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Obama Rising

By Philip Klein on 8.14.07 @ 12:08AM

(Page 2 of 5)

When Obama chats with people after campaign events, he looks at them intently, puts his arm around them, or even embraces them. "He's just too good to be true!" I heard one grown woman gush after meeting him following an event in New Hampshire, which was not an atypical reaction.

Ann Coulter has written that "only white guilt could explain the insanely hyperbolic descriptions of Obama's 'eloquence.' His speeches are a run-on string of embarrassing, sophomoric Hallmark bromides." This general sense has been echoed throughout conservative blogs.

As much as his calls for "a new kind of politics" in which Americans overcome cynicism and find common ground sound like the empty platitudes of a phony politician, there is reason to think that in Obama's case, he genuinely believes in bringing people together.

"I've worked with Senator Obama publicly, privately, and at 1 a.m. and six in the morning behind closed doors," said Dillard of their years together in the Illinois state senate. "He is a genuinely nice man who cares greatly about overcoming obstacles on a variety of fronts. It's not an act."

Dillard described how Obama became one of the guys by playing cards and pickup basketball games, bumming cigarettes, and going out for drinks.

"He instantly got in playing poker with some of the old bulls of the state senate who came from all different walks of life, many of whom were skeptical, I'm sure," he said. "When this University of Chicago professor and Harvard graduate walked in, their eyes rolled. But it didn't take long for Obama to prove to all of his colleagues that he's a pretty nice regular guy."

Though the two had many disagreements, and despite the fact that Dillard considers Obama a "socialist" on health care, they were able to work together on ethics reform and a law that required the videotaping of interrogations in capital cases, and they remain friends.

Obama has maintained a solidly liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate, but has still sought to work with his Republican colleagues in Washington when possible. His views could not be more different from those of the staunch conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, but the two worked together on earmark transparency legislation.

"If Barack disagrees with you or thinks you haven't done something appropriate he's the kind of guy who'll talk to you about it, "Coburn told New York magazine, "He'll come up and reconcile: 'I don't think you were truthful about my bill.'I've seen him do that. On the Senate floor."

Obama and Coburn have described each other as friends, and even their wives have hit it off. Despite their ideological incompatibility, Coburn sees Obama's potential.

"What Washington does is cause everybody to concentrate on where they disagree as opposed to where they agree," Coburn continued. "But leadership changes that. And Barack's got the capability, I believe-and the pizzazz and the charisma-to be a leader of America, not a leader of Democrats."

THOUGH OBAMA HAS BEEN A FIERCE CRITIC of the Iraq war, he hasn't resorted to the vitriol typical of some of his more seasoned Democratic colleagues. When President Bush announced his "surge" strategy in January, like other Democrats, Obama opposed it. But unlike others, he was sure to add: "I have no doubt that the President is sincere in believing that his strategy is the right one."

As has been widely explored, Obama had to navigate through many worlds and balance several cultures growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia as the offspring of a white woman from Kansas and black man from Kenya. As president of the Harvard Law Review and law professor at the University of Chicago, he went to great lengths to give both sides a fair hearing on controversial issues, according to the accounts of those who knew him at the time.

As Obama adjusts to being a candidate in a contentious Democratic primary dominated by a base that is restive and angry, his conciliatory impulses are being put to the ultimate test. "When George Bush steps down from office, the entire world will breathe a sigh of relief," he said in Rye, New Hampshire. At a rally in Manchester, he declared that the American people "are tired of a foreign policy that instead of being based on our ideals, on our values, is based only on bombast and bullying, and in some cases, lies. "The fact that he had to add the qualifier "in some cases" suggests he's still not entirely comfortable throwing red meat to partisan crowds.

IN HIS FIRST BOOK, Dreams of My Father, Obama recounts his only meeting with his dad. His father left Hawaii when the younger Barack was just two years old, and they didn't see each other until his father visited Hawaii in the early 1970s. Writing of the visit, Obama describes his father's "effect on other people, "recalling:

For whenever he spoke-his one leg draped over the other, his large hands outstretched to direct or deflect attention, his voice deep and sure, cajoling and laughing-I would see a sudden change take place in the family.... It was as if his presence had summoned the spirit of earlier times and allowed each of them to reprise his or her old role; as if Dr. King had never been shot, and the Kennedys continued to beckon the nation, and war and riot and famine were nothing more than temporary setbacks, and there was nothing to fear but fear itself.

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topics:
Foreign Policy, Education, Health Care, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Business, Environment, Global Warming, Law, Military, Iraq, Israel, NATO, Conservatism, Energy, Medicare

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