On the Obama cult of personality
This is an interesting section from an article in today’s New York Times:
What is troubling about the campaign is that its gone beyond hope and change to redemption, said Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton (and a longtime friend of the Clintons). Its posing as a figure who is the one person who will redeem our politics. And what I fear is, that ends up promising more from politics than politics can deliver.
From the day Mr. Obama announced his candidacy, he has billed it as a movement, and himself as the agent of generational change. He has mocked his rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for accusing him of raising false hopes. We dont need leaders who are telling us what we cannot do, he said in New Hampshire. We need a president who can tell us what we can do! What we can accomplish! Where we can take this country!
Accounts of the campaigns Camp Obama sessions, to train volunteers, have a revivalist flavor. Volunteers are urged to avoid talking about policy to potential voters, and instead tell of how they came to Mr. Obama.
If you dont talk about issues in great detail, if you do it in a way that is not the centerpiece of your campaign, of your rhetoric, then you become a blank screen, Mr. Wilentz said. Everybody thinks you are the vehicle of their hopes.
To confuse this with Teddy Roosevelt or J.F.K. or F.D.R. is to make a fundamental historical error, he said. Its confusing the offer of leadership with the offer of redemption. One offers specific programs, the other is hope and change. Certainly F.D.R. gave hope, but he was going to do it through these various programs.