BARAK OBAMA'S CHALLENGE IN THE HINTERLAND!

BARAK OBAMA’S CHALLENGE IN THE HINTERLAND

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.© May 25, 2008

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Reference: Joseph Brown is an editorial columnist with The Tampa Tribune.  His Sunday article today covered the challenge of presidential candidate Barak Obama, and his message that parents must do their part to change attitudes and the academic performances of their children.  I respond to and amplify the ultimate challenge facing this presidential candidate from an Iowan’s perspective.______________________

Joseph,

I'm not writing these things anymore, working on my South Africa novel, but I have a concern.  I'm a Republican, and have always voted Republican, but I plan to vote for Barak Obama this time, for many reasons, not least of which is that I am tired of the Republican Party trying to be all things to all people and ended up being a disappointment.  Republicanism was going in the right direction with Nelson Rockefeller's liberal Republicanism, which it now is and isn't at once. 

One of the reason I've quit writing my missives is that the more than 100 people on my mailing list, movers and shakers as the educated intelligentsia with Iowa roots, spread across the land, continue to look at life through a rear view mirror.  They don't say it directly but they dream of a "white America" and an America much like Iowa's only president, Herbert Hoover, and we know where he got us.

The 21st century America is not a white America, not a white-male dominated society, and not a white supremacy society that can conquer all enemies real and imagined.  That said Barak Obama has a tough fight ahead winning states in the general election that will not give up the myth. 

I sense that in the general election in such states as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and even Illinois, not to mention California (where a lot of these Iowa people I refer to now live) the white turnout will be greater than any turnout in the history of general elections, mainly to defeat the Democratic nominee. 

I think the only salvation is to meet this challenge by putting Hilary Clinton on the ticket as vice president, where the wives of these macho white males will neutralize their impact. 

The vice presidency has no power, as one vice president once said the influence of the office amounts to warm spit.

The Barak Obama campaign has had a lot of energy, has appealed mainly to the young, the disenfranchised, the hopeful, and the lost, but winning the nomination is the easy route, as difficult as it has been, as the real test is driving past the bigots, the hateful, the shameless, and the evil. 

Hilary Clinton may have misspoken when she mentioned the California primary, and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, but those of us that would like to see Barak Obama president have had the same fear. 

We are a violent society, and have been such from our conception.  As good as we are as a people, we have been equally bad, while we choose to see the bad in those who differ with us and not the good. 

With all our electronic sophistication, our high lifestyle, our energy and wealth, we still remain a stepsister to the culture of our European cousins. 

I was born in Iowa and never been on a farm; my da went through seventh grade and I have degrees all the way through a Ph.D.; my family never made it from payday to payday, and with all my reckless career changes in my life, I've never felt that kind of pressure; and although my family never got outside the United States, I've seen a good bit of the world up close and personal. 

My family for all its socioeconomic commonality was able to install discipline, trusts, belief, tolerance and pursuit of excellence in my soul.  My parents never helped me with my homework but allowed me to read books and pursue my own interests.  I received a good assist from the Irish Roman Catholic Church, which in those days was draconian to a fault with no wiggle room for variance.  To this day, I feel indebted to them, parents, priests, nuns and family, for making my life so easy, although I've always worked hard and loved life for it.

My reason for this brief biography is that Barak Obama will never get elected if he cannot bring my kind of people out to vote, and vote for him. 

In writing A LOOK BACK TO SEE AHEAD (AuthorHouse 2007), I paused to remember my mother once telling me that if she were not a Catholic she would hope to have been born Jewish, as Jewish mothers always seem to do the right thing with their children.  Well, she was a Jewish mother who happened to be Catholic. 

My da, on the other hand, and this was in the 1940s, thought Negroes should be allowed to play baseball in the major leagues at a time when Clinton, Iowa had so few Negroes I seldom saw them on the street.

Barak Obama would be well to go back to Iowa to launch his campaign for the presidency once he wins the nomination. 

Iowa is not a manufacturing state, but no state in these United States is in this new century, but Iowa is a state that has heart and courage and thinks as my parents did. 

It was not a fluke that he did so well there in the Caucuses.  It was clear to Iowans that he was the only leader in the butch at a time in which America is desperate for leadership. 

Now, it is for Barak Obama to convince the nation.

Be always well,
Jim   
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