Hope Springs But From One Source

(this post was written by Kyle on February 11, 2008, and it concerns & & & )

Paul Krugman writes in his NY Times Op-Ed, Hate Springs Eternal, “Supporters of each [Democratic] candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod. Why, then, is there so much venom out there? I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.”

I simply disagree with Mr. Krugman’s assertion that supporters of each Democratic candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other. He assumes that those who are voting for Sen. Obama are doing so because they agree with the senator’s positions on the issues, most of which correspond to Sen. Clinton’s (and most other Democrats). But that’s not it at all.

Mr. Krugman places a negative connotation on the concept of the “cult of personality,” but isn’t that just a negative way of framing of the concept of leadership? What else is a leader but a person who inspires others to follow him/her? If Sen. Obama does not get the Democratic nomination, there is no commandment that says his followers must get in line behind Sen. Clinton. You don’t become a leader by default.

Here’s what Mr. Krugman seems to be forgetting. Obama’s supporters aren’t loyal Democrats. They are young, they are independent, and in some cases, they are centrist Republicans. They are people from all parties and from all walks of life, and they find hope in Sen. Obama’s message. It’s his personality and his style of leadership that have given them a reason to find their political voice. He is perhaps the first (and only) politician that they have been proud to follow. And there’s no reason to think they will follow Sen. Clinton because other people have told them to. If not the leader they have chosen, then they may prefer no leader at all.

In which case, the President will go on being a force in their life, just like death and taxes.

Here’s the thing. Those of us who have responded to Sen. Obama have done so because he gives us hope, because he makes us believe that something else is possible, that the reality of political world we all have have grown up with — the political world of Richard Nixon, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, and yes, Bill and Hilary Clinton — is but a negative blip in the history of our democracy.

Are we naive to think so? Perhaps.

But without that hope, all we have is complacency and apathy. And what are those but the symptoms of a dying nation?