An early ambition was that I might enter politics or academia, or become a diplomat/lawyer/corporate executive with an international career. But my perspective has always been one of multiplicity: it felt more natural to me to see the interrelatedness of humanity than to become an expert specializing in a fragment of the universe. I wanted a personal life and the freedom of my own thoughts and ideas.
Formally, my education includes studies in literature and the liberal arts, aesthetics, theory, production and performance of art and visual works; cultural analysis, expressive arts and symbolism, identity, social groups and institutions, power and politics, law; historical and intellectual analysis, cognitive psychology and behavioral analysis, sociology; management, organizational behavior, micro-and macro-economics, statistics; earth science; communications, print journalism, foreign reporting, interactive multimedia, and electronic news production.
Despite my reputation for scholarship, leadership, and organizational abilities, I viewed myself as an artist. But not just any kind of artist: I work with what is intangible, non-verbalized, and emergent. My purpose is to see and to experience the future before it manifests, to reveal the soul, to create what has not been seen before, and still to make a difference in the world. There is no conventional training for this unique vocation, so I set out to collect the memories and the portfolio of life and work experiences that would enable me to fulfill my destiny. You cannot consider yourself to be a true artist unless you have experienced complete joy and serenity, catharsis, intense feelings, bittersweet memories, and sorrow—the awakening of the kundalini life force.
Given this filter, here is my analysis of the current state of affairs:
I like Barack Obama and sense that he is a person of destiny. The present conservative agenda, which first gained a stronghold during the ascent of Reaganomics, is now a thing of the past. It is about time that the shrill and divisive practitioners of media yip-yap will soon be subordinated—along with outmoded management styles and corporate/consumer excesses.
The nature of American society and corporatism tends to mirror the personality and policies of the commander-in-chief. In Reagan we had a man in his dotage; in Bush I a wealthy elitist who was seriously out-of-touch with how common people lived; in Clinton and Bush II, there was slippage into adolescent behavior. But Obama is something else—a consistently virtuous, mature, sober, and responsible adult. The smart way his presidential campaign was run is a sign of what is to come. What the mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” was to the Clinton administration, “good judgment” will be to the Obama administration.
The four C’s—communication, connection, creativity, and collaboration—will rule. Obama brings style and substance, the likes of which the world stage has not seen before. Look for equality, compassion, innovation, ethics, service, and discipline to be the imprints of an Obama administration. Barack Obama ran for president because he wanted to make a difference, to change the world, and as an internal challenge to himself. An only child from a single-parent household with an absent father, there is incredible personal loneliness given this status. From the time he was a child, Obama had to create his own place and make his own way in the world: he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Obama’s internal motivation was to create something of stability and substance, and to challenge society’s assumptions.
Obama has just over 60 days before he is sworn in as president of the United States. He has collected a coterie of like-minded individuals into his orbit, and he and his team plan to hit the ground running. I respect the fact that Obama will not allow himself to be rushed into doing anything ill considered or unseemly. He will wait until the present administration is out of office before he reveals his true plans. I do not feel Obama will attempt too much at once. To do so would be foolhardy. First, the economy must be placed under control. It was pointless to hand over $700 billion in taxpayer funds without strings attached, so you can expect an Obama administration to address this loophole. The United States did not have a true free market economy in the first place; the system was weighted in favor of the plutocracy. What we will probably see in the future is a hybrid version of free market enterprise and socialism. The bailouts already amount to a form of corporate socialism. As well, you can expect a foreign government to try to take advantage of Obama early in his administration; he will be tested on the international front sooner rather than later. Also, the government must do all it can to keep President Obama and the first family safe.
When the timing is right, President Obama will begin to unfold his administration’s initiatives. If all goes well, Obama’s administration can expect to be in power for eight years; American voters are inclined to give a new president two terms in office. If the country is prosperous, another Democrat will succeed him. As I mentioned earlier in the year, I don’t sense that Hillary will ever become president. She had a chance to become vice-president in 2008, but she and former President Clinton held onto their sense of entitlement too long and had not built a bridge to Obama’s inner circle. And do not discount any lingering feelings of rivalry. Rarely does rivalry fully dissipate, and feelings of rivalry are constructive only when sublimated. Interestingly, Obama and Hillary are very similar in one startling way. They are both strongly motivated by a mission of purpose and public service in their lives: they differ in that Obama is innately collaborative while Hillary has been controlling. That her core staff uses the term “Hillaryland” as a form of self-designation reinforced the impression of imperialist tendencies.
Hillary completely redeemed herself during the general election and has the political capital to become the nominee in 2012, but this would be a denouement. Like John McCain, in four years her time will have passed. I see her more in the mold of a Ted Kennedy. Like Kennedy, whose own presidential ambitions were thwarted, over time, Hillary will follow his lead as an elder stateswoman and national power broker. In the future, Hillary could still become a vice-presidential candidate to balance a ticket, if the position were handed to her on a silver platter. Obama is a tough act to follow. Do not expect another black/bi-racial/minority president to follow in Obama’s footsteps in the foreseeable future. A female or ethnic minority as vice-president would be a likelier scenario: the glass ceiling has been shattered.
While Hillary, John Kerry, and Bill Richardson may all be interested in becoming Secretary of State, there is a pecking order. There are always political debts to be paid with a successful campaign and, in this respect, Obama is no exception. Kerry might have the backing of the Kennedys, but Hillary has more clout. Hillary helped deliver her constituency of women and blue-collar votes during the general election; Kennedy and Kerry combined did not have the traction to deliver Massachusetts to Obama during the Democratic primary. Hillary’s influence and stature will continue to grow. Once Ted Kennedy passes, so too will the vested power and authority of the clan. Right now, there is no one in the generational pipeline with the larger-than-life ambitions of their predecessors. Caroline and her late brother John were raised as Bouviers by their mother, not as Kennedys…they always wanted a private life. Kerry’s visibility at this time is due in large part to his his wife’s inherited wealth; the nation had already rejected him as a presidential candidate. Richardson is a prominent link to the Hispanic constituency, and his loyalty has already been severely tested. The Clintons gave Richardson a national profile and career, but he gave his endorsement to Obama. Theirs is a multicultural bond and, in the future, viable political candidates will want to emphasize a multicultural or bi-racial connection to appeal to the increasingly influential Millennial generation.
