By Andy Jackson
So now that Obama has finally won, how will he govern?
It depends on which Barack Obama shows up for the presidential inauguration on January 20: Will it be the post-racial, post-partisan candidate that America has seen over the past several months or the highly partisan U.S. senator (rated the most liberal senator by the non-partisan National Journal in 2007) who got his political start as a community organizer steeped in the racial identity politics of Chicago's South Side?
That observation is not as facetious as it may seem at first. Bill Clinton ran for office as a centrist Democrat but governed as a liberal through the first two years of his presidency until a Republican takeover of Congress forced him towards the center. George W. Bush ran on his record as governor of Texas as someone who could bring both parties together but became one of the most divisive figures in American political history.
Until the inauguration, and perhaps for months after the inauguration, it will not really matter. The symbolism of his candidacy has long overshadowed the man and any issues he might have happened to champion.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal in March, Shelby Steele encapsulated the Obama enigma: ``He espouses no galvanizing political idea. He is unable to say what he means by 'change' or 'hope' or 'the future.' And he has failed to say how he would actually be a 'unifier.' By the evidence of his slight political record (130 'present' votes in the Illinois state legislature, little achievement in the U.S. Senate) Barack Obama stacks up as something of a mediocrity. None of this matters much."
The symbol is what America has voted for.
The first and most obvious importance of Obama's victory is the final symbolic defeat of the racism that has blemished American society since the founding of the nation. It is an achievement that Americans of every political stripe can and will take pride in.
While it is clear that Obama's candidacy invoked strong enthusiasm among American blacks, it has also had an effect on whites who might not have voted for a liberal candidate: the chance to vote for racial redemption. The Los Angeles Times pointed out the phenomenon in a November 3 article, noting that those white voters saw Obama's race as an ``added bonus" when considering voting for him.
As the significance of Obama's victory sinks in, it will alter Americans' views of race and racism in ways that even his strongest supporters will find hard to predict.
While whites may seek redemption in an Obama presidency, many blacks will find themselves liberated from the soft racism of lowered expectations while potentially burdened by higher expectations of self-reliance. After all, what racist system worthy of the name would have allowed a black man to make it to the highest public office in the land, especially when blacks make up only 12.4 percent of the American population?
If racism is not the only or even primary reason for differences in racial achievement, then advancement for blacks in America will have to come from a means other than exploiting white guilt. That will necessarily force a rethinking of the assumption underlining the rhetoric of black civic leaders in America. There is a reason that civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were slow to support Obama.
One word that comes up time and again in discussions of Obama's candidacy is ``healing."
From Time magazine and dozens of American newspaper editorials to foreign publications like Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, the public has heard proclamations that an Obama presidency would offer a healing of both racial tensions and political acrimony in America. As previously noted, the very fact of his victory will go a long way towards the former. However, the later will likely remain beyond his reach.
Obama'a record shows him to be a doctrinal progressive. There is little evidence to support his contention that he would somehow be able to bring conservatives on board. The fact that both the House and Senate will be under Democratic control may make matters even worse in the long run since the temptation to forsake compromise and railroad legislation over Republican opposition will likely prove too great to resist.
Much of the rest of the world also relishes the prospect of an Obama presidency for the same reason that many Americans do, probably more so since they do not have to worry about the details of American domestic politics. Majorities in nearly every nation polled showed a preference for Obama over McCain.
It is not as if the world is anti-McCain. Constanze Steltzenmuller, director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund, referred to the Obama-McCain choice in an interview with PBS as a luxus problem (Americans would say a ``good problem to have") and noted that Europeans would like to have the same problem. Despite that, much of the world sees Obama as the better of two good choices.
For Korea, there is a real risk that an Obama presidency will lead to Seoul becoming marginalized as he seeks more bilateral negotiations with North Korea. His protectionist tendencies will also make it much more difficult to increase Korea-U.S. trade. The KORUS FTA is mostly likely dead, at least in its current form. Despite this, many Koreans relish the symbolism of Obama's win. Korean-Americans can also be forgiven for believing that the Obama victory will somehow help mend the well-publicized rift between them and blacks in America.
However and despite the widespread fervor for Obama, if the rest of the world believes that an Obama-led America would be a humbler place, they are mistaken. Having a black president will sit like a crown of moral superiority on the heads of many Americans and will reinforce the perception that leadership is America's natural place in the world order.
American journalist Keith Richburg, New York bureau chief of the Washington Post, neatly encapsulated that idea with the title of his October 26 essay on the election: ``America is showing Europe the way again."
American exceptionalism, the belief that the United States' unique virtue makes it stand alone as the world's ``indispensable nation," will remain the dominant view in Washington under an Obama presidency. Armed with a renewed sense of America's virtue, that belief will likely be even stronger.
It is no accident that Obama entitled his July 2007 essay in the journal Foreign Affairs ``Renewing American Leadership."
The symbolism of Obama's victory will leave many Americans and much of the rest of the world delirious for the next several months. The reality of Obama's presidency will be much more mundane.
Andy Jackson teaches American government in the Lakeland College bridge program at Ansan College, Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at andyinrok@lycos.com.