. . .most of America will be run by the same people no matter who wins the election -- the oil companies, WalMart, Murdoch etc. And Obama has set out not to disrupt their rule but to manage it. But the hope he's unleashed may not be so easily controlled, because change does not happen from the top down, it happens from the bottom up.
Or, as articulated by the topical American program "The Daily Show," "A disease is spreading across parts of the nation called 'Baracknophobia', meaning 'fear of hope.' But the disease is so contagious it's even spread to Barack Obama, who is becoming afraid of himself. Read more.
Two things I hope for in an Obama presidency: First, an impassioned restoration of the basic American idea: checks and balances, rule of law, freedom valued more than security, and we-don't-torture. These are not values of the extreme left; they are as centrist as centrist can be. Obama's FISA vote suggests that his commitment to the restoration of these centrist traditional American values is ambiguous at best. That's what was so surprising and disappointing because the need for it is so centrally important to the kind of American future he wants us to believe in. It's still kind of mind boggling to me that he could have so easily, or so it seemed, discounted both the symbolic and real significance of his flip on this issue.
Second, a change in the tenor of the conversation that moves legitimate political discourse from center hard right to center left--as it was in the period from FDR through Lyndon Johnson. I think this is a more realistic expectation regarding an Obama presidency, and it can be done in the context of managing rather than chaniging the fundamental way in which the country is run. It's not up to him to make things happen; it's up to the rest of us and the other people we put into office.
But he can set the tone, provide a context that creates more favorable conditions for developing the consensus necessary for real change. And his communication skills can shift the public imagination away from this toxic Reagan/Thatcher mentality that has dominated discourse for the last thirty years. Certain things become more possible if the basic framework of political discourse shifts--that's Obama's chief responsibility as I see it, and I will grade his presidency a success depending on how effectively both these expectations are met by the time he leaves office. Anything more: gravy.