AsianWeek » ‘Obamalot’ And How It Can Backfire

‘Obamalot’ And How It Can Backfire

By: Emil Guillermo, Feb 01, 2008

Tags: Emil Amok, Opinion |

The Kennedys have branded their heir apparent. And now we have Barack and Camelot. “Obamalot,” anyone?

This major political merger changes modern American liberal folklore. It gives Obama what he lacked: mythic heft. But whether it’s good for the whole Democratic Party is still in question. The Kennedy anointment will either create the winning coalition for Obama, or send the Democrats into disarray.

Witness this e-mail from a politically astute Asian American lawyer friend in San Francisco: “Usually endorsements don’t mean much to me. … But Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsing Barack Obama is a big deal. I’m now officially undecided between Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama.”

Does that sound like you? I imagine more than a handful of Asian Americans are feeling that same pang of doubt.

If you’re a baby boomer of immigrant stock, your whole belief system in politics and democracy is based on the impacts of the Kennedy myth, from JFK to RFK. When it comes to immigration, there’s been no stronger force in the Senate than Teddy Kennedy. That’s the power of the brand.

Even the Clintons have used it in the past. Remember how Bill Clinton used an old film clip of a young Clinton shaking JFK’s hand to bond him to Camelot? Indeed, when I saw that clip during Clinton’s victory at the Democratic Convention in 1992 in New York, there was that same feeling of hope and uplift among people after years of GOP rule. There was an excitement and hope that was undeniable.

Back then, boomers were saying, “Hey, we’re in charge.” In this campaign, that magic seems to have shifted to those next in line: the Gen Xers and Millennials who are saying, “Hey, this politics stuff is cool.” And they’re not talking about Hillary.

Add the Kennedy myth to Obama’s fire, and you have to wonder if Hillary can keep up, without a myth of her own. After all, what is the Clinton myth? (It’s got to be more than “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”)

It certainly is more than that. But we’re talking Bill, not Hill. And that’s the problem for Senator Clinton.

Her myth is that she has survived the ravages of a political marriage to remain intact emotionally and has risen to become a strong leader for New York. But so far on the campaign trail, she’s lacked the rhetorical fire of her opponent. She also seems to lack sleep. She definitely lacks myth.

Her turn?
Hillary has been riding on the belief that she is the presumptive nominee, or “next in line.”

That has always been a powerful force in politics. When it’s your turn, you lead.

Call it democracy’s notion of primogeniture, to borrow a term from the monarchy we kicked out. It’s somewhat ironic because of the gender bias of the term, but with Hillary, we have a woman who really can be president. And America is long overdue for that.

But here comes Obama, the upstart. His move is oddly reminiscent of another generational power play that I witnessed last year, when Hawai‘i congressman, Ed Case, challenged the veteran senator, Dan Akaka.

Case’s announcement was like declaring cuts in line at the local lau lau joint. You don’t do that.

The campaign provided stark contrasts: Case, a haole lawyer with Hawaiian roots, was the new modern Hawai‘i. The earnest Akaka was the longtime native son. But despite Case’s superior qualifications, voters stayed true to form. Akaka won on loyalty and heart. It wasn’t Case’s turn.

The difference on “Super Tuesday” is what happens when any existing loyalty to the Clintons is trumped by loyalty to the Kennedys. Then you can simply ask: If Obama is so good, why wait? If he’s not all that great, then it’s Hillary’s turn.

The Kennedy backlash?
There is also one other scenario for Obamalot. The only Democratic politician more polarizing than Hillary Clinton is Ted Kennedy. The Kennedy brand may actually be the kiss of death for Obama, especially among more moderate Democrats and Independents. You know which people like to bring up Chappaquiddick? People who see Teddy Kennedy as the “Darth Vader of liberalism.”

At the very least, the Kennedy endorsement establishes the new leader for the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party. I suppose if you believe we have a one-party system, then it doesn’t really matter. Obama certainly isn’t Ralph Nader. He’s not even Dennis Kucinich. But he’s out there to the left of Hillary.

And this is where the Clintons may make out in all this. Back in 1992, progressives were always bothered by Clinton’s moderate nature. In 2008, the Kennedy’s backing of Obama may actually give the electorate a point of clarity, because it puts Hillary right in the center. And that’s where victories are made.

My deadline was before the big debates this week in California. That’s one good reason why we’ve started my new blog. You’ll be able to see more instantaneous, amok reactions to the issues of importance to you. Check it out every day on our homepage at www.asianweek.com.

emil@amok.com

Comments

I thought your article was both well reasoned and fair. That’s no easy trick in the politically charged atmosphere of a presidential race. At first I was worried that your title, “obamalot”, was prelude to the kind of argument ad homonym that has run rampant on the internet among those hoping to score cheap political points based on Senator Obama’s unusual name. clearly that was not the case.
I disagree with your contention that senator Obama lacked mythical heft before the Kennedy endorsement. I think Obama had that quality all along and that the endorsement merely supports the notion many of us had had all along that senator Obama was something special. I think the most important effect of the Kennedy endorsement is its capacity to dispel the myth among rank and file democrats that Senator Clinton was the candidate backed by the democratic establishment and Obama’s campaign was less a movement than an insurgency. I think the Kennedy endorsement allows traditional democratic voters to take a fresh and impartial look at both candidates without the preconception that senator Clinton was carrying the banner of the democratic party because of her status as first lady to one of the more beloved presidents in the history of the party.
once again, well done with this piece

–Ed Kennedy on Feb 01, 2008
What is a lau lau joint? I’m from Hawai’i and I’ve never heard of those.