Historically, Hillary has carved an independent identity from her husband, the former president. Bill Clinton scored record-high approval ratings and the economy soared under his administration. For years, this was enough to stave off concerns about Clinton’s ethical lapses and the sexual misconduct allegations. Al Gore would have become president if not for the Lewinsky sex scandal and subsequent impeachment proceedings against the president, so it is fair to say that Bill Clinton lost the White House for the Democrats. The combination of inappropriate sexual conduct and impeachment was a national distraction that ushered in the current, failed presidency.
Sarah Palin’s moment has passed. The media leaks about outlandish behavior occurred because Republican stalwarts wanted to discredit any claim she has to an important role or stature in the Republican Party. Palin is trying to prolong her news cycle because she wants a viable career, but she is woefully not ready for prime time. As a voter and taxpayer, I am highly offended that the Republican Party tried to sell her to the American people while Republicans kept harping on Obama’s inexperience to become president. Her selection completely torpedoed that argument. To be fair, I felt the complaints about Palin’s new $150,000 wardrobe were largely irrelevant. Virtually every female network and major market news anchor receives a clothing allowance if she appears on prime time, and a Republican donor or a discretionary budget could have provided the funds. However, what is hypocritical is holding Palin up as a Walmart mom after her wardrobe makeover. You would not find any of the designer fashions from Neiman Marcus at a Walmart. I do not see Palin as a political power player on the national stage; she may instead find herself relegated to Ollie North territory.
Prior to Super Tuesday, I suggested Mitt Romney for the Republican ticket. In the general election, the popular vote differential was 6% and there were five battleground states. Romney has credibility as an executive and for his economic expertise. Wall Street likes Romney, and so does Middle America. It was inane to tap Palin because of concerns about energizing the conservative base. To whom would the fundamentalists and conservatives turn? In a general election, between Obama/Biden and McCain/Romney, passions would have run high and the base would have shown up at the polls.
Romney spent millions of his own money to buy entry into national politics. He is deceptively smart, ambitious, and strategic; if he wants it enough, he will be the Republican nominee in 2012. Romney has a joint J.D./M.B.A. from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School; in addition, he was a Baker Scholar in the top 5% of his HBS class. He was CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which he used as his political springboard to become the Republican candidate for Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat in 1994. Taking on the patriarch of the Kennedy clan gave Romney immediate standing and visibility. Romney won his bid to become governor of Massachusetts in 2002. In 2007, when his first and only term as governor ended, Romney ran for president and collected political capital as an effective surrogate for John McCain during the 2008 general election.
With Romney on the Republican ticket instead of Palin, Obama still might have eked out a victory. Fortunately, McCain was desperate enough to want to win that he placed his trust in the wrong people and resorted to contrivance. This blatantly political gesture was enough to seal the outcome.
While waiting outside the door of my niece’s classroom at St. Mary’s parochial school, I viewed the pictorial line of U.S. presidents extending from George Washington to Barack Obama, the 44th office-holder. It occurred to me that what made many of these presidents so memorable were the historic events that took place during their tenure or the landmark legislation and seismic changes in society left as a legacy of their administrations. I felt a sense of pride in the accomplishments and resiliency of our republic through the passage of time and its leadership in world events under the stewardship of heads of state democratically elected by a heterogeneous populace. This to me is the essence of America.
George Washington (1789-1797) – the American Revolution, the Constitution, the birth of the nation
Thomas Jefferson (1801-09) – the Declaration of Independence, the Louisiana Purchase
Abraham Lincoln (1861-65) – the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the abolition of slavery
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09) – the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Panama Canal, the conservation movement
Woodrow Wilson (1913-21) – World War I, the League of Nations, the Treaty of Versailles, creation of the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve System, and a federal income tax; I attended Woodrow Wilson Elementary School
Herbert Hoover (1929-33) – the Great Depression, Works Progress Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, prohibition
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-45) – the Great Depression, the New Deal, Social Security, Pearl Harbor, World War II, the Good Neighbor Policy, the United Nations, the Yalta Conference, creation of the Securities Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Japanese internment camps
Harry Truman (1945-53) – the Fair Deal program, the United Nations, the U.N. General Assembly, World War II, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Potsdam Conference, the Berlin Airlift, the Cold War, NATO, the National Security Act, the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency and the national Security Council, the Korean War, the Republic of China (Taiwan), McCarthyism
Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61) – the Cold War, the Korean De-Militarized Zone, the interstate highway system, nuclear weapons, the Eisenhower Doctrine, creation of HEW, Brown v. Board of Education
John F. Kennedy (1961-63) – the youngest president elected to office, the first and only Roman Catholic president, first televised presidential debates, 1,000 days in office, Pulitzer Prize winner in history, the New Frontier, civil rights, the modern feminist movement, the Vietnam War, the Peace Corps, the Space Race, the Arms Race, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crises, the Berlin Wall, the Immigration and Nationality Act
Lyndon Johnson (1963-69) – the Vietnam War, the Great Society, the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the Voting Rights Act, the “War on Poverty,” appointment of Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court, urban renewal and beautification programs, creation of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Public Broadcasting Act, the Higher Education Act, the Bilingual Education Act, urban mass transportation, fair housing, the Gun Control Act, won presidency with 61% of vote and widest popular vote margin in history
Richard Nixon (1969-74) – end of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, the first man on the moon, rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China, détente with the Soviet Union, SALT talks, creation of EPA, DEA, OSHA, Skylab, federal affirmative action plan
Jimmy Carter (1977-81) – Iran hostage crises, energy crises, stagflation, Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arab-Israeli peace treaty, Camp David Accords, return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama, SALT, creation of Department of Energy and Department of Education, airline and communications industry deregulation, civil service reform, record number of minority appointees, human rights, gay rights, Voyager 1, amnesty for Vietnam War draft evaders, 1980 Moscow Olympics boycott
