Ellis Cose: An Obama-Carter Reality Check
For months people have been asking whether Barack Obama's race made him unelectable. In Iowa, he put an entirely different question on the table: are Americans ready to vote for idealism over hard-edged realism, for hope over experience? By framing his candidacy in such a way, he makes talk of racial limits, or racial voting, almost irrelevant—and makes a virtue of his biggest supposed weakness, his inexperience in actual governing. The question, of course, is whether that framing can deliver him to the White House and, if it does, whether it inevitably invites disappointment.
We have arrived, to use Obama's phrase, at what may be a "defining moment in history." Many Americans are fed up with what they see as a cynical, even corrupt, Washington establishment. There is a hunger for a new direction, and for a knight with a shiny new lance.
This is a moment similar to where the country was in 1976, when another largely untested idealist won Iowa's Democratic caucus. The nation, discombobulated by Watergate, was ready to turn to a born-again Baptist who believed the world could be a more moral place. At the time, Jimmy Carter was the face of the New South. When inaugurated as Georgia's governor in 1971, he proclaimed the dawning of a new day. "I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over," Carter said. He went on to streamline Georgia's government, while opening opportunities for women and blacks. He imbued his presidential campaign with equally high expectations. "For America's third century, why not our best?" he asked. But he foundered in office and was turned out after one term with an approval rating of 34 percent, having laid the ground for the Reagan Revolution.
Obama has set expectations even higher than Carter. In his rousing victory speech, Obama praised Iowans for writing themselves into history. The self-congratulatory rhetoric is certainly merited. Obama's candidacy, even if it ultimately collapses, has already had a huge impact on American perceptions. He has proved that a black man is not necessarily a fool to aspire to be president of the United States, which, odd as in may seem in the wake of Obama's triumph, was something no previous generation could take for granted....
Jimmy Carter's presidency was marked by his inability to translate his idealism into legislative victories—even with a Democratic Congress. And ultimately, the symbolism of a purer, better way ended up seeming hollow.
It is quite possible that Obama can succeed where Carter failed, but not without helping America to embrace the fact that changing is a lot harder than talking about it; and that being an agent of change ultimately means shaking up things for many people who are quite comfortable with the status quo....
Read entire article at Newsweek
We have arrived, to use Obama's phrase, at what may be a "defining moment in history." Many Americans are fed up with what they see as a cynical, even corrupt, Washington establishment. There is a hunger for a new direction, and for a knight with a shiny new lance.
This is a moment similar to where the country was in 1976, when another largely untested idealist won Iowa's Democratic caucus. The nation, discombobulated by Watergate, was ready to turn to a born-again Baptist who believed the world could be a more moral place. At the time, Jimmy Carter was the face of the New South. When inaugurated as Georgia's governor in 1971, he proclaimed the dawning of a new day. "I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over," Carter said. He went on to streamline Georgia's government, while opening opportunities for women and blacks. He imbued his presidential campaign with equally high expectations. "For America's third century, why not our best?" he asked. But he foundered in office and was turned out after one term with an approval rating of 34 percent, having laid the ground for the Reagan Revolution.
Obama has set expectations even higher than Carter. In his rousing victory speech, Obama praised Iowans for writing themselves into history. The self-congratulatory rhetoric is certainly merited. Obama's candidacy, even if it ultimately collapses, has already had a huge impact on American perceptions. He has proved that a black man is not necessarily a fool to aspire to be president of the United States, which, odd as in may seem in the wake of Obama's triumph, was something no previous generation could take for granted....
Jimmy Carter's presidency was marked by his inability to translate his idealism into legislative victories—even with a Democratic Congress. And ultimately, the symbolism of a purer, better way ended up seeming hollow.
It is quite possible that Obama can succeed where Carter failed, but not without helping America to embrace the fact that changing is a lot harder than talking about it; and that being an agent of change ultimately means shaking up things for many people who are quite comfortable with the status quo....