'Tabula Rasa for One?'
By Thomas Lindaman (07/02/08)
Barack the blank slate - A friend of mine and I were chatting the other day about the upcoming election and who we thought would win. My friend, who is so Republican she makes Ronald Reagan look like Jerry Brown, lamented over the possibility of Barack Obama becoming President, saying simply, “The fix is in.” If you look at the media coverage surrounding the junior Senator from Illinois, you’d probably get the same impression. The media have fawned over Obama like a teenage girl crushing over the Jonas Brothers. If things get any worse on that front, Obama might have to register with the IRS as a tax-exempt church.
This got me to thinking why Obama is so popular. On paper, he’s a bad Affirmative Action hire. In real life, he’s not much better. He can deliver a speech with passion, but when it comes to the ever-so-tricky part of speaking off the cuff, George W. Bush could give him some speaking tips. He seems to be able to appeal to quite a few demographic groups from young to old, working stiff to three-martini lunch CEOs. He even managed to get me considering him as a serious candidate for a time. Could it be that he’s the right man for the job at the right time when we need him?
Not so much.
After my brief dalliance with Obamamania, it occurred to me that he really doesn’t seem to stand for much for very long. Take the flap over his comments regarding whether Iran was a threat. In one speech in front of one group, he said Iran wasn’t a threat to America because it was a little country. I’ve seen enough episodes of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” to know that just because someone is small doesn’t mean they can’t nail you in the groin. Then, in a different speech a few days later in front of a different audience, Obama said Iran definitely was a threat because it was developing nuclear capabilities. Did he have a change of heart thinking about President Imadinnerjacket with his Members Only jacket-wearing hands on “the button”? Not really.
There’s a concept called “tabula rasa” in which it is believed people come into the world with a “clean slate.” From birth, people develop their personalities, their psychological health, what sports teams they like, and so on. The more I think about it, the more I think Barack Obama is the political equivalent of a tabula rasa, but instead of him developing his personality through interaction and experience, he’s developing his personality by what people project upon him.
To college students, he’s the cool professor who lets you hang out in his office and listen to Bob Dylan. (Of course, that might also be considered torture under the Geneva Convention, but that’s another story.) To working class Americans, he’s a guy in the break room that you don’t know that well, but know he’s a good guy. To older Americans, he’s a nice young man who wants what’s best for America. To activists, he’s a warrior fighting for a cause just like they are. To me, he’s a movie screen at the local cineplex showing a double feature of “Gigli.”
The problem with this, however, is that Obama really isn’t a true tabula rasa. He’s a known quantity because he’s been out there giving speeches and writing books that outline his approach to life and governance. No matter how much we want him to be what we believe he is, he’s still who he is: a junior Senator from Illinois with a resume weaker than a balsa wood chair at Rosie O’Donnell’s house. For some, the fact he’s not George W. Bush is all he needs to be, and if you’re one of those folks, more power to you.
But for some of us, like me, we need more than just “He’s not George W. Bush” to vote for the guy. Projecting our perfect candidate characteristics onto Barack Obama will not make him the perfect candidate we wish him to be. It’s a flight of fancy that will end badly, especially if the airline loses our luggage along the way. The media and more than a few Americans fawn over Obama, but that’s not enough to make me pull the lever for him. After all, Americans fawned over the Macarena and we all know how that turned out.
Thomas Lindaman
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