Obama doesn't fit into the established political categories

January 18, 2008
The Obama Paradigm
By G. Terry Madonna and Michael Young

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Explaining Barack Obama and putting him into meaningful political and historical context is indeed challenging--partly because the presidential selection process itself is messy and complex. But more pointedly, explanations for Obama are elusive because he is singular as a political persona, virtually sui generis among contemporary politicians. He simply doesn't fit into the established political categories we use to interpret contemporary events and analyze contemporary politicians. He is a very different kind of candidate who is running a very different race than we have seen in America for some time.

In short the Obama phenomenon may present a new paradigm in American politics, and to understand it we have to develop and use a new set of ideas, concepts, and categories to explain what is happening in our presidential politics. In particular four new conditions discussed below seem to comprise the Obama paradigm. Collectively they point to a radically new and potentially transformative force in American politics.

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Obama's change message, now articulated by candidates of both parties, is neither new nor distinctive. He has positions on all major issues, but the campaign is neither about issues nor the sum of the parts. It is essentially thematic without much issue salience, other than the impassioned appeal to end partisan bickering and create "hope" for a better future. His message is quintessential American populism: lofty but not loony in its delivery--part evangelist, part salesman. The rhetoric is soaring but soothing, and it is rhetoric that resonates for many voters. Indeed Obama's oratorical flourishes have been magnificent, evoking recall of oratorical giants like Lincoln, La Follette, John Kennedy, and Reagan. To appreciate him, one has only to contrast a youthful Bill Clinton lulling the 1988 convention delegates to sleep with a long, boorish opening address. How different were Obama's efforts on the national stage at the Democratic convention in 2004 or at his victory speech in Iowa or his subsequent speech in New Hampshire? No candidate since William Jennings Bryan in the 19th century has captivated a party with rhetoric as Obama has done.

The debate about the Obama phenomenon will rage for some time. Is he merely a historical curiosity in the mold of William Jennings Bryan, whose appeals moved thousand to tears but whose ultimate fate was to be crushed ignominiously by electoral defeats? Or is he more like John Kennedy in 1960 that transmuted populist appeals and generational change into the spirit of Camelot--lifting the spirits of the nation and attracting a new generation of Americans into government service and politics?

In the end, we expect Obama will neither be relegated to the footnotes of history like Bryan nor raised to the heights of political sanctity as was Kennedy. Instead he is more likely to be remembered as the first authentic 21st century presidential candidate--as arguably Theodore Roosevelt was the first 20th century candidate and Thomas Jefferson the first 19th century candidate. As such Obama, like Roosevelt and Jefferson before him, transcends traditional categories we have constructed to analyze and understand presidential candidacies. A candidate that seemed to be at the start a round peg in a square hole as Roosevelt was a century ago, might turn out to be the candidate that produces a whole new blueprint of how to run for and win the presidency.