The Times Are A-Changin'?
By Connect Mason Columnist Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin said on Martin Luther King Day that the country is on the “cusp of turning the impossible into reality.” Speaking to a congregation of two-thousand at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King had been co-pastor, Franklin, an Obama supporter (giving an indication to which ‘impossible’ she was making reference to), raised an important question in a primary race that heated up between the Democratic front runners last Monday:
What impact will this election have on America as we know it?
While Bill Clinton has proved a valuable source of influence and support, there are worries that Hillary’s last name may turn off voters who not only want the abundance of Change being promised from all quarters, but a clean break from The Old Establishment, the 20 years of Clinton and Bush that spanned from the end of the 80s well into this first decade of the 2000s.
Reagan Legacy of Change
Was this what Obama was hoping to plant in the minds of undecided voters with his possibly costly mention of Reagan’s legacy? Why did he choose to say that Reagan had “changed the trajectory of America”? Republicans have lauded Reagan since the opening days of this race, but rarely does one hear a Democrat, let alone one running for his party’s nomination, mention his name. As John Whitesides and Ellen Wulfhorst wrote in their piece ‘Clinton, Obama clash in debate’: “For Obama, the Reagan issue represents a potential sore point in the nomination battle. Praising Reagan -- even in an objective historical context -- is not a recipe for success with liberal Democrats or African Americans, among whom Reagan was not popular.”
Obama defended himself by saying he was not praising Republican ideas, but making reference to Reagan’s ability to bring political rivals together. Was this yet another jab at Bill, a significant part of The Old Establishment, who battled a mostly Republican congress for much of his presidency? By referring to Reagan as a man who renegotiated the course of this country, as a man who united politicians on opposite sides of party lines, and also mentioning the only president of the last 25 years to have a last name other than Bush or Clinton, is Obama trying to portray himself as a man with ideas weighty enough to ‘change the trajectory of America,’ to unite a divided nation, and to provide voters with a New Establishment, an African American president, a new last name.
Heated Debate in South Carolina
If so, Obama’s hopes were put under some harsh lights and brutal scrutiny at the South Carolina Democratic Debate. Defending himself against what he felt were distortions of his record voiced by former President Clinton, Obama shifted from his typically jovial, conversational rhetoric and became, at times, very pointed and aggressive.
New York Times reporters Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny wrote in their January 22 piece ‘Obama and Clinton Tangle at Debate,’ “At several other points, [Obama] used the phrase ‘Senator Clinton and President Clinton’ to re-enforce his view that he is facing off against a decades-old Clinton machine,” once again returning undecided voters’ attentions back on The Old Establishment, separating himself from that entity and placing himself on the liminal territory between Yesterday and Tomorrow.
If either candidate wins their party’s nomination, it would be a unique milestone in the varied history of this nation. If either candidate were to win the presidency, it will change the face of America. But Obama wants us to ask ourselves, how much will really change with another Clinton in the White House?
The New Kennedy?
Caroline Kennedy supported Obama in her January 27 Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, “I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.” Kennedy continued on to say, “It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.”
Obama has been compared to both of the late Kennedy brothers in numerous pieces written about him, most notably to Bobby Kennedy in the ‘1968: The Year That Changed Everything’ issue of Newsweek , with Andrew Sullivan’s article in The Atlantic saying that Obama could transcend the politics of the 1960s. With the endorsement of John F. Kennedy’s daughter and Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy pending, Obama’s message of change has had powerful weight added to it.
What impact will this election have on America as we know it? There are serious hurdles to be negotiated before that question can be fully answered, but as Bob Dylan put it 1964, “The times, they are a-changin’.” How much they will change will be a question debated and partially answered over the rest of this year, and will probably even be contestable in the history books our children will read.
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