Ronald Reagan (1981-89) – Reaganomics, deregulation and income tax overhaul, peacetime prosperity, end of the Cold War, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Iran-Contra affair, the bombing of Libya, the invasion of Grenada, “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative, the War on Drugs, “Just Say No” anti-drug advertising campaign, the Challenger disaster, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, the oldest president in office
George H.W. Bush (1989-93) – the Persian Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, the end of the Cold War, the collapse of Communism and the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., the fall of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. invasion of Panama, high deficit spending, “No New Taxes” broken pledge, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Clean Air Act, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the North American Free Trade Agreement
William J. Clinton (1993-2001) – the longest period of peace-time economic expansion in American history, record low unemployment and inflation, balanced budget and budget surplus, triangulation policy, North American Free Trade Agreement, United Nations peace keeping forces in Bosnia, Operation Desert Fox, the Battle of Mogadishu, the Oslo accords, welfare reform, Family and Medical leave Act, failure of health care reform, worldwide campaign against drug trafficking, highest rate of home ownership, children’s health insurance, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" gays in the military policy, placing the White House and federal agencies on the internet, sexual misconduct allegations, the Lewinsky scandal, impeachment, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Brady Bill, Travelgate, Whitewater, Troopergate
George W. Bush (2001-09) – 9-11 terrorist attacks, the worst financial crises since the Great Depression, the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, $700 billion bailout of U.S. financial system, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, Hurricane Katrina, Operation Desert Shield, global financial crises, sub prime mortgage crises, federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the War on Terror, Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, Guantanamo Bay detainment, the No Child Left Behind Act, illegal immigration, temporary guest-worker program, opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, global warming, stem cell research, Terrorist Surveillance Program, Hurricane Katrina, midterm dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Plamegate, hanging chads, highest disapproval ratings in polling history; historians view this Bush presidency as a failure
Barack Obama (2009 - ) – first African-American/bi-racial/non-white president in American history, first president born outside of the continental United States, U.S. financial crises (TBD: signature, landmark legislation in race, financial reform, environment, homeland security, international affairs, energy, education, universal health care, ethics?)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
Obama 2008: An Intuitive Campaign
Posted by
A. D. Tejada
If I were president and a highly ambitious, driven individual with my iron fist inside the velvet glove, how would I choose my staff and cabinet?
I would first turn to friends with whom I have a high comfort level, to smart and capable people who have proven themselves over the years and have remained personally and professionally loyal. Then, I would look outside, to a mix of new blood and veterans. I would want diversity in my administration, because I would feel that the different backgrounds, expertise, personalities, and voices would keep me grounded in reality: the mix would keep the dialogue fresh and intellectually stimulating. Working in concert, we would all be able to come up with innovative ways to deal with the challenges the country faces, to govern efficiently and effectively, and to move the nation forward with a progressive agenda.
This is precisely what Obama has done with his selection of Rahm Emanuel to become his chief of staff. It is something of a good cop-bad cop partnership, an extremely smart and pragmatic choice. As president, Obama should strive to remain above the fray and to continue the discipline and discretion that was the hallmark of his victorious campaign. He needs his enforcer, and Emanuel has worked with him in the trenches of Chicago politics, is a seasoned Washington veteran from the Clinton administration, a straight-talker, and is intensely loyal to Obama.
Obama’s election, in large part, is the handiwork of Chicago’s vaunted political machine, no longer just a machine but now a talented network of politicos and supporters that have made their mark in the Windy City. Obama’s Chicago-based team includes David Axelrod, the chief campaign strategist, a University of Chicago graduate and former journalist from the Chicago Tribune with a background in television advertising, David Plouffe, the campaign’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and the queen of all media herself, Oprah Winfrey.
Axelrod and Obama are a perfect pairing. Axelrod crafted the soaring message and tone of Obama’s campaign. According to his website, “David Axelrod is one of the pre-eminent political media consultants in the United States, having produced winning media and messages for over 150 campaigns at the local, state, and national levels. Since opening the firm twenty years ago, Axelrod has been attracted to candidates and causes that offer more humane policies and progressive change.”
The Obama campaign was something the world had not seen before: this is the first time the public has seen a presidential campaign waged using poetry and psychologically intuitive methods. The Camelot comparison during the Kennedy era and the Reagan presidency had parallels, but neither achieved this artful, insinuating level of conquest. Everything was pitch perfect—from the innovative use of the internet to reach a global audience, to the sub-text, the prose, the symbolism, the images—in a way that conventional writing and logic cannot inspire. Obama and his team won the election because the campaign transmitted emotional nuances and chords that touched and resonated at a deeply profound, human level...perhaps a long-forgotten memory. The language of symbols, images, and memory is timeless, with no worldly boundaries. As the audience, we all became part of something larger than ourselves, a global community, the human family. President-elect Obama has engendered copious goodwill because of this emotional buy-in, which he can wisely use to establish his historic presidency.
Certainly, my own world and experiences have been populated by direct and personal contact with people of vision, creativity, and imagination: educators, poets, MacArthur fellows, and Nobel laureates. What Obama has done at a political level, I have practiced for over a decade in my literary writing. I recognized early on that there was a more direct way to touch the soul and the spirit than through plot and characterization. Perhaps because my creative writing professor was also a poet and essayist, my literary output was nonlinear, compact, dense, and encoded; my first literary novella was just over 100 pages long. It may be that my writing style and the ascendance of the Obama era merged at some point: if this is so, then perhaps the world may see for the first time a new form of literary writing to coincide with the rise of this historic, new world order.
