Being Obama

For someone who has repeatedly scoffed at mere words, Hillary Clinton has made sure that her campaign takes them dead-seriously when it suits her. A few weeks back, journalist David Schuster of MSNBC lost his job for using the generic phrase ‘pimp out’ as he mused on Chelsea Clinton’s place in her mother’s campaign. And now Samantha Power, Barack Obama’s prized foreign policy advisor, takes the fall for describing Clinton (off the record, she had stressed) as a ‘monster’ who would stoop to anything. Terrible words, but both terms, it could be argued, are nothing compared to the cloud of innuendo that the Clinton camp has directed at Obama. Her go-for-broke campaign for the Democratic nomination spares nothing by way of rumour or innuendo or sheer desperation. So it was totally in character that Power’s graceless remark was seized upon, as fresh ammo for the Clinton campaign.

But the key difference about Obama’s pitch, so far, is the way he shuns ‘politics as usual’, the method of garnering votes by whipping up partisan resentments. But how long can he sustain this approach? With the Democratic race so close, emotions are bound to run high. And if Obama wins the nomination, he is going to have to deal with the entire force of the fearsome Republican smear machine.

Power’s resignation iterates Obama’s belief that “these kinds of expressions should have no place in American politics” but he is also being pressed by his campaign to get along with it and resort to the same tough tactics as his opponent. So far, the rest of the world has been gripped by the singular drama of this American election and its protagonists, and by Obama’s audacious approach to leadership. It will probably lose a lot of that lustre if he ends up being the same as everyone else after all.