26 Oct 2008 |
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Obama And The Tom Bradley Effect By Reuben Abati The countdown to the US Presidential election 2008 has begun, Nigerian and African interest in the race has refused to wane, and our brother, Barack Obama seems set to emerge as the 44th President of the United States. If an election can be determined on the basis of popularity before the voting, Americans may be advised to forget about voting for President on Nov. 4 and coronate Barack Obama whose popularity, charm and appeal transcends all local and foreign boundaries making this year, most effectively, the year of Obama. Sure, it is Obama's year. His Presidential ambition has been endorsed by almost every influential figure and institution in the United States. Those who were initially skeptical about his candidature have been swept aboard by the overwhelming excitement. Media sinstituions and other stakeholders are falling over themselves to praise and recommend him to the American voter and this includes the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and 65 US Nobel Laureates in Science. But Americans do not coronate Presidents, they vote for them, on Nov. 4, an important ritual will be observed. Obama's supporters in Nigeria are already buying aso ebi and depositing money for cows that will be slaughtered to mark the triumph of Obama. There is a touch of providence in the Obama phenomenon. It is as if there is a divine force propelling him towards the White House making him an inevitable choice. Virtually everything has worked in his favour, and even those who are ordinarily suspicious of the presence of the spiritual in daily lives are compelled to accept that there is truly a touch of the extra-ordinary to the Obama story. He is probably the most international candidate to have showed up in the US Presidential elections in the last century and this. His message of change and progress resonates not only within American borders but across the world at a time when the entire humanity from the fringes of the North Pole to the Ganges, to the Prairies and the Delta is desperate for change and progress and is afraid of the increasing dangers of survival. Obama's main challenger in the Democratic Party nomination process, Hillary Clinton simply could not come up with a strategy that would work, nor did she inspire such attention that translated into funds. Obama has raised more funds than any other Presidential candidate in American history, entirely through donations and has mobilised the support of volunteers who believe in his dream, and the audacity of his hopes. Confronted with a candidate of such star quality in the Democratic Party, the Republicans had hoped to arrange an impressive Convention in Colorado and the whole world looked forward to that, but then Hurricane Ike struck turning the Republican Convention into a footnote. The Obama campaign has also been helped in no small measure by the incompetence of the George Bush Jnr administration. Bush Jr is an unpopular President, even Nigerians who are not in any position to do anything about him consider him a bush man, ( this is a term of abuse in Nigeria), that is someone who knows nothing about governance. He has taken America to a wasteful war in Iraq, and his administration has not been able to provide any useful answers to the needs and expectations of the average American. To worsen matters is the meltdown of global capitalism, the seeming failure of neo-liberal economics, with the crash of Wall Street and corporate America, and the use of tax payers funds to manage a crisis partly induced by inefficiency. And there is Obama, with his messianic message of hope and renewal. The crisis on Wall Street is a clear, measurable confirmation of Obama's message that America needs to be fixed. At every turn, in the past two and half years and even more so, now, Obama has consistently looked like the kind of man America needs to lift the people's spirits, and to halt the decline of the age of American exceptionalism. But it would be unfair to put it all down to luck. Those who endorse Obama do so because the difference that he brings to the race is so clear. And he has worked hard to get to this point. He is articulate, brilliant, charming, charismatic, gracious and he knows his subject. He is the all-American boy, a symbol of the American possibility and a fulfilment of the American dream. In matters of choice, Americans are very practical, it is a nation of empricists and Obama, down to the last details of his sartorial layout, looking always like a character on the pages of GQ, has offered the voter a great visual delight. He has been able to unite the entire American nation behind the idea of progress and the need for government and society to be more efficient. Subject by subject, he has beaten the Republican candidate, John McCain. McCain is everything that Obama is not. He is old, and he talks about experience. But the same man who talks about experience has chosen as running mate a self-acclaimed "hockey mom" who may be out of her depths in Washington. He sets much store by class and he has not been able to avoid racist innuendoes. Obama, he once referred to as "that one", and Powell's endorsement of Obama was dismissed with a "what do you expect?" retort. But the greater sin is that McCain's ideas are outdated; in a season that requires progress, McCain is still hanging on to ideas that are failing on Wall Street and in Iraq, ideas that have not helped America in eight years of George Bush Jr. He is an apostle of an autochtonous capitalist creed that says the poor are hungry because they are lazy, whereas Obama insists that government must become more responsible and expand the opportunities for equality in society. Until the last Presidential debate, McCain continued to commit the mortal error of identifying with the Bush administration instead of distancing himself from it. The problem really is not that McCain is an old man, the problem is the age of his ideas. All things considered therefore, Obama is the best man for the job. Long before all of the foregoing became obvious, I recall that Professors Bolaji Akinyemi and Akin Oyebode had endorsed Obama on Galaxy Television and on the pages of this newspaper. I was skeptical for reasons of the effect of race in American politics. On the internet, my friend, Abubakar Momoh who has just returned from the United States after a-year tour of duty at the University of California, campaigned vigorously for Obama, sending pro-Obama literature to persons across the world. About four years ago, Kayode Fayemi, the AC Gubernatorial candidate in Ekiti state, had done a piece on Obama and that was before Obama became famous describing him as a young man that the world should watch closely because of the force of his ideas and character. Fayemi is probably the first Nigerian to celebrate Barack Obama even when Nigerians did not know him. This was in 2004, in a piece titled "The Obama Phenomenon" published in this newspaper. Fayemi was at the Northwestern University in Chicago at the time and a member of the Obama Brigade. That Brigade has since been turned into something else by the likes of Professor Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke of the Nigeria Stock Exchange and the Africans for Obama Group. Some lawmakers at the Lagos State House of Assembly also formed a Lawmakers for Obama Group. The Nigerian National Assembly almost passed a resolution endorsing Barack Obama for US President. Motorists paste Obama-for-President stickers on their vehicles, there is an Obama Billboard that welcomes every traveller to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and I have seen Obama posters at barbing salons, on motorcycles and at motorparks and peppersoup joints. The excitement that this year's US Presidential election has generated in Nigeria can only be compared to the same ardour with which Nigerians monitor the English Premiership, with Obama combining all the skills and genius of Ronaldo, Rooney, Torres, Deco, Nani, Adebayor, Drogba, Tevez, Anderson and Berbatov in one personality. With Obama leading in all the polls, particularly in the major battleground states, with between 8 and 10 per cent, and with the McCain campaign beginning to show signs of fear and the Grand Old Party now seemingly in disarray, those who suspected that the critical factor of race could stop Obama on Nov. 4, are now accepting his triumph as something that is truly inevitable. I have heard the race argument being further mediated with the point that in reality, Obama may not be the first Black blood in the White House. Thomas Jefferson, third US President, Andrew Jackson, seventh President, Abraham Lincoln, 16th President, Warren Harding, the 29th President, Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President were all partly black, except that none of these former Presidents made that part of their DNA an issue. But Obama is officially black and this is why I suppose the fear that has been expressed about the Tom Bradley effect is useful (see Ladipo Adamolekun, "Barack Obama -America's 44th President?", Vanguard, October 22, p, 17, Rafiu Ajakaye, "Echoes of Bradley Effect", Daily Independent, October 22, p. B7 and the editorial, "Obama and the Bradley effect", The Nation, October 21, p. 13). There are a few reasons why Obama may lose on November 4, and this is why his message about not being over-confident or complacent is important. One, if there is a sudden, overwhelming disaster which throws the United states into darkening grief which makes national security a priority and draws attention away from the economy. This is the kind of deus ex machina that the Republicans are hoping for, but they may not get it. Two, the Republicans can rig the election and claim victory. They are good at it. In 2000, they stole victory from Al Gore in Florida. Three, if the polls are wrong. The polls have been wrong before in the United States. In the 1948 Presidential election, the polls gave victory to Thomas E. Dewey, but it was Harry S. Truman that won the election, a major upset in the history of US Presidential elections, and the Chicago Tribune had egg splashed all over its face, the morning after, with its misleading headline: "Dewey Defeats Truman" (first edition, Chicago Tribune, November 3, 1948). Four, if virgin voters, that is first-time voters and young voters generally, who constitute Obama's strongest support base fail to vote. Five, if the Bradley effect works. What this means is that on voting day, all the support that Obama has been receiving will melt away as political correctness, and the non-black voter, in the privacy of the voting booth will suddenly become jittery about putting a black man in the White House as President and he or she would switch. This is what happened to Tom Bradley, the most popular choice for the Governorship of California in 1982, he had a double-digit lead over his non-black opponent. Everyone thought he would win. But he lost. This is what the Republicans are hoping for. However, there is the Douglas Wilder effect too. Wilder led Marshall Coleman, his non-black opponent in the polls by about 11 per cent in the 1989 Gubernatorial election in the state of Virginia. That gap disappeared on election day and Wilder only managed to win by less than half a per centage. Obama's supporters are praying for that 0.5 per cent victory. Nothing is ever certain in the complex terrain of politics. But whatever happens, if Obama loses on November 4, his Nigerian supporters will mourn, but the shame is that of America which is bound to unravel in its own way in dealing with the implications. But that would not detract from what the Obama phenomenon represents: that it is possible for minorities everywhere to dare, and seek the highest office, that human beings are only limited by their own fears, and above all, the genius and historical significance of Obama. An Obama victory will be easier to deal with in its positive and transformational implications. The first and the continuing task for an Obama Presidency, in the event of victory, will be the hubris of high expectations.
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