I would first turn to friends with whom I have a high comfort level, to smart and capable people who have proven themselves over the years and have remained personally and professionally loyal. Then, I would look outside, to a mix of new blood and veterans. I would want diversity in my administration, because I would feel that the different backgrounds, expertise, personalities, and voices would keep me grounded in reality: the mix would keep the dialogue fresh and intellectually stimulating. Working in concert, we would all be able to come up with innovative ways to deal with the challenges the country faces, to govern efficiently and effectively, and to move the nation forward with a progressive agenda.
This is precisely what Obama has done with his selection of Rahm Emanuel to become his chief of staff. It is something of a good cop-bad cop partnership, an extremely smart and pragmatic choice. As president, Obama should strive to remain above the fray and to continue the discipline and discretion that was the hallmark of his victorious campaign. He needs his enforcer, and Emanuel has worked with him in the trenches of Chicago politics, is a seasoned Washington veteran from the Clinton administration, a straight-talker, and is intensely loyal to Obama.
Obama’s election, in large part, is the handiwork of Chicago’s vaunted political machine, no longer just a machine but now a talented network of politicos and supporters that have made their mark in the Windy City. Obama’s Chicago-based team includes David Axelrod, the chief campaign strategist, a University of Chicago graduate and former journalist from the Chicago Tribune with a background in television advertising, David Plouffe, the campaign’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and the queen of all media herself, Oprah Winfrey.
Axelrod and Obama are a perfect pairing. Axelrod crafted the soaring message and tone of Obama’s campaign. According to his website, “David Axelrod is one of the pre-eminent political media consultants in the United States, having produced winning media and messages for over 150 campaigns at the local, state, and national levels. Since opening the firm twenty years ago, Axelrod has been attracted to candidates and causes that offer more humane policies and progressive change.”
The Obama campaign was something the world had not seen before: this is the first time the public has seen a presidential campaign waged using poetry and psychologically intuitive methods. The Camelot comparison during the Kennedy era and the Reagan presidency had parallels, but neither achieved this artful, insinuating level of conquest. Everything was pitch perfect—from the innovative use of the internet to reach a global audience, to the sub-text, the prose, the symbolism, the images—in a way that conventional writing and logic cannot inspire. Obama and his team won the election because the campaign transmitted emotional nuances and chords that touched and resonated at a deeply profound, human level...perhaps a long-forgotten memory. The language of symbols, images, and memory is timeless, with no worldly boundaries. As the audience, we all became part of something larger than ourselves, a global community, the human family. President-elect Obama has engendered copious goodwill because of this emotional buy-in, which he can wisely use to establish his historic presidency.
Certainly, my own world and experiences have been populated by direct and personal contact with people of vision, creativity, and imagination: educators, poets, MacArthur fellows, and Nobel laureates. What Obama has done at a political level, I have practiced for over a decade in my literary writing. I recognized early on that there was a more direct way to touch the soul and the spirit than through plot and characterization. Perhaps because my creative writing professor was also a poet and essayist, my literary output was nonlinear, compact, dense, and encoded; my first literary novella was just over 100 pages long. It may be that my writing style and the ascendance of the Obama era merged at some point: if this is so, then perhaps the world may see for the first time a new form of literary writing to coincide with the rise of this historic, new world order.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Obama, Race, and Identity
Posted by
A. D. Tejada
The crowds present at Barack Obama's victory speech last night was the first time I have witnessed the most powerful manifestation of America's collective subconscious. Bush and his cronies seriously underestimated the damage their policies have done to the population at large, so in psychic terms, yesterday's election results represented a cleansing—the passing of the old guard and a step into the future.
Obama brought together a powerful coalition of voters that is coming into its own and supplanting the old order: ethnic minorities, youth, independents, and netizens. I didn't have time in my 2,250 word essay that I wrote in under four hours to do more than touch on the significance of what will be the most important legacy of the Obama era: race. In the coming years, I hope to write more extensively on this premise.
In the year 2000, at the dawn of the new millennium, I was there as part of Census 2000—the nation's first multicultural and multilingual census. I served on the regional media team on the staff of regional director Arthur Dukakis and as a press advance for the national director of the Census Bureau. For the first time in history, respondents to the census questionnaire were given an opportunity to self-identify their ethnicity. In the past, there were only a few boxes to check off: for example, bi-racial people had to choose between being black or white. In many ways, it was like choosing between one of your parents in a divorce case. In terms of identity politics, the decision was simplistic: if you were dark-skinned, you were black, and if you were light-skinned, you passed for white.
I would argue that Obama's historic achievement would not have been possible but for the rise of multiculturalism in this country and its celebration among America's immigrants and its youth. Assimilation is no longer preferable to acculturation for ethnic minorities as it was in the decades I was growing up. Yes, Obama is a light-skinned black and considers himself an African-American; his base is in the African-American community. However, he was raised and strongly influenced by his mother and maternal grandparents—all of them white. Culturally, his formative experiences took place among Asians and in Southeast Asia: his vaunted cool and serenity is extraordinarily Asian in temperament...very disciplined, very Zen (am I the only one who has made this connection?). Obama doesn't have the hell fire and political resume of a Jesse Jackson and would not have succeeded had his image and campaign been seen in the same light. Psychologically, as a blank slate, voters could project something of themselves onto the candidate. This is the first time in my lifetime that I can say we will have a president who truly represents the diversity that is America.
Millennials, multiculturals, intellectuals, independents, intuitives, and netizens understand this and, as voters, viewed Obama as someone who transcends race: a planetary citizen. When people see me for the first time, they see a woman who looks like a college student despite her age, a person of Asian descent; some might guess that I am a Filipina. Sometimes I am underestimated because I am stereotyped as a young and submissive Asian female. This is convenient and laughable essentializing. The reality is that I have for all my life identified myself as a global citizen, an evangelistic warrior and precursor of a future where there are no barriers of gender, race, or ethnicity: this is why I have easily mingled in many ethnic, social, cultural, and artistic milieus. In similar fashion, President-elect Obama has a thin line to walk given the huge and sobering task of governing a heterogeneous United States.
