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    The July 5th Cook Report concludes that the race between Obama and McCain is somewhere around a six point lead for Obama.  Given the high negatives the GOP scores and the low ratings of Bush, what should be a Democratic blowout from top to bottom seems surprisingly close.
    However, this is summer time, nobody is really focused on campaign '08 except the political junkies out there and some of us rather be focused on that little white ball.  So the tightening race is really no surprise since Obama is still a mystery to half the population that didn't vote in the primary season and McCain has name familiarity. 
    What should worry McCain and the GOP is that on most issues except the war on terrorism and leadership - Obama has huge leads over McCain on issues like the economy, energy policy, health care and taxes.  On issues of immigration McCain had a slight lead and on morals Obama an edge - neither statistically significant.
    On the fuzzy questions like he shares your values - Obama surprisingly has a commanding lead not bad for the candidate who lost the white working class vote to Hillary Clinton.  Even on McCain's strong suit - independence and would work to get things done - Obama trumps McCain. 
    But Cook found that things "...started getting a bit closer on 'Has a clear plan for solving the country's problems.' Obama was up by 10 points, 41 percent to 31 percent. His edge was 8 points on 'Shares your values,' 47 percent to 39 percent. It was only 4 points on 'Is honest and trustworthy,' 39 percent to 35 percent."
    So what does this all mean.  Probably not much.  Barack Obama has to make the sale - to translate his message of hope and the disaffection voters have with the GOP into a personal plea for votes.  That's where his personal narrative begins.  And that's exactly what Obama did in his first TV ad of the summer last week. 
     The biggest advantage Obama has over McCain is money and organization.  The GOP and independent spending groups will even money playing field.  But McCain continues to be hampered by organizational problems.  Given his resume and having wrapped up the nomination months ago he should be at least even with Obama.
   But he's not even or ahead!  And once the voters focus on the issues - McCain and the GOP should be toast.  Of course, a lot can happen between now the November.  Clearly the debates will be huge as they were in 2000.  But all things being even - Barack should be able to build on his lead while McCain has to get traction.
    While the VP choices of both will be critical decisions - voters don't usually decide on the VP choice.  But 2008 may be different especially for the GOP.  If McCain doesn't chose a values conservative like Mike Huckabee he could be hurt badly especially with Bob Barr on the ballot as a Libertarian.  
    Barack has several choices for VP - Hillary Clinton (my bet) or Senator Jim Webb (Va).  He also may have to deal with the minor irritant of Ralph Nader but this will not be a repeat of 2000 where butterfly ballots cost the D's Florida by the combo of 91,000 votes for Nader and Pat Buchanan getting Jewish votes out of Dade County!  
    Barack Obama didn't come this far by being stupid.  He beat the most entrenched frontrunner in US history.  McCain by contrast limped into victory lane sputtering and gasping for air.  As Machiavelli noted centuries again stealth often wins in politics.  The combo of strategy and message favor Obama by a mile. 

