The Obama Juggernaut Has Landed!

Not bad, I will have to say!  Do we dare dream of morning in America?  On the other hand, I'll have another helping of that crow, if you don't mind.

It was just shy of a year ago that I wrote about the orbiting Sen. Obama looking for a place to land.  At that time, I portrayed him thusly:  "He's here; He's there; He's everywhere; He's nowhere." Having skidded on schedule to a victorious stop in Iowa, he looks poised to roll the rest of the way by media caravan.  "If you build it, they will come!"

Obama has elevated "Time for Change" to the kind of cult status that vaulted Ronald Reagan into the Oval Office in 1981.  Remember "It's morning in America?"  If he makes it all the way, perhaps we can return to the cohesiveness of the '80's – at least the first half.

For the record, I accept my serving of crow.  Given that Iowa is the Mecca for that winged scavenger, I thought it might be interesting to revisit some of my thoughts from January ‘07:

If you look toward the East on a clear night, you can find him traveling in a zig zag pattern, his light shining brightly, direction uncertain; destiny unknown. Orbit may be the closest to Barack that the grassroots will ever come.

 

In the meantime, Sen. Clinton is out of the chute organized, focused, responsive, funded and available. In some circles, they call this "Old Boy Networking." In others, they call it a winning strategy, depending on your hopes, dreams and preferences. Whatever it is, Sen. Obama is going to find it tough sledding against the Clinton juggernaut. "Earth to Obama: There are millions of embarrassed Evangelicals and disenfranchised Catholics out there in the heartland who are looking for a political home!"

 

My take on the Clinton machine is that it will scoop up those embarrassed Evangelicals and disenfranchised Catholics before you can say "Armageddon." That is, if she doesn't get bogged down with the cynical likes of James Carville, Harold Ickes and Terry McAuliffe, power mongers of a time when the world was round.

 

We orthodox Evangelicals, some sixty-million strong (assuming that only half of Evangelicals polled are willing to admit to it), exiles from McChurch and caught in the demilitarized zone of the rising American theocracy, are not exactly looking for a Messiah, but we were anticipating a more visionary scenario than Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton. Follow the bouncing ball!

 

Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton: twenty-six years in the desert – fourteen more to the Promised Land? Where is Moses when you need him? Ah! Circling the earth one more time, waiting for a voice from the burning bush but too far away to hear it.

Juxtaposed to the Granite State as I am here in Maine, and having done business in New Hampshire for a number of years, Barack is a shoe-in for Tuesday's first presidential primary election. 

In his column today in the Washington Post, Chris Gillizza goes so far as to suggest that the fix is in – that "Obama's opponents are playing checkers while he is playing chess."[1] He has this to say:

The Fix has long believed that the lone path for Obama to the Democratic nomination was to transform himself from a candidate into a movement. That is, by voting for Obama people would believe they are choosing something greater than simply a political candidate, that they are supporting a cause to change the way politics in America has been conducted.

 

In his speech here this morning, Obama cited the results in Iowa as a sign that things had changed in America politics. "A few days ago something special happened in the Midwest," Obama said to loud cheers. "The people of Iowa decided to set aside their fear and cynicism and reach for what is possible."

In defense of my pedantic prognostication, the orbiting Obama was a "candidate."  The victorious, feet-on-the-ground Obama is a "movement."  He has heard the voice from the wilderness – the burning bush:  "Lead my people out of Egypt!"  Or, as the case may be, out of "fear and cynicism." 

Sen. Cinton, on the other hand, appears to have failed the test by leaning on "the power mongers of a time when the world was round" (instead of flat).

Not bad, I will have to say!  Do we dare dream of morning in America?  On the other hand, I'll have another helping of that crow, if you don't mind.

[1] http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/?hpid=topnews