Of course, the Obama administration will deal with race, giving the issue the depth it has long deserved. But if he is to govern effectively and to deliver on the promise for a bright and inclusive future for all Americans, a President Obama must remain a bridge: an eloquent and transcendent figure.
As for the question: "What were you doing when Obama was elected president?" My husband, our Shih-Tzu, and I settled on the sofa in front of the television and watched split-screen election coverage from 4pm on. I had made buttermilk-soaked fried chicken and baby greens salad for dinner in front of the tv; we had snacks and drinks well-stocked. We're not political professionals or pundits, just deeply engaged and highly informed netizens (my husband started his high tech career with Lotus Development, and I used to work in television news…as an intern, I saw Peter Jennings—my tv news idol—in person every day; Peter would have loved this 2008 campaign). We predicted the election would be determined early, by 10pm the election would be called in Obama's favor and McCain would concede shortly afterwards. I also predicted the win would be a landslide, but that the election would be closer than expected: I was right on both counts. It was an electoral landslide, but the popular vote was much closer, only by 6% of total votes cast. At 10pm CST, as polls closed on the West Coast, all the major networks broke the news of Obama's projected win. Everything played out as predicted, and I stayed awake practically the entire night and well into morning watching and reading news updates.
Obama brought together a powerful coalition of voters that is coming into its own and supplanting the old order: ethnic minorities, youth, independents, and netizens. I didn't have time in my 2,250 word essay that I wrote in under four hours to do more than touch on the significance of what will be the most important legacy of the Obama era: race. In the coming years, I hope to write more extensively on this premise.
In the year 2000, at the dawn of the new millennium, I was there as part of Census 2000—the nation's first multicultural and multilingual census. I served on the regional media team on the staff of regional director Arthur Dukakis and as a press advance for the national director of the Census Bureau. For the first time in history, respondents to the census questionnaire were given an opportunity to self-identify their ethnicity. In the past, there were only a few boxes to check off: for example, bi-racial people had to choose between being black or white. In many ways, it was like choosing between one of your parents in a divorce case. In terms of identity politics, the decision was simplistic: if you were dark-skinned, you were black, and if you were light-skinned, you passed for white.
I would argue that Obama's historic achievement would not have been possible but for the rise of multiculturalism in this country and its celebration among America's immigrants and its youth. Assimilation is no longer preferable to acculturation for ethnic minorities as it was in the decades I was growing up. Yes, Obama is a light-skinned black and considers himself an African-American; his base is in the African-American community. However, he was raised and strongly influenced by his mother and maternal grandparents—all of them white. Culturally, his formative experiences took place among Asians and in Southeast Asia: his vaunted cool and serenity is extraordinarily Asian in temperament...very disciplined, very Zen (am I the only one who has made this connection?). Obama doesn't have the hell fire and political resume of a Jesse Jackson and would not have succeeded had his image and campaign been seen in the same light. Psychologically, as a blank slate, voters could project something of themselves onto the candidate. This is the first time in my lifetime that I can say we will have a president who truly represents the diversity that is America.
Millennials, multiculturals, intellectuals, independents, intuitives, and netizens understand this and, as voters, viewed Obama as someone who transcends race: a planetary citizen. When people see me for the first time, they see a woman who looks like a college student despite her age, a person of Asian descent; some might guess that I am a Filipina. Sometimes I am underestimated because I am stereotyped as a young and submissive Asian female. This is convenient and laughable essentializing. The reality is that I have for all my life identified myself as a global citizen, an evangelistic warrior and precursor of a future where there are no barriers of gender, race, or ethnicity: this is why I have easily mingled in many ethnic, social, cultural, and artistic milieus. In similar fashion, President-elect Obama has a thin line to walk given the huge and sobering task of governing a heterogeneous United States.
Of course, the Obama administration will deal with race, giving the issue the depth it has long deserved. But if he is to govern effectively and to deliver on the promise for a bright and inclusive future for all Americans, a President Obama must remain a bridge: an eloquent and transcendent figure.
As for the question: "What were you doing when Obama was elected president?" My husband, our Shih-Tzu, and I settled on the sofa in front of the television and watched split-screen election coverage from 4pm on. I had made buttermilk-soaked fried chicken and baby greens salad for dinner in front of the tv; we had snacks and drinks well-stocked. We're not political professionals or pundits, just deeply engaged and highly informed netizens (my husband started his high tech career with Lotus Development, and I used to work in television news…as an intern, I saw Peter Jennings—my tv news idol—in person every day; Peter would have loved this 2008 campaign). We predicted the election would be determined early, by 10pm the election would be called in Obama's favor and McCain would concede shortly afterwards. I also predicted the win would be a landslide, but that the election would be closer than expected: I was right on both counts. It was an electoral landslide, but the popular vote was much closer, only by 6% of total votes cast. At 10pm CST, as polls closed on the West Coast, all the major networks broke the news of Obama's projected win. Everything played out as predicted, and I stayed awake practically the entire night and well into morning watching and reading news updates.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
My Life in an Obama Administration, Part II
Posted by
A. D. Tejada
I’m declaring for Obama in a landslide.
We knew the election results would either be a blowout or closer than expected. Nothing about the 2008 election season was ever middle ground or middle of the road. The 2008 election is nothing less than a battle for the hearts and minds of the American voter, a referendum on the future.
At 8:45 a.m. this morning, I arrived at Holy Family Catholic Church, in the 62nd district of Oklahoma, to cast my vote for Barack Obama. As I approached the church, the parking lot was filled to near capacity, as though a Sunday church service was already in session. But walking through the doors, the sight astounded me. There were about 200 people in line ahead of me, and it would be another 75 minutes until I was inside the auditorium to vote. I would learn that early risers who arrived to vote at 7:00 a.m. would have an even longer wait, an hour and a half. Early voting took place at the courthouse in our city on the previous Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday—the line at the courthouse snaked even longer, with voters waiting an hour and a half to vote. My elderly father showed up at 7:00 a.m. at the Episcopalian church near his home and finished voting in no time flat.