    Columnist Jonathan Tilove Newhouse News Service op ed in today's Oregonian entitled "Wearing the Stars & Stripes," highlights the vast gulf between John McCain's vision of America and that of Barack Obama.
    McCain's vision, parallel to his life story, embraces the concept of self-sacrifice while Obama's vision, also framed by his biography, focuses on the idea of service to community. McCain, true to his warrior legacy promises to stay put in Iraq as long as necessary, while Obama is committed to bringing the troops home asap. 
    While both candidates have flip flopped on the precise timetable - McCain saying earlier in the primary season that the US may be in Iraq for a 100 years as an occupying force, he has more recently suggested our combat mission would end by 2013.
    Obama has said we would be out within 16 months of the beginning of his presidency. However, as late as July 3rd he suggested the timetable would depend upon what he heard from the commanders on the ground.  Within hours he backed off that comment saying that his instructions to the military brass would be to prepare a plan to end the occupation.          Obama's views the presidency through the politics of hope appealing to the power of the American Dream in Jeffersonian terms life, liberty and happiness. In his Philadelphia speech Obama "began to talk about what it means to strive for a more perfect union."
    As Tilove points out - "Obama has fleshed out a definition of patriotism founded on caring, interdependence and mutual sacrifice. In his first TV ad of the general election campaign, titled 'The Country I Love,'' he talks about "treating your neighbor as you'd like to be treated" echoing Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.
    McCain's vision of America is a tragic one framed by his experience as a Vietnam POW. According to Tilove from "childhood, McCain was drawn to tragic heroes. In his 2003 book "Worth the Fighting For," he recalled as a 12-year-old boy chancing upon "For Whom the Bell tolls," and falling in love with the "beautiful fatalism" of a Hemingway hero.
    McCain begins his book with a quote from Pericles' funeral oration: "fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens, as you have it before you day by day, fall in love with her and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action."
    It is well to remember that this famous oration leads Athenians to military and political disaster as Athens moves from a constitutional city-state to an imperialistic and militaristic regional superpower. So the politics of patriotic sacrifice versus the politics of hope says a lot about each candidate at this crucial time in American life.
    While each candidate is accused of flip flopping on the issues, as they do when the campaign moves from the spring to the fall, it is well to remember where the mindset of each candidate resides in their heart of hearts. As RAD has said time and again - "be careful what you wish for, you might get it."
    I embrace Barack Obama's implicit appeal to what Isaiah Berlin refers to as positive freedom - the "freedom to" be the best we can be as a community not isolated individuals. McCain supporters seem drawn to the concept of negative freedom the "freedom from" an over powerful government which stifles personal liberty.
    Of course Americans want both freedoms. That's where politics plays out - finding through compromise that common ground. My gut tells me that Obama - the political natural - not McCain, is more likely to deliver on the politics of hope as FDR did in The Great Depression reminding us that "there's nothing to fear but fear itself."
    The American voter in 1960 had a fundamental choice to stick with the Eisenhower-Nixon vision of the 1950s framed by the "Cold War" or to elect the first Catholic president and embrace change. By a razor thin margin JFK was elected and Camelot began. 2008 is another critical election where we can chose the past or embrace the future.

Washington Monument in DC on a July 4th

    NPR's noon show today included a discussion on patriotism from the African-American perspective.  The history of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and institutionalized racism has given African-Americans an ambiguous legacy to say the least.
    Even though African-Americans served in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the two great wars - WW I and II - in segregated units, in Korea, in Vietnam, Gulf War I and now in Iraq and Afghanistan - they still often like "the other."
    However, the sense of having an ambiguous legacy to Old Glory is not just an African-American experience.  Japanese-Americans whose families were interned behind barbed wire in WW II saw their sons serve their native land with historic distinction. 
    As a war baby I grew up in a liberal political environment with my sense of history cast by a  father who told me of what it was like being a 16 year old and riding the rails in the Great Depression.  How our economic system could abandon workers bothered me.
    Then my own generation came of age in the 1960s framed by the election of JFK - followed by the civil rights struggle, the anti-Vietnam war movement, Black Power, the counter-culture, angry Native Americans, bra burning feminists and the environmental movement. 
    So the ambiguous legacy of growing up in the USA in the modern age has left many of us feeling like "the other."  I alternate between pride in a country which has given the world Jefferson's words - inalienable rights; and yet angered by the fact that those words often ring hollow in everyday life.
    I bristle at sunshine patriots, including the current incumbent and his VP, who casually brandish their "patriotism" while sending other people's children into the caldron of war.  I'm offended by the young man who passed me the other day despite the double line and in the process giving me "the finger" no doubt due to my Obama bumper sticker. 
    But then I think how far we have come in my lifetime and how casually my own sons and my students at Pacific and PSU navigate the waters of a multi-cultural, hi-tech and global economy where the old tribalism of race, gender and place of birth is irrelevant.  
    And then I think of the homeless among us who I've become very conscious of in the last two years in my work as a member of the Interfaith Committee on Homelessness here in Washington County and realize that the promise of the American Dream is being denied to many among us who are largely invisible. 
    So let us resolve over the July 4th weekend to take pause from the baseball game, the hot dogs, the beer and the good times with friends and family to remember that a "dream deferred is a dream denied."  Real patriotism has nothing to do with waving a flag but is about making that dream a reality for all Americans! 

