Epiphanies: My Dawning Realizations about Barack Obama

Dawning realization

Epiphany: a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b : a revealing scene or moment

Yesterday, Riverdaughter suggested that we make this “Epiphany Weekend” at TC. The idea is to look back over the past couple of years and recall the epiphanies that we had early on that made us so highly skeptical about Barack Obama as a candidate for President.

For me, the very first wake-up call I had about Obama was this diary at Dailykos way back in September 2005. In the diary, then Senator Obama lectured the Kos community about “tone, truth, and the Democratic Party,” which defending Democratic Senators who had voted to confirm John Roberts to the Supreme Court. In the diary Obama strongly criticized people at Dailykos and other liberal blogs who wanted Congressional Democrats to stand up for Democratic principles and stop rolling over for Bush on every issue. (I have used bold type to highlight a couple of sections.)

According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists – a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog – we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party. They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda. In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in “appeasing” the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda….

I think this perspective misreads the American people. From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon. They don’t think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent. They don’t think that corporations are inherently evil (a lot of them work in corporations), but they recognize that big business, unchecked, can fix the game to the detriment of working people and small entrepreneurs. They don’t think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country.

It’s this non-ideological lens through which much of the country viewed Judge Roberts’ confirmation hearings. A majority of folks, including a number of Democrats and Independents, don’t think that John Roberts is an ideologue bent on overturning every vestige of civil rights and civil liberties protections in our possession. Instead, they have good reason to believe he is a conservative judge who is (like it or not) within the mainstream of American jurisprudence…

In the rest of the diary, Obama attempted to make a case for the kind of “consensus-building” we have been watching since he moved into the White House–the kind where the Democrats compromise their values ahead of time and continue to compromise them in the face of Republican (and Blue Dog) objections.

Let me be clear: I am not arguing that the Democrats should trim their sails and be more “centrist”…. Too often, the “centrist” label seems to mean compromise for compromise sake, whereas on issues like health care, energy, education and tackling poverty, I don’t think Democrats have been bold enough. But I do think that being bold involves more than just putting more money into existing programs and will instead require us to admit that some existing programs and policies don’t work very well. And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will. This is more than just a matter of “framing,” although clarity of language, thought, and heart are required. It’s a matter of actually having faith in the American people’s ability to hear a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter.

Of course Obama never made clear what “core values” he would be willing to stand up for.

Reading this diary was my first wake-up call–it gave me my first real clues to who Obama really was. Before that, my only impressions of him were based on the speech he had given at the 2004 Democratic. He had come across to me as really smooth and slick, but nothing he said in the speech was really earth-shaking and none of it was memorable enough to stick with me. Still, I think I my overall impression was positive. But after reading Obama’s Kos diary, I my impression of him started to turn more negative.

Throughout much of 2007, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the discussions of presidential candidates on the blogs. I thought it was too early, and that there wasn’t much point in getting involved until it became clear who the top candidates would be. And then came my second real epiphany, the Donnie McClurkin episode, which took place in October 2007. As the NYT Caucus blog reported, Obama’s choice of McClurkin to headline a series of campaign events caused an uproar in the liberal blogosphere:

Mr. McClurkin, a black preacher who sang at the Republican National Convention in 2004, has gained notoriety for his view that homosexuality is a choice and can be “cured” through prayer, a view ridiculed by gay people.

Critics on the Internet say Mr. Obama is trying to appeal to conservative blacks at the expense of gay people. Surveys have found that blacks are less supportive than whites are of legalizing gay relationships.

Obama’s response the the criticism was pretty much “just words.”

Mr. Obama said through a spokesman that he “strongly disagrees” with Mr. McClurkin’s views. He did not indicate he would cancel Mr. McClurkin’s appearance, but said, “I have consistently spoken directly to African-American religious leaders about the need to overcome the homophobia that persists in some parts of our community so that we can confront issues like H.I.V./AIDS and broaden the reach of equal rights in this country.”

The article points out that at the time the concert was scheduled, Clinton was strongly challenging Obama in the polls in South Carolina. It was essential that Obama get a plurality of the black votes in the state in order to win the primary.

Here is what Huffington Post blogger Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote at the time:

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama ripped a page straight from the Bush campaign playbook with his announced upcoming three date barnstorm tour through South Carolina with notorious gay basher, gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. The Grammy winning black gospel singer’s last effort on the political scene was his song and shill for Bush’s reelection at the Republican National Convention in 2004. Obama has hitched his string to McClurkin’s high flying gay bash kite in part out of religious belief (he purports to be somewhat of an evangelical), in bigger part because he’s falling further and further behind Hillary Clinton with the black vote in South Carolina and everywhere else, and in the biggest part of all because he hopes that what worked for Bush’s reelection will work for him.

Enter McClurkin. He’s black, he’s popular, and gospel plays big with blacks in South Carolina, especially black evangelicals, and many of them openly and even more of them quietly loathe gays.

Gee…even back then, some people were noting the similarities between Obama and George W. Bush.

In October 2007, when this controversy was going on, some gay liberal bloggers were very upset about Obama using McClurkin to attract the votes of black evangelicals. For example, here is Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend on October 21, 2007: Why is Obama touring with ‘ex-gay’ homophobe Donnie McClurkin? John Aravosis of Americablog was particularly scathing in his criticism of Obama’s choice to use McClurkin to headline a campaign event. From October 20, 2007:

Yes, sucking up to anti-gay bigots and joining them on stage – no, giving them a stage – is certainly defying conventional wisdom as to how a Democrat becomes president. Oh, and McClurkin also believes that gays can, and need to, be “cured.”

On October 22, Aravosis wrote in response to Obama’s statement on the controversy, quoted in the NYT story linked above:

That’s nice, Senator. You strongly disagree with the bigot who thinks I need to be cured, and who has declared “war” on me and my people, but you’re going to put the guy on stage with you anyway in order to make a few bucks. Nice. I wonder what Obama would say if Hillary invited David Duke to speak at an event but then said, not to worry, she really loves black people – kisses!

If you’re afraid to lead, Senator, then maybe you’re not the leader we thought you were.

Huge mistake.

More to come. Much more. All week.

PS You know Obama’s campaign was fully aware of just who this bigot was – this wasn’t a mistake. The bigot has been in the news, a lot, for his virulent homophobia. Obama simply didn’t care. And he doesn’t care now.

Aravosis did continue to criticize Obama about McClurkin for a time, but large segments of the Obama supporting blogosphere then began to attack Aravosis. As we all know, Aravosis eventually became a strong Obama supporter–was his support based on fear of expulsion from the in-crowd or real conviction? I think we all have a pretty good idea at this point–and as we also know, Aravosis was certainly not alone in supporting Obama because of peer pressure.

For me, the McClurkin episode was the point where I first knew I would not be able to vote for Barack Obama. For me civil liberties and civil rights are my number one issue. I could never vote for someone who would make the kind of cynical choice that Obama did in allowing McClurkin to headline a campaign event. This episode cemented the earlier impressions I had gotten earlier from reading Obama’s 2005 diary at Dkos.

At this point I began to do some real research into Obama’s past history, and I found quite a few more things I didn’t care for. Most of all, I began to realize that Obama didn’t really have an ideology. He had no core values or beliefs that guided his choices. There were no issues–at least no liberal ones–on which he would draw a line in the sand and fight for what was right.

When and how did you experience an epiphany (or epiphanies) about Barack Obama as presidential candidate?