By what metric ought we measure a presidential candidate? Are we to judge him or her on policy ideas, experience, compassion? What truly defines the choice? A Barack Obama presidency may signal a turning of the corner in important ways. He may fail miserably as a president, because success is very much contingent on factors beyond his control. But will the country have succeeded anyway?
I don't think of it as my job to try to advise people on whom to vote for. But I do find this election very important, and it might be so because I feel I have a perspective that is not rooted solely in the debate we currently find ourselves mired in. And in reflecting on this perspective, I find myself increasingly optimistic about not only an Obama administration, but, even more so, that his election might be a demarcation line seared into the American political history, a line dividing old vs. new, past vs. future, 20th century ideology vs. 21st century progress.
I keep drawing on a few of the many formative experiences I've had over the last eight years. By the fall of 2003, the United States had just started our unilateral invasion of Iraq, and I was just getting settled into spending a year abroad in England. As one of the lone visible Americans on campus, I found myself getting into a handful of discussions at the local university pub about our acts of aggression (and regression). Fairly or unfairly, I was looked upon by both friends and new acquaintances to be a defender of U.S. foreign policy. I could not find answers to their questions. Repeatedly I was asked if Americans knew how much their policies affect citizens throughout the world, from the U.K. to Spain to Kenya. I could not say that we did. How could I? Less than 5 percent of Americans have passports.
I traveled throughout Europe that fall and spring and met hostility, ignorance and friendliness, usually all within the same encounter. Many, it seemed, were expecting a different experience from meeting an American.
My last week abroad, I stepped off in Morocco for one last strange adventure before I left for home. While there, I was invited into a Moroccan home by a young man of 20. He made dinner for a neighbor and me. We smoked hash cigarettes and talked philosophy and politics into the night, each of us speaking a mix of the languages we knew - Spanish, German, English and Arabic. They told me of a great Muslim philosopher who shared my name, Youssef, and wrote a parable of his for me to take with me on my journey home. And before we parted ways, they sat me down, and with sincerity and honesty told me with quavering voices to tell my American friends that Muslims are a good, peaceful people - friends, yes?""
The past few years, before beginning school again, I worked as a day laborer on industrial-sized printing presses. Although the great industrial dream that guided America through the 20th century might be dying, the honest, hard-working citizen that is the backbone of this country is not. The American dream lives strongest with those who work the hardest for what they have, who work two jobs 80 hours a week for that hope in a better future that they are trying desperately to provide for their children. We might have had small differences on political or social issues; at the end of the day, we could all share hopes and dreams.
Why have I chosen to share all this? The world seems to be waiting for us to turn a corner. While our politics the last 16 years have tried to pull us apart into voting blocks and issue voters, I have been continually convinced of our shared togetherness, our commonalities and our desire to share in each other's happiness and accomplishments. Barack Obama makes me feel as though we can somehow begin things anew, an America awash with hopes and dreams, an America that values opening up relationships and friendships, better understanding multiculturalism, and increasing compassion and benevolence.
I am not naive enough to think that one elected official can be an ineffable, incontrovertible force for the good, that hope will spring eternal. And I am not naive enough to think that in four years things will be markedly different; difficult policy decisions will dictate this more than anything. It is hard to make the claim that we should elect more than the man, rather a vision, an idea. However, I think that is what I am doing. I feel that with his election a tide-wind of different thinking, different ideas and different politics will come along naturally - a fundamental shift of a new American ideal.
He might fail miserably for many reasons his first four years, but even in failure, we will have succeeded in breaking down many barriers, and he will have, merely by his presence, allowed for a change of thinking and doing that needed to take place, and that will live on much longer than his presidency. A Barack Obama election will be a frozen moment in time when American politics and American benevolence have changed for the better: the conversations, the debates and, most importantly, the sensibility of it all. That is why I am voting for Sen. Barack Obama on Nov. 4.
Joseph Koss is a junior majoring in secondary education in social studies. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
