Only in America

Figuring out who might do better against McCain in November requires a certain amount of guesswork and often reflects the wishes and hopes of who's doing the guessing. Eyeing those Reagan Democrats, the McCain camp believes that if Obama wins the nomination, the Republicans might have a shot at some states considered to be safe Clinton territory, like New York and New Jersey. Those big former industrial states—Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan—could all go Republican if the Democrats pick Obama. On the other hand, the Obama advisers argue that by appealing to independents and registering new young voters, Obama could take states in the West like Colorado and Nevada that seem unreachable to Clinton. By energizing his black base, Obama could even take away two or three Southern states—Virginia and the Carolinas, perhaps—from the GOP. The Obama-ites also predict that once the hard fighting of the primaries finally ends, the Democratic Party will come together, and Democrats alienated by all the feuding will come home.

Obama's promise of success depends on more than soothing the Democratic base, however. He will not be able to re-create the magic of those huge, idolatrous rallies in January and February by drinking beer chasers and eating more waffles. What he had—and what he has lost, at least for the time being—is something more ineffable, a hope of changing politics as commonly understood, and disdained, by voters of all classes and races.

The arc of New York Times columnist David Brooks is illustrative. The widely read and influential Brooks, a onetime neocon who had moved somewhat to the middle or at least become unpredictable in his politics, first seemed to fall in love a year ago. He was interviewing Obama and asked about foreign-aid programs. "His voice was measured and fatigued, and he was taking those little pauses candidates take when they're afraid of saying something that might hurt them later on," wrote Brooks. "Out of the blue, I asked, 'Have you read Reinhold Niebuhr?' Obama's tone changed. 'I love him. He's one of my favorite philosophers.' So I asked, 'What do you take away from him?' " Obama went on to dazzle Brooks with his grasp of Niebuhr's "The Irony of American History." The junior senator from Illinois showed a subtle feel for the need for America to act humbly but not passively in the wicked world, to be prudent but also bold and tough. At times Obama lapsed back into vacuous generalities, but Brooks's interest had been piqued.

By March of this year, Brooks was writing about Obama's "defining moment," how in November 2007, a couple of months before the Iowa caucuses, Obama had showed Clinton up. Hillary had given a rousing partisan harangue ("We are here tonight to make sure that the next president is a Democrat!") and used the word "fight" or "fought" 15 times in one passage of her speech. Obama, on the other hand, ignored partisanship. He described a whole new order, way beyond politics as usual—a theory of social change that was not top-down, dictated by the old party hacks, but bottom-up. Obama sounded like "a cross between a social activist and a flannel-shirted software CEO—as a nonhierarchical, collaborative leader who can inspire autonomous individuals to cooperate for the sake of common concerns." The audience, particularly the younger members described by Brooks as raised on "Facebook, YouTube, open-source software," loved it. Brooks loved it.

Yet, just five weeks later, Brooks was writing "How Obama Fell to Earth." The columnist was discouraged by Obama's performance in the pre-Pennsylvania primary debate. "Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal," Brooks wrote. "He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sort of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics."

Obama might win Brooks back if he returned to his high-mindedness and stopped pandering. But winning over the great mass of American voters is tricky. Obama has stood for change, and when it comes to changing politics, many Americans are with him. But change, more broadly imagined, is threatening to a lot of people, and not just high-school dropouts who own guns and live in rust-belt states. McCain, too, is out preaching change—attacking the political arena of Washington, where he has worked for more than two decades. But McCain drapes himself in red, white and blue; he is a thoroughly familiar figure, the war hero. Obama represents something newer and stranger in presidential politics, a black man with a Harvard degree who reads Niebuhr but is perfectly at home shooting hoops on a Chicago playground. To get the Democratic nomination, and to win the presidency, Obama has to show that he is not just a rock-star speechifier—or a worn-down pol trying to limp over the goal line without saying something that could possibly be used against him. He has to show voters who he really is. Most of them still don't know.

With Suzanne Smalley, Sarah Kliff and Daniel Stone

© 2008