    A recent Gallup poll indicates that Americans are not in favor of income redistribution.  Sadly that is the legacy of the Reagan era where the Gipper was able to persuade us that big government and high taxes were evil not necessary ingredients of bringing about a more just society.
    However over the years polls also indicate that the American people feel that people who need a hand up not a hand out should be helped by government programs.  The problem is that from Nixon to Reagan to Bush I & II the mythology that government can't do anything right has taken root.
    Now considerable attention is being given by mainstream media to the infra-structure problems on the home front.  Highways, bridges, dams, canals, levies, water and sewer systems are in dire need of repair.  We also need to upgrade power grids, railroad roadbeds, build more mass transit capacity and modernize hi-tech networks across the nation. 
    However, given the fiscal problems of states and local communities compounded by constitutional restrictions which don't allow state or local government to spend more than they bring in from taxes, the ability to create a nationwide capital development capacity must be led by the federal government.
   As long as the albatross of the Iraq War is hung around our collective necks - such a massive reinvestment policy in American society will not happen.  But if we are to meet the challenge of the 21st century, move to more green solutions and increase investments on the home front - such a policy must be on the next presidents "to do" list.
   The good news is that a reinvest in America policy would have wide appeal across party and ideological lines, among labor and business and would be a means of growing the economic pie by creating high wage jobs all across the nation and in the process help share the wealth across class, racial and gender lines without resorting to redistributive policies.
   With an invest in America first policy all boats would be raised - from the working poor, the middle class and the upper classes.  Federal, state and local revenues would also grow.  But the federal government has to be the first mover in this process in ending the disinvestment policy of the Bush II era.
   The historic model of such a policy can be found in the Eisenhower era (1952-60) when the interstate highway system was built creating the largest public works project in human history!  With a national infrastructure policy the old incrementalist earmarking process would be replaced by a national vision and plan. 
   Such a policy would require federal support for retraining workers and a housing policy which would offer people safe and secure places to live as they learn the job skills necessary to enter the 21st century workplace.  The ultimate benefit of such a policy, like the WW II GI Bill, would be to create the economic basis for growing the middle class. 
 

    General Wesley Clark's comment that John McCain's Vietnam War experience doesn't qualify him for being president is true, but not for the reasons that Clark gave.  Clark's claim that because McCain did not have "command experience" visciates his case for being commander-in-chief.  Aside from General George Washington and General Dwight Eisenhower I'm not sure what modern US president would quality according to Clark's criteria.

•     FDR did not have "command experience" but that didn't prevent him from being a successful war president. 
•     Harry Truman was a veteran of WW I but his decisions about the A-bomb and the Cold War, though now widely popular, are in retrospect debateable as issues of judgement.
•     JFK like McCain was a "war hero" in the South Pacific but his hubris almost led us to atomic war in the Missiles of October crisis vis a vis the Soviets and into the early stages of Vietnam.
•    LBJ had no war experience but what led him to deepen the War in Vietnam despite his serious doubt was the fear of being the first US president to lose a war giving him an ironic and tragic legacy.
•     Nixon was a WW II vet like Kennedy but his experience didn't inform his judgement enough to draw back from his Cold War mentality until he opened the door to China in 1972 while deepening the morass of Vietnam. 
  
•     Ford was a vet but merely a caretaker president so we'll never know what might have been the shape of US foreign policy had he won a second term in 1980.  
•     Carter was a Naval sub officer but his presidency had highs and lows in foreign policy - the high of bringing the Israelis and Egyptians to the peace table and the low of the Iranian hostage crisis.  
•     Reagan is given credit for the fall of the Soviet Union - an honor he does not deserve!  His misadventures in the Middle East vis a vis the Iran/Contra scandal mirror his ability to lie, to violate the law and his historical ignorance.
•     Bush I probably brought more to the table as a commander-in-chief with his resume and the zenith of his tenure was orchestrating the Gulf I War against Iraq and showing restraint to not go all the way to Baghdad.
•     Clinton is viewed as successful domestic president however he dealt with Yeltsin, managed global economic change, managed Bosnia successfully but bungled his chance to get Osama bin Laden. 
  
•     Bush II's record is clearly a failed presidency once one moves beyond 9/11 into the Iraq quagmire and dropping the ball on Afghanistan.

   So what does having "command experience" have to do with being a successful commander-in-chief and/or foreign policy president - the historical record would suggest NOT MUCH...  What a president needs is a sense of 1) the sweep of American history, 2) the times we live in, 3) the challenges before us and the wisdom to listen to diverse voices and avoid group think.
   In that regard - Barack Obama's judgement on Iraq and his generational distance from the swampland of past wars - WW II to Vietnam - make him a more impressive candidate than John McCain who is mired into the "old thinking."  So Barack was not only politically smart to distance himself from Clark's comments - he would also be wise to take Clark off any short list of VP candidates.