–Keith Kamisugi on Feb 01, 2008
Why is the coutry long overdued for a woman president? Does gender have anything to do with the ability to lead a nation?

–Jane on Feb 01, 2008
Why is the country long overdue for a woman president? Does gender have anything to do with the ability to lead a nation?

As a female, I insist that the first female president has to be as good as or better than an average male president. Because if not, Americans will not want a female president any more even if she is better.

I do not see Hillary as any better than any male president.

–212s.com on Feb 01, 2008
I’m pretty sure Obama, having been raised in Hawaii, could identify a “lau lau joint” if he came across one. Hard to miss the two scoops of rice, a glob of macaroni salad and the meat-of-the day.

Hey, Emil! Drop me a line.

–Pat Omandam on Feb 01, 2008
Dear readers: For an update on the column, please check out my new blog at http://amok.asianweek.com/
–Emil

–Emil Guillermo on Feb 01, 2008
It would be great if either Clinton OR Obama took on an issue crucial to Asian-Americans: the virulent anti-Asian sentiment among African-Americans. It would be nice if Obama took this on if wanted to appeal to Asian-American voters.

My own experience with African-Americans has been largely negative due to the interactions where I have been “told off” on numerous occasions in the recent past: verbally and/or physically roughed up by lower-class blacks and treated with suspicion, rudeness, and condescension by even middle-class blacks.

This does not apply to African or Caribbean immigrants, who have not been infected with the virulence of anti-Asian sentiment so endemic within the African-American community.

–zhong on Feb 10, 2008
Guys:
You too, Emil:
You’re all missing the real point here, which is to say, that “power” “politics” has come a cropper in today’s angst and rage and frustration .
This weekend’s “sweep” for Obama, including Maine, should presage an actual “revolution,” provided, of course, that neither “superdelegates” nor “brownshirts” effect a “takeover,” points the way.
It isn’t so much that Obama represents “change” so much as the fact he literally stands several degrees to the left of Billary.
Check the blogs for Billary’s beholdedness to Tyson meats and those biochemical conglomerates “seeding” the globe with “patented” privilege AND profit.
And that’s BEFORE you factor in their nouveau religion of “Christian” “Zionists.”
No, guys and Emil, if this nation continues its descent into the mindless mayhem of self-serving counterproductive idiocies, then so shall we ALL be held accountable.
Until we get the Hell out of Iraq, AND Afghanistan, and begin to make amends in both shattered nations. we shall continue to reap what the Bushitters and neocons have sown.
“Democrats” are equally guilty as the “Republicans,” maybe more so, insofar as the former are the “enablers” to the latter, and should know better.
Every life, “theirs” or “ours,” lost today and tomorrow may reasonably be laid at “our” door.
So, obamalot, spamalot, the choice has always been ours, even as we fail to see, much less understand, that what is perceived as “gain” may well be “loss.”
Frank Eng

–Frank Eng on Feb 11, 2008
Obamalot or Obamagate ?
The eloquent black preacher in Chicago has not suddenly turned “militant” or “hostile”. He has always been saying similar views over long time while Hussein Obama, Jr. was in the audience in this black church in Chicago on the black Southside.
Now, for “political” reasons, Obama wants to “separate” himself from this long “respected” preacher, just to pacify those “elite” white voters who have been supporting him as if Obama is the new Messiah, more than Obamalot. He is the savior, if not just the messenger of Second Coming.

Americans at large can be naive, shallow, emotional when
they hear passionate speeches. Long years of training at the churches. They have to sing along, otherwise they would be considered as anti-social morons. Follow the crowd is the norm. The media which have been heavily promoting Obamaism are now sudently silent.
This mysterrious Mulato, with a rather unusual and intriguing background, is a very accomplished and very shrewd operator. He never reveals what is really inside his head, considering how he had to endure the white world when he was growing up and as a black kid living in a Muslim country surrounded by all those who are neither black nor white in the house of his Muslim step-dad who is brown.
Suppose he has his own secret agenda in mind, once he gets elected to live in the White House, only God knows what he will do.
He will deliver “change”, he promised.
But what changes ? How ?
By comparison, both Hillary and McCain would be more transparent, more predictable and less worrisom. Not because they are white and seasoned, but because we know who are they and what have they done in the past.

Uncle Sam is ill now, most probably will get more sick as time goes on. The great storm is almost overhead already, inflation, recession, war, deficits and moral decays, you name it. Now we have no luxury of time to choose some novice new maverick, Obamalot or what, to do his experiment on our expenses.
Bush already sailed this ship to turbulent waters for 8 years, do you want a new captain to lead us to hit a giant iceberg in the next 4 years ?

–Nazim on Mar 20, 2008

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