It seems that everywhere you turn, someone is questioning the underpinnings of the unstoppable Obama campaign. At the New Republic, Leon Wieseltier writes, “My problem is that Obama’s declarations in matters of foreign policy
and national security have a certain homeopathic quality. He seems
averse to the hurtful, expensive, traditional, unedifying stuff.†On Commentary’s Contentions, Abe Greenwald points out yet another major supporter who can’t articulate Obama’s legislative accomplishments. In the New York Times, David Brooks describes the symptoms of Obama Comedown Syndrome. The Economist urges Americans “to evaluate Obama the potential president, not Obama the phenomenon.â€
But then, contemplating Obama the phenomenon is so much more fun. It even brings a song to mind:
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
there’s a land that’s fair and brightWhere the handouts grow on bushes
and you sleep out every nightWhere the boxcars are all empty
and the sun shines every dayOn the birds and the bees
and the cigarette treesWhere the lemonade springs
where the bluebird singsIn the Big Rock Candy Mountains
To guess by his supporters’ reverential awe, the dizzy spells and fainting, the unusually pitiful celebrity engagement, there is an increasingly widespread belief that we are being led to the Barack Candy Mountains, a green and pleasant land where our nation’s (and world’s) most intractable problems will drift away like paper boats on a lemonade spring. There are those cynics—those who believe not in the Audacity of Hope but in the Mendacity of Nope—who say that Obama traffics in empty rhetoric, mere words and bluster, without ever saying anything on which he can be held to account. They say that Obama is merely tricking his supporters, through the power of suggestion, into believing whatever it is they want to believe about him.
Not so. Last night he gave us a vivid picture of the Barack Candy Mountains. Sticking only to promises—not we can but we will—here are some of the things of which we can be absolutely certain:
• [E]verybody will be able to get health insurance that is at least as good as the plan I’ve got as a member of Congress.
• [I]f you already have health insurance, we will lower your premiums by $2,500 per family, per year. And if you can’t afford it, we will subsidize your care . . . . We will do it by the end of my first term as president of the United States of America.
• [W]e’re going to give tax cuts to . . . people who are making less than $75,000. We will offset your payroll tax.
• Senior citizens who make less than $50,000, we want to say to them: You don’t have to pay an income tax.
• I will raise the minimum wage . . . to keep pace with inflation.
• [W]e are going to invest in early childhood education to close the achievement gap.
• I will reward [teachers] for their greatness . . . by giving them higher salaries.
• [W]e’re going to provide a $4,000 tuition credit, every student, every year, but, students, you’re . . . going to have to work in a homeless shelter, or a veteran’s home, or an underserved school, or join the Peace Corps.
• [W]e’re going to cap the emission of greenhouse gases. We are going to generate billions of dollars from polluters to invest in solar, in wind, and biodiesel.
• We are going to raise fuel efficiency standards on cars.
• No more homeless veterans; no more begging for disability payments; no more waiting in line for the V.A.
• I will bring this war to an end in 2009.
• [W]e will hunt down terrorists; yes, we will lock down loose nuclear weapons that could do us harml.
• We’re also going to lead on helping poor countries deal with the devastation of HIV-AIDS. We’re also going to lead in bringing an end to the genocide in Darfur.
It’s a lot to look forward to, so do yourself a favor: Print it out, tape it to your bathroom mirror, and read it every morning to get you through these last dark days of the old order.