Jessica

Vozel

Read Jessica's bio and previous columns here

February 25, 2008

Barack Obama Makes the Case: Experience and Inspiration Can Coexist

As Sen. Barack Obama continues to gain momentum in the presidential race, threatening to obliterate Sen. Hillary Clinton in the important March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, the common insult from the Clinton camp has been that while Obama may have a way with words, Clinton has the experience to ensure that her promises are kept.

This sentiment is trickling down to Clinton supporters like comedienne Roseanne Barr, who wrote for The Huffington Post this week, “When I fly in an airplane, I want the pilot with the most experience, not the one who can inspire hope in me that I get to where I am going.” Irrelevant comparisons and questions of Barr’s qualifications to speak on such matters aside, this either/or binary is inherently flawed, and Clinton and her supporters are mistaken in trying to make use of it.

First, why must it be one or the other? Obama is not without experience, with seven years as an Illinois state senator and four as a U.S. senator, plus decades of public service experience. Likewise, Clinton is not without inspiration. She has won the hearts of many working-class people who feel she is looking out for them. There is nothing about experience and inspiration that make them necessarily opposed to each other.

It is one thing for the media to divide the two Democratic candidates into neatