The day I met U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama for our interview was the same day of frenetic campaigning that he received the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a liberal member of the House Democratic Leadership team. For Obama, it was important support from a high-ranking Illinois politician. But when I asked him how it went, he hesitated and shook his head. He said it was fine but nobody showed up. "You mean supporters?" I asked. No, there were plenty of supporters, he said; he was talking about the news media.
With seven candidates in the Democratic field for Illinois’ open U.S. senate seat, Obama, an Illinois state senator, needs to secure a majority of the African-American vote as well as a significant slice of white votes in order to win the Democratic primary. So media coverage is a vital complement to the high cost of buying ad time on TV and radio, something he’s committed to changing in order to, as he says, "fully recapture our democracy."
The 41-year-old Obama, a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, believes the Bush administration has eroded basic rights and liberties of Americans. His disdain for the current administration’s policies is clearly evident in this interview. He was the first of the U.S. Senate candidates to fervently oppose Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
As a young man, Obama was a community organizer in Chicago working for school reform, the environment, impoverished communities and minority rights. Later, as a civil rights lawyer he was responsible for a massive voter registration drive during Bill Clinton’s campaign.
During his seven years as a state senator he has garnered several legislative victories ranging from raising the minimum wage to expanding family health insurance in Illinois. His record as a progressive Democrat has attracted endorsements from some of the state’s largest labor unions as well as liberal leaders. Obama faces strong competition in the upcoming March primary in his effort to gain a place on the ballot in November’s general election.
Conscious Choice: As a state senator, your district covers both lower income neighborhoods in south Chicago and the upscale Gold Coast, which means you represent some of the richest and the poorest. What’s the lesson you’ve learned from this?
Barack Obama: I’ve learned that if you stake out clear positions on issues that you’re passionate about, then people can get beyond their narrow economic interests and will respect you even if they don’t always agree with you. If you talk to people on the Gold Coast and say "should every child have a decent chance in life?" they will say‘yes.’ And if you can translate that instinct into an argument that if we rolled back some of the Bush tax cuts that appeal to the top 1 percent of the population, in order to provide early childhood education then you can get support for those sorts if initiatives.
I don’t think people vote just on narrow economic interests, they also vote on values. And part of the problem for Democrats over the last several years has been our unwillingness to assert our values and speak clearly about those values and paint a vision of the country that is hopeful.
CC: What are your greatest fears for this country?
BO: I most fear a steady erosion of opportunity for working class and middle class people, while the wealthy become more powerful and more isolated from surrounding communities. Not only does such a widening gulf create more hardship on ordinary families and the most vulnerable among us, but it’s incredibly corrosive to our democracy.
CC: What’s your stance on the war on Iraq? (This interview occurred two days after Saddam Hussein was captured.)
BO: My position is that we should have aggressively pursued those terrorist cells that perpetrated 9/11 and violence across the globe. In order to do that effectively, we have to operate in coalitions and work with law enforcement agencies as well as using military and diplomatic initiatives to squeeze these terrorist cells. We have to look at the root causes of this terrorist activity and think about how we are investing and working with countries that are producing these terrorists.
But what was lacking in our pursuit of that goal was any sort of consistent articulation of our interest in human rights across the globe. People forget that Saddam Hussein was an ally of some of the same people who are in the administration right now when they thought that was convenient. It’s that kind of hypocrisy and inconsistency that helps to feed the skepticism, anger and disillusionment in the Arab world. That’s something I was very clear about a year ago and today. I do think that removing Saddam from office is a net positive for the Iraqi people.
Having said that, I’m not somebody who subscribes to the notion that America is the source of all global ills. For someone who has lived in Third World countries, lived in Southwest Asia and whose father is from Africa, I’m very mindful how troubled many of the nations are and how America remains, for all its flaws, just a wonderful experiment in self-governing and liberty. I’m not somebody who thinks that America is somehow to blame for terrorism on our shores or terrorism abroad.
CC: But would you agree that by doing what the Bush administration is doing we are fomenting...
BO: We are exacerbating it! Our adventures in Iraq are appealing to some of the worst impulses in the Arab and Muslim world rather than the best impulses of those cultures. I think it’s emblematic of a general arrogance of this administration that was on display before Iraq — it was true with our unilateral rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, we could have done something about greenhouse gases, it was true of our unilateral rejection of the international criminal court which, had we been a signatory, could have actually dealt with Saddam Hussein in an appropriate setting. It was true with our unilateral rejection of the landmines treaty. This administration has repeatedly shown disregard for other countries and world opinion. That is fundamentally a mistake...I think that has made us less secure.
CC: Given that so much of the money supporting political candidates comes from Big Business, how is it possible to be true to your constituents yet stay afloat financially without having to prostitute yourself with corporate influence?
BO: Certainly I believe as you advance up the political ladder, it becomes more difficult which is why I think ultimately we will fully recapture our democracy when we provide free airtime for candidates. Right now, campaigns are as expensive as they are because TV is as expensive as it is. Providing candidates with free airtime would make an enormous difference in terms of how campaigns were run. I think until we do that we’re going to be continually nibbling at the edges of what is a core problem in our democracy. I’m a strong supporter of campaign finance reform legislation (as state senator, I sponsored with former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, the first campaign finance reform legislation in Illinois in 25 years).