I saw my congressman standing in line, presumably to vote for his own re-election. I was tempted to ask T.W. Shannon—an African-American man, a Republican, and a neighbor—if he would vote the party line or with history. Of the voters I saw, most were middle age or older and white. Fewer than 25% were people of color or college age or younger, and maybe 10 were soldiers in uniform. The time passed more quickly than expected as people engaged in friendly banter and an air of civic-mindedness prevailed. The retiree next to me complained that he hated it when news organizations projected the winner ahead of time; he felt it was a disincentive for people to come out and vote. Most voters arrived singly…there were retirees, farmers, older Asian women, college students, and African-American couples in line. Young families came out together to vote. Mothers with toddlers in tow waited their turn, as did elderly citizens in wheelchairs. Neighbors chatted with neighbors. My neighbor, Linda, who’s married to a psychiatrist, saw me and told me she was looking forward to my next opinion piece. Friends and acquaintances caught up with each other. Here’s a sampling of the conversation I caught:
Middle-age man: “I know you…you used to be the postman who delivered my mail in Chattanooga. I always used to see you at square dancing.”
Retired postal worker: “I never delivered mail in Chattanooga, I did in Faxon.”
Middle-age man: “Well, I saw you at square dancing all the time. I don’t square dance any more…too old. I was the 17th person in line to vote in Faxon at 6:30 a.m. this morning. ”
Me: “Don’t the polls open at 7:00 a.m.? So didn’t you end up waiting about 45 minutes to vote?”
Middle-age man: “Yes, but people who showed up at 7:00 a.m. would have to wait about an hour.”
At 9:57 a.m. I finished voting. Oklahoma’s election ballot is an oversized sheet of paper printed on both sides. Voters draw a straight line in the middle with a felt-tip pen to connect the point of an arrow to the tail end. I felt good as I left the polling place…it was heartening to see so many people who made an effort to vote before their shift at work, spent their lunch time waiting in line, brought their young children with them. Regardless of who was their candidate of choice, voters understood that this was an historical election.
I lived for several years in New Hampshire, with its first-in-the-nation primary. The New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch traditionally tallies the first presidential votes cast in the nation. Obama won in a landslide, which came as something of a surprise. I now live in Oklahoma, which the national media views as the heartland of the new millennium. In 2006—the year my husband and I relocated from New Hampshire to return to the state where my family has lived for more than 40 years—Oprah, The New York Times, Design Star and The Contender featured Oklahoma and Oklahomans; in 2007, Lauren Nelson, a resident of our town was crowned Miss America 2007, and a local family had their dream house built and broadcasted on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2005, Oklahoma native Carrie Underwood won American Idol and went on to become one of the franchise’s most celebrated alumni.
So what does Barack Obama represent to me, and what would his administration mean to the country? Well, as I have just described, he has brought with him an earnest sense of engagement and civic participation in the political process. To have inspired the fervor that he has means that the electorate would have made an effort to be better informed about the candidates’ position on issues. After what amounts to years and even decades of voter apathy, all these changes can only be for the better.
Certainly, Obama was the beneficiary of acts of god and nature that kept his candidacy afloat, the most compelling being the public’s furor over the sinking economy and the bailout of Wall Street. For too long, under a Republican administration, the heavy-hitting oligarchy was allowed to play fast and loose with the economic system without the necessary and responsible government oversight. When Wall Street failed, the bailout was necessary…virtually everyone was impacted, including Middle Americans with their pensions tied up in retirement plans. Anger over the economy, coupled with the disenchantment with the war in Iraq, proved too much to ignore. Sarah Palin became a drag on the Republican ticket. Has a vice presidential candidate’s qualifications to be commander-in-chief been so derided since George H.W. Bush hand-picked a little-known Indiana congressman to be his running mate? It’s a toss-up between Palin and Dan Quayle. Even voters who might have seemed suspicious of the change that Obama represented came to recognize that change was not a mantra for the sake of change but, rather, a referendum and a recognition that the system could not go on as in the past. John McCain is certainly a maverick, but this quality is most pronounced in his personal conduct rather than in his voting record, which shows a 90%-95% accord with President Bush. McCain is not the systemic change agent needed to overhaul a superannuated bureaucracy.
Obama impressed us all with his riveting speech at the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston. Two years later, he began the long campaign to endear himself to the American public. Along the two-year slog through the Democratic primary season and the general campaign, Obama has made few mistakes. What potential minefields he encountered were the result of questionable associations, from which he quickly distanced himself. In those instances where he did not, notably, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama demonstrated an initial willingness to support his friends and mentors until it was unsustainable to do so.
What I admire most about Barack Obama is that he took a dream—a vision of what American has been and could yet become—so that we could see the potential in buying into his long-range thinking. He brought a fresh perspective to how we could approach the challenges that face our country. He did so through the power of words, his innate ability to articulate and to communicate what other presidents and candidates could not. Yet, his interpersonal and communication skills were honed because he himself spent much of his life at the margins of society. In his background, Obama was as far away from the profile of recent American presidents except for, perhaps, Bill Clinton.
Technically, Barack Obama is not black. He is bi-racial—an important distinction in an increasingly multicultural society—the product of a white mother from the Midwest and a black father from Africa. He grew up without his birth father in his life, raised by a single parent and then later by his white grandparents. His early environment was Hawaii, easily the most diverse state in the country where people of color hold influential roles and positions in all aspects of public life. Obama spent his formative years in Hawaii and in Indonesia, a Southeast Asian republic republic with a Muslim majority; the country is itself at the crossroads of the Pacific Rim.
Once on the mainland, Obama first attended a small, liberal arts college in Los Angeles before transferring to Columbia University in New York City. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he made his way to Chicago where he began to build the base for his political career. By all accounts, Obama's trajectory onto the national stage was meteoric.
