There has been a lot of discussion recently about Barack Obama's move to "the center." The concern as Ariana Huffington explains in a post on HuffPost is that by doing so Obama threatens to alienate his core supporters, legitimizes many of the right-wing policies that have bankrupted this nation, and most pressingly, this approach did not work for either Al Gore or John Kerry, Obama's predecessors as Democratic nominee.  Writing for the New York Times yesterday, Bob Herbert is even more critical:

But Senator Obama is not just tacking gently toward the center. He’s lurching right when it suits him, and he’s zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.

Obama's move to the center is Clintonian in approach and it remains to be seen whether it will also be Clintonian in affect, thereby garnering him a November victory. What is surprising about Obama's decision to borrow from the Clinton playbook is that unlike Clinton who succeeded two Republican administrations, and battled a Rebuplican candidate in 1992, George H.W. Bush, who voters were merely agnostic about whether he stayed in office, unlike the current Bush who Obama would succeed, and who voters vehemently want out of office. Moreover, Clinton went toward the center because back then the right wing had strong and competent figures like James Baker, Bob Dole and Jesse Helms who were masterful at enacting a right wing agenda at home and abroad. Clinton knew that Dole and Helms would have an inordinate amount of sway in determining his fate, and while their allegiance to Bush Sr. was slim, their conviction to the principles of their party was not.

By contrast, one would be hard pressed to find a Republican figure who currently holds as much sway as the aforementioned Republicans. The most powerful right wing members in office these days are not even politicians, but instead are supreme court justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. Roberts and Scalia in particular have become more aware of their power and this past year opened up to the public in ways that they had not done earlier in their careers. Additionally, while Republicans walk around announcing themselves as conservatives like frat-boys enamored by their fraternities acronym, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas have become the right-wing's political conscience, and in so doing have set the stage for the Supreme Court to become more reflective of this nation's political conscience than either the legislative or executive branches of government.

Case in point in the last five years we have seen a President initiate an unjust war without any sensible debate, and last month we witnessed a presidential candidate undo his opponent's signature piece of legislation by simply sending an email out to his supporters announcing that he will not accept public campaign financing. On the other hand, we also took part in a judicious debate on Affirmative Action that while it repealed some of the program's initial gains, the inclusion of so many stakeholders in the process to determine the program's fate prevented a far worse outcome.

Bringing this back to Obama's move to the center, it is a risky strategy because so much of what was once termed "the right" is now ensconced in the supreme court. Senate conservatives are a gaggle of contradictions without a party leader capable of mobilizing them. Dubya's war upended republican tenets of fiscal conservatism, and unleashed a conservative movement that as Mitt Romney learned during this year's primary hinders the prospects of successful republican politicians who are not in line with the grossly over-hyped Christian right. Ironically, the only republican senator capable of making Obama or any other Democratic candidate veer to the center is John McCain. However instead of undoing some of the damage done by Bush and Karl Rove, McCain has decided to prostitute himself to Bush and Rove's backers thereby further delegitimizing this nation's right wing and their agenda. Writing for The New Republic, Robert Gordon and James Kvaal, have renamed McCain, "McContradiction," continuing a theme that has plagued the Republican nominee throughout his presidential bid.

McCain's desperate flailing for a conservative port to parachute into suggest that arguments proclaiming a right wing movement are not to be taken lightly during this campaign season. It also suggests that after twenty years of seeking to define themselves as centrists, democratic politicians would do well to recognize that save for flirtations with the Green Party, the left has not been mobilized to the same degree as their counterparts on the right in a general election, and were there any year to do this, this would be the year.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending Edwidge Danticat's presentation at the second annual Toni Morrison Lecture at Princeton University.  The title of Ms. Danticat's presentation was "Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work."  Ms. Danticat delivered an exceptional lecture layered with allusiions Albert Camus, Sophocles, and Toni Morrison.  Each allusion, each citiation, each anecdote facilitated a return back to her central theme, the capacity for and necessity of artists to "create dangerously for people who read dangerously."

Ms. Danticat began her talk by referencing Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin two members of Jeune Haiti, thirteen Haitian expatriots who returned to Haiti in 1964 intent on overthrowing then dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier.  Numa and Drouin were publicly executed in Haiti's capital, Port au Prince, as a reminder to others who might be considering forming an insurgency against Duvalier.  In their coverage of this execution for a November 27, 1964 article entitled "A Warning to Renegades" Time Magazine editors invoke language that would have been eerily familiar to an audience familiar with atrocities occuring throughout the American South:

To guarantee an S.R.O crowd for their execution, Duvalier ordered all businesses closed and schools let out; backland peasants were trucked into Port-au-Prince.  As TV cameras recorded the scene, a black and white jeep pulled up to the cemetery, and out stepped the two victims.  They were tied tightly to two pine stakes. 