CC: Do you believe it’s possible to stay true to your values in the current climate?
BO: I don’t want to sound over idealistic, you know, politics is compromise, politics is power, politics is self-interest. But politics is also vision and it’s also principle and it’s also values. And those are ingredients, hopefully, in equal measure, that make up the debate and I don’t think it would be healthy to send a politician to Washington who doesn’t know how to negotiate or can’t count votes. But I also think it’s not particularly healthy if politics is viewed as only a business and not a mission.
CC: You’ve been described by some as the most liberal of the seven Democratic candidates running for this U.S. senate seat. How does that label fit?
BO: I don’t think these labels mean too much. George Bush considers himself a conservative — one of the indicators of whether you’re liberal or conservative is how you balance your budgets and look after the public fiscal. I certainly would not have approved a trillion dollar tax cut at a time when I already knew I was going to initiate a war that was going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It strikes me that there’s nothing conservative about that and nothing liberal about criticizing that kind of fiscal irresponsibility.
For myself, I’m adamant about the core democratic values that have been the best part of the Democratic Party since FDR. I believe every child should have a decent education, that every single person should have a basic right to health care and people should be able to work and get paid a living wage — constantly expanding opportunities for groups that are locked out. I am unwavering on those commitments.
CC: Would you feel good about Howard Dean becoming the Democratic presidential nominee?
BO: Absolutely. I think Howard Dean has as good a chance of beating George Bush as any of the candidates. I think beating George Bush is going to be tough. Period. He has amassed enormous resources; he can set the agenda for the mainstream media, which seems all too happy to follow the lead of the White House in spinning stories. The electoral map has shifted in favor of the Republicans so he’s going to be a formidable candidate.
I don’t think you beat George Bush by finding somebody who tries to soften the differences between his vision of America and the Democratic vision of America. Without demonizing anybody, I think we can state clearly and unequivocally that the Bush administration agenda is narrow and mean spirited, that it doesn’t concern itself with the day-to-day struggles that ordinary working families are going through. That it’s not spending a lot of time worrying how single mothers are going to support their children; it’s not spending a lot of time thinking about how workers who are being laid-off from manufacturing jobs are going to recover and support families. It’s not spending a lot of time thinking about how the next generation is going to be educated.
More than that, it’s actively and aggressively stripping away environmental protections that had been built up through enormous struggle over the last two or three decades. So I think the Democrats can clearly, unequivocally present an alternative vision that says we’re all connected and we have mutual obligations toward each other.
CC: Are there instances in which you can see merit in a third party such as the Green Party?
BO: I think third party movements in this country thrive and are most critical when there are no stark differences between the parties. That may have been the perception in 2000, but given Bush’s drastic ideological push to the right, a third party movement from the left at this point would be self-defeating. Nationally, too much is at stake. I do think that strategies to encourage the development of a third party in local and state races makes sense — just to keep Democrats honest.
CC: How do you exercise your spirituality?
BO: I believe in prayer and meditation. We all have a sense inside ourselves of what’s true. We don’t always pay attention to it and sometimes our fears and anxieties prevent us from locking in on it. I think part of my task is to try as much as possible to align myself with what’s true.
CC: How do you stay centered?
BO: The main thing is not to be afraid to lose. I think a lot of people go into public office with a strong sense of idealism — to make the world a better place. And because it’s a rough environment, over time people [politicians] stop taking risks because they’re worried about losing their seat, their power and their authority, and that’s usually when you lose your focus.
CC: If you win the primary and the general election, you would be the nation’s third elected black U.S. Senator. What’s that say to you?
BO: It says that for all our progress as a nation — and I do not belittle the enormous progress that has been made just in my lifetime — we still have a long way to go before we will have achieved the type of equality and justice that I think we are capable of.
Rebecca Ephraim is the editor of Conscious Choice magazine.
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Obama’s Search for Meaning Let’s put it this way, if he wins the March primary, he’ll have done it despite his name. After all, the name Barack Obama doesn’t roll swimmingly off the tongue and, as he says himself, in the current climate, it probably wouldn’t inspire a voter unfamiliar with his (Middle Eastern-sounding) name, to exclaim, "this is a nifty name, let me vote for him!" He could have just as easily taken his political consultants’ advice and used his nickname, Barry. But part of the appeal of this progressive Democratic candidate for Illinois’ U.S. Senate seat, is his commitment to embrace that name — it was also his father’s — a man from Kenya he barely knew. To read Obama’s 1995 book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, is to know that behind this polished and articulate Harvard-trained civil rights lawyer is also a sensitive and questioning individual who has wrestled with, and apparently resolved, abandonment issues of an absent parent and the cultural conflicts of being the child of a white mother and black father. Of course, only he knows to what degree this soul searching has molded his political vision. In his book he had written of his intimate struggle, "I had been forced to look inside myself and had found only a great emptiness there." In the nine years since, his record as an Illinois state senator on civil rights and social justice is outstanding; one would surmise that he has since found peace with himself. — RE |