I am a foreign-born Asian-American woman. As a person of color, many of my mentors have been African-American. Politically, this is because at the time I first became an activist in the 1970’s and 1980’s, African-Americans were better organized as a result of the Civil Rights movement than was the Asian-American community.
Traditionally, the South Side of Chicago is the nation’s bedrock of Black Power. Politically active and connected, the African-American community here is an influential network that raised and supported Barack Obama like many black politicians before him. While much about Obama’s delivery may come across as elitist and coolly intellectual, his rhythmic intonations and stylings are a product of the old-time sermons, a form of traditional storytelling by black preachers who were looked upon as the paternal head of the community. This is one reason why Obama was unwilling to turn his back on Jeremiah Wright until the former pastor disowned him.
Obama grew up without ever really knowing his father. His lost his mother too soon, when he thought there was still time. The recent death of his grandmother, for all purposes, is the last link to Obama’s former life. But he has reinvented himself. He now has a family of his own and had grafted himself onto a social, cultural, and political context of Black empowerment. The vision was Obama’s own, and he found a way to, methodically, realize his dreams. There are many success stories told by first generation immigrants and racial minorities in America, but this may be the greatest of them all: the audacity of a bi-racial boy raised by a single mother on an island halfway between the American mainland and Asia is on the verge of becoming the first non-white president of the United States. And who can say that Obama is not prepared? By virtue of his excellent education, his political apprenticeship and superlative mentors, his empathy with people on the margins of American life, his own hard work and effort, he has brought us all along for the ride and, in so doing, is guiding us gently and resolutely towards the challenges we face in the future. Ever the collaborator, Obama aims to create a unified country and an inclusive society. In his background and personal narrative is woven the tapestry of America's multi-cultural history. This is why his story resonates...why his time is now...why the outcome is inevitable.
In closing, what does Obama’s election as president, personally, mean to me? More than 13 million Americans are Asian-American, and Filipino-Americans are second only to the Chinese in numbers. I was born in the Philippines, raised in Oklahoma, have lived in California, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Washington, D.C., Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky, and Georgia, and have an Ivy League education. As an intellectual, writer, artist, and observer who, by virtue of my own experiences, can crawl inside Obama’s brain—does this now mean that I, too, can have a significant global platform? For someone who has remained true to her own voice and artistic vision, does the elevation of a kindred spirit who has shown the entire world the power of prose over conventional plot and characterization now mean that I can get published? Obama’s ascendance means to me that complexity is no longer verboten, and that unique ideas, authenticity, and originality are to be cultivated and celebrated. If all this is true, then—for the first time in my life, in an Obama administration—I can feel as though I were a part of the American mainstream.
We knew the election results would either be a blowout or closer than expected. Nothing about the 2008 election season was ever middle ground or middle of the road. The 2008 election is nothing less than a battle for the hearts and minds of the American voter, a referendum on the future.
At 8:45 a.m. this morning, I arrived at Holy Family Catholic Church, in the 62nd district of Oklahoma, to cast my vote for Barack Obama. As I approached the church, the parking lot was filled to near capacity, as though a Sunday church service was already in session. But walking through the doors, the sight astounded me. There were about 200 people in line ahead of me, and it would be another 75 minutes until I was inside the auditorium to vote. I would learn that early risers who arrived to vote at 7:00 a.m. would have an even longer wait, an hour and a half. Early voting took place at the courthouse in our city on the previous Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday—the line at the courthouse snaked even longer, with voters waiting an hour and a half to vote. My elderly father showed up at 7:00 a.m. at the Episcopalian church near his home and finished voting in no time flat.
I saw my congressman standing in line, presumably to vote for his own re-election. I was tempted to ask T.W. Shannon—an African-American man, a Republican, and a neighbor—if he would vote the party line or with history. Of the voters I saw, most were middle age or older and white. Fewer than 25% were people of color or college age or younger, and maybe 10 were soldiers in uniform. The time passed more quickly than expected as people engaged in friendly banter and an air of civic-mindedness prevailed. The retiree next to me complained that he hated it when news organizations projected the winner ahead of time; he felt it was a disincentive for people to come out and vote. Most voters arrived singly…there were retirees, farmers, older Asian women, college students, and African-American couples in line. Young families came out together to vote. Mothers with toddlers in tow waited their turn, as did elderly citizens in wheelchairs. Neighbors chatted with neighbors. My neighbor, Linda, who’s married to a psychiatrist, saw me and told me she was looking forward to my next opinion piece. Friends and acquaintances caught up with each other. Here’s a sampling of the conversation I caught:
Middle-age man: “I know you…you used to be the postman who delivered my mail in Chattanooga. I always used to see you at square dancing.”
Retired postal worker: “I never delivered mail in Chattanooga, I did in Faxon.”
Middle-age man: “Well, I saw you at square dancing all the time. I don’t square dance any more…too old. I was the 17th person in line to vote in Faxon at 6:30 a.m. this morning. ”
Me: “Don’t the polls open at 7:00 a.m.? So didn’t you end up waiting about 45 minutes to vote?”
Middle-age man: “Yes, but people who showed up at 7:00 a.m. would have to wait about an hour.”
At 9:57 a.m. I finished voting. Oklahoma’s election ballot is an oversized sheet of paper printed on both sides. Voters draw a straight line in the middle with a felt-tip pen to connect the point of an arrow to the tail end. I felt good as I left the polling place…it was heartening to see so many people who made an effort to vote before their shift at work, spent their lunch time waiting in line, brought their young children with them. Regardless of who was their candidate of choice, voters understood that this was an historical election.
I lived for several years in New Hampshire, with its first-in-the-nation primary. The New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch traditionally tallies the first presidential votes cast in the nation. Obama won in a landslide, which came as something of a surprise. I now live in Oklahoma, which the national media views as the heartland of the new millennium. In 2006—the year my husband and I relocated from New Hampshire to return to the state where my family has lived for more than 40 years—Oprah, The New York Times, Design Star and The Contender featured Oklahoma and Oklahomans; in 2007, Lauren Nelson, a resident of our town was crowned Miss America 2007, and a local family had their dream house built and broadcasted on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In 2005, Oklahoma native Carrie Underwood won American Idol and went on to become one of the franchise’s most celebrated alumni.
