrated---would make better use of the bully pulpit. I see Obama (as much as I hate the comparison) as possessing the same gifts of communication as Ronald Reagan: a man who can truly bring to bear public opinion on an issue and inspire the people to follow. I frankly do not see Hilary being able to use the pulpit with the same effect.
On this score then, I would call them even, though with the note that while Obama may learn how to work the legislative process, I doubt Hilary will ever learn how to inspire an audience.
So that's my admittedly broad argument for Obama. I've tried to set a case for him that does not involve the words "change" and that focuses on his objective skills, rather than aspirational goals. I think in this campaign we can come to see them not as resumes, but as human beings each with their own strengths and weaknesses. And at this point in time, I think America needs someone like Obama, someone with the right skills-set for these perilous times.