This "scrupulously respected" traditional proceeding mirrors lynching scenes that scarred this nation for over a century bringing to bear strange fruit on its flora and fauna.  By beginning with this image Danticat brought the listener's attention to what is sometimes at stake for artists creating dangerously in dangerous environments.  Both Numa and Douin were poets, and while it was not their poetry lead to their execution, the knowledge-what we might call consciousness-that these two men developed through reading and writing prompted them to identify this particular quest-overthrowing Duvalier-as their seminal/great work. 

As Ms. Danticat also points out creating dangerously is not simply a life and death matter.  Salvation and myth offered by death avails itself to fewer artists than we imagine, more likely than not creating dangerously requires managing inner personal conflicts and the responsibility of fulfilling one's role as an advocate for others.  In essence, we can concede that each day is not guaranteed therefore with each breathe one risks their lives, but can we take the risk and responsibility of saving someone else's.  Ms. Danticat uses her own attempts at getting her uncle released from the INS detention center in 2004, which she recently chronicled in Brother I'm Dying, as an example of how an artist can find themselves struggling to save the life of another.  Medical doctors are trained knowing that they will not be able to save everyone they set out to help, but artists receive no such training-we speak in hopes that someone will listen and help us fulfill the charge of a particular appeal.

In this vein, Ms. Danticat's quest to save her uncle's life recalls Ida B. Wells' quest to end lynching in the United States.  History compelled these women to write dangerously for people who's lives were in danger.  To that end Danticat's vision of the immigrant artist recalls Wells' crusade as an itinerant journalist in search of justice, and quests udertaken by women such as Athena, Nanny, and Harriet, and as such, these artists who created dangerously for people who lived dangerously, live on in the hearts and minds of their readers. 

For years many Americans have bemoaned the fact there is not a viable third party in this country. Ralph Nader capitalized this angst against a two-party system dominated democrats and republicans in 2000 to run what many have called the most successful third party campaign thus far. Nader's Green Party is still seen as an insurgent group still struggling to find its sea legs in America's political waters. Surprisingly, a new American political party has done within the course of three months what the Green Party could not manage to do in eight years: which is develop a well oiled political machine capable of winning a presidential election.

A little while ago Wardell Franklin asked Jeff and I to chime in on this year's congressional races.  As Barack Obama continues surging the democratic presidential nomination, 2008's congressional races will gradually become a recurring topic of discussion.  This applies to any presidential debate but will have particular significance in this year's campaign because one of Obama's campaign platforms is his ability to unite this country, bring republicans and democrats together under one umbrella-ella--ellla.  In order to do this, Obama will first have to make a good showing atop this year's democratic ticket.  As Bill Clinton's campaign proved, regardless of one's charisma, a president still needs a cooperative congress to push through her or his agenda. 

 One of the greatest fears for democratic operatives this year is that Obama and Clinton will continue competing against each other until the party's convention in August, thereby leaving less time for the party to rally around a candidate.  While this might not necessarily impact Clinton or Obama's ability to get elected, it might however, impact whether or not congressional candidates will have enough of an opportunity to distinguish themselves, a factor that inevitably helps incumbents who are already disproportionately favored in these races. 

Secondly, while much has been written about black elected officials who've had to eat crow as a result of Obama's success, very little has been written about the fact that many of their white democratic colleagues are finding themselves in similar positions.  Politicians have to toe a fine line between being leaders and foot soldiers and this year's race is bringing that conflict to the fore for many democrats.  Republicans are not exempt from this conflict either, as many candidates in traditionally conservative regions of this country will have to cast their lot with John McCain whose conservative credentials are repeatedly being called into question.  

 As Jeff and I move forward with this thread, it will help if folks can chime on what the pulse is in their own districts?  Where do your local representatives fall in the Clinton/McCain/and Obama tussle?  Has this prolonged primary campaign taken drawn significant attention to issues faced by you and your neighbors?

F 

Jeff, that's an interesting question.  Either contense will be incredibly intense, but for different reasons.  A McCain versus Clinton contest threatens to draw out the nastier elements of both parties, and consequently lead to each candidate only giving lip-service to issues pertaining to people of color.  Clinton would have to present herself as more hawkish to compete with McCain, who while he's a hawk, he's not one in the mold of Cheney/Rumsfeld, so this could lead to some nasty exchanges that do not benefit either candidate.  This would also be a campaign where both candidates run on their records and not necessarily their visions, and that won't benefit Americans as a whole. 

On the other hand, a McCain versus Obama campaign would be so ideologically heated that it could lead to some serious shifts in American politics-especially if McCain takes Obama's cue and draws Republicans more toward the middle.  Obama will force McCain to articulate a vision for this country, and it would be interesting to see what he comes up with, because it will show voters who he really is and how much he's willing to concede in order to be president.  He can either go far right or drift toward the center and force republicans to do right by this country.  My chief concern is that neither of these two are great debaters-and their mannerisms when on screen could color voters opinions in unflattering ways.

What do other folks think?

Also, what are the possible ramifications of Edward's concession?