So what does Barack Obama represent to me, and what would his administration mean to the country? Well, as I have just described, he has brought with him an earnest sense of engagement and civic participation in the political process. To have inspired the fervor that he has means that the electorate would have made an effort to be better informed about the candidates’ position on issues. After what amounts to years and even decades of voter apathy, all these changes can only be for the better.
Certainly, Obama was the beneficiary of acts of god and nature that kept his candidacy afloat, the most compelling being the public’s furor over the sinking economy and the bailout of Wall Street. For too long, under a Republican administration, the heavy-hitting oligarchy was allowed to play fast and loose with the economic system without the necessary and responsible government oversight. When Wall Street failed, the bailout was necessary…virtually everyone was impacted, including Middle Americans with their pensions tied up in retirement plans. Anger over the economy, coupled with the disenchantment with the war in Iraq, proved too much to ignore. Sarah Palin became a drag on the Republican ticket. Has a vice presidential candidate’s qualifications to be commander-in-chief been so derided since George H.W. Bush hand-picked a little-known Indiana congressman to be his running mate? It’s a toss-up between Palin and Dan Quayle. Even voters who might have seemed suspicious of the change that Obama represented came to recognize that change was not a mantra for the sake of change but, rather, a referendum and a recognition that the system could not go on as in the past. John McCain is certainly a maverick, but this quality is most pronounced in his personal conduct rather than in his voting record, which shows a 90%-95% accord with President Bush. McCain is not the systemic change agent needed to overhaul a superannuated bureaucracy.
Obama impressed us all with his riveting speech at the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston. Two years later, he began the long campaign to endear himself to the American public. Along the two-year slog through the Democratic primary season and the general campaign, Obama has made few mistakes. What potential minefields he encountered were the result of questionable associations, from which he quickly distanced himself. In those instances where he did not, notably, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama demonstrated an initial willingness to support his friends and mentors until it was unsustainable to do so.
What I admire most about Barack Obama is that he took a dream—a vision of what American has been and could yet become—so that we could see the potential in buying into his long-range thinking. He brought a fresh perspective to how we could approach the challenges that face our country. He did so through the power of words, his innate ability to articulate and to communicate what other presidents and candidates could not. Yet, his interpersonal and communication skills were honed because he himself spent much of his life at the margins of society. In his background, Obama was as far away from the profile of recent American presidents except for, perhaps, Bill Clinton.
Technically, Barack Obama is not black. He is bi-racial—an important distinction in an increasingly multicultural society—the product of a white mother from the Midwest and a black father from Africa. He grew up without his birth father in his life, raised by a single parent and then later by his white grandparents. His early environment was Hawaii, easily the most diverse state in the country where people of color hold influential roles and positions in all aspects of public life. Obama spent his formative years in Hawaii and in Indonesia, a Southeast Asian republic republic with a Muslim majority; the country is itself at the crossroads of the Pacific Rim.
Once on the mainland, Obama first attended a small, liberal arts college in Los Angeles before transferring to Columbia University in New York City. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he made his way to Chicago where he began to build the base for his political career. By all accounts, Obama's trajectory onto the national stage was meteoric.
I am a foreign-born Asian-American woman. As a person of color, many of my mentors have been African-American. Politically, this is because at the time I first became an activist in the 1970’s and 1980’s, African-Americans were better organized as a result of the Civil Rights movement than was the Asian-American community.
Traditionally, the South Side of Chicago is the nation’s bedrock of Black Power. Politically active and connected, the African-American community here is an influential network that raised and supported Barack Obama like many black politicians before him. While much about Obama’s delivery may come across as elitist and coolly intellectual, his rhythmic intonations and stylings are a product of the old-time sermons, a form of traditional storytelling by black preachers who were looked upon as the paternal head of the community. This is one reason why Obama was unwilling to turn his back on Jeremiah Wright until the former pastor disowned him.
Obama grew up without ever really knowing his father. His lost his mother too soon, when he thought there was still time. The recent death of his grandmother, for all purposes, is the last link to Obama’s former life. But he has reinvented himself. He now has a family of his own and had grafted himself onto a social, cultural, and political context of Black empowerment. The vision was Obama’s own, and he found a way to, methodically, realize his dreams. There are many success stories told by first generation immigrants and racial minorities in America, but this may be the greatest of them all: the audacity of a bi-racial boy raised by a single mother on an island halfway between the American mainland and Asia is on the verge of becoming the first non-white president of the United States. And who can say that Obama is not prepared? By virtue of his excellent education, his political apprenticeship and superlative mentors, his empathy with people on the margins of American life, his own hard work and effort, he has brought us all along for the ride and, in so doing, is guiding us gently and resolutely towards the challenges we face in the future. Ever the collaborator, Obama aims to create a unified country and an inclusive society. In his background and personal narrative is woven the tapestry of America's multi-cultural history. This is why his story resonates...why his time is now...why the outcome is inevitable.
In closing, what does Obama’s election as president, personally, mean to me? More than 13 million Americans are Asian-American, and Filipino-Americans are second only to the Chinese in numbers. I was born in the Philippines, raised in Oklahoma, have lived in California, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Washington, D.C., Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky, and Georgia, and have an Ivy League education. As an intellectual, writer, artist, and observer who, by virtue of my own experiences, can crawl inside Obama’s brain—does this now mean that I, too, can have a significant global platform? For someone who has remained true to her own voice and artistic vision, does the elevation of a kindred spirit who has shown the entire world the power of prose over conventional plot and characterization now mean that I can get published? Obama’s ascendance means to me that complexity is no longer verboten, and that unique ideas, authenticity, and originality are to be cultivated and celebrated. If all this is true, then—for the first time in my life, in an Obama administration—I can feel as though I were a part of the American mainstream.
