Obama's Argument

One of the appealing points of Obama's platform that is appealing relies upon the notion that it is in fact a campaign of we, not me. He is probably the ony candidate that will admit, a President cannot do it alone.

Obama consistently says that Washington no longer has the 'political will' to face the challenges of our generation. Further, he argues that the only way government can work for people again, is by engaging the very people it attempts to lead. Obama is quietly discussing the impact of a disengaged political electorate.

Any way you measure it, a democracy is more healthy when 'the people' participate - that is one of the founding pillars of self government. Public officials in federal government have power, and if the masses are smoking the opiates of Fox News and Distraction Television, there is a lot going on we cannot hold politicians accountable for. We just don't know what they are doing! Sure some of us know enough to be critical - but we often fail to act on our discontent with government, thus allowing the train to fly further and further off track. Without public engagement, there can be no true accountability, and without that, Government fails to be rule by the many - and turns into rule by the few.

Sure, we can ask a lot of big questions here. Is rule by the few a bad thing? If not, which few should be leading us, and why? To me these are distractions from the larger argument Obama is making, and I agree with. Without an engaged electorate, people will continue to be dissapointed in public policy, and have no recourse for action. Further, Government will have no motivation to change.

If we don't know what our Government is really doing, then elected persons are woefully aware they don't have to act as agents of a representative democracy. The will act as they please, and listen to interests other than their constituents. If that is the case, as Noam Chomsky points out, you will have a growing gap between public opinion, and public policy.

What Obama is trying to do is quite smart, and interesting. He is focused both on articulating a functional public policy, in addition to the need of an engaged electroate in achieving that goal. The success of his argument and premise is already evidenced by the fact that despite his progressive agenda, many on the right aren't attacking him for that (yet). He's got the public on his side, and further he's got the public actually BELIEVING that we can accomplish his lofty agenda.

Somehow Brittany Spears can't run out to the store and get a pregnancy test without the whole world following her into the bathroom, but FEMA can spend millions on beermaking equipment and IPODS without 95% of the electorate having a clue. Well, Obama has made politics cool again, so watch out - even the morons are listening now.