My Guilty Pleasure: Senator Barack Obama, and Optimism

I’ve read all the emails, the articles from Daniel Pipes (not very impressive) and the American Thinker (more compelling), the inadequate response from Ira Forman, the bulletins about anti-Israel Obama counselor Zbegnew Brzenzski (or however he spells his name, usually I’m pretty careful but in this case I’ll make an exception) and about Jeremiah Wright Jr, pastor of Senator Obama and long-time venemously anti-Israel activist.

So I know I should turn my back on Obama’s candidacy, stop watching will.i.am’s “Yes we can” video, stop running “in the unlikely story that is America there has never been anything false about hope” through my head. Wise up, pal, this candidate’s closest associates are opposed to the things you hold dearest.

Besides, I’ve always been a big John McCain fan. I was annoyed beyond measure when our current president got the nomination ahead of Senator McCain eight years ago, and I’m glad (and very relieved) that McCain will beat out Huckabee (who in the world could think that we could elect a guy named President Huckabee, anyway?). So I should just get behind the guy with the guts and the track record and the brains.

But Senator Barack Obama is my guilty pleasure, as he has been ever since I first heard him a few years ago. I just love the things he says - beyond the eloquent style, beyond the articulate words, it’s the message. It’s optimism.

It’s a voice that is so rare in politics, even though its value is obvious.

It’s a dream that so clearly resonates with the electorate, but that politicians fear to express, lest they nourish expectations they cannot fulfill.

It’s what Hillary will never have, frankly, and that’s why she can’t get anyone to take her seriously these days. Hillary is a bitter realist, by virtue of nature and by virtue of experience. Americans prefer an authority figure who smiles sincerely, who traffics in dreams, whose response to a request is “Yes we can” rather than “We’ll see.” It may be unrealistic, but it bespeaks a positive attitude which the great majority of this nation shares, or wishes it could share.

Bill Clinton was elected on optimism; the kid from the town called “Hope” sold a nation on his belief that things could get better.

George W. Bush got his first term because of optimism; remember Al Gore’s doom-and-gloom “social security lockbox”? Remember how many votes it didn’t get him?

Ronald Reagan ring a bell?

(Don’t ask me to explain George Bush Sr. I can’t.)

People who say, "But Obama never says what he is optimistic about, he hasn't staked out a clear platform," miss the point. They're 100% right - but it's not relevant. People love the person who answers the phone asking "How can I help you" right off the bat. It's the person who says, "Whatever you need, I'll work to help you get it." The Naaseh v'Nishma approach, if you will.

Optimism and an upbeat tone are invaluable in the rabbinate, too - People don’t gravitate to a rabbi who moans and groans and goes negative against his real and perceived foes, who lashes out in tirades, whose mussar is bitter and angry. They much prefer someone who smiles and reaches out, who inspires with positive mussar that eschews tearing down in favor of building up.

So I listen to the silver tongue of a man who responded to bitter New Hampshire defeat with a charming smile and a charged “Yes we can” chorus, and against my instincts I wonder… what if they’re all wrong? What if he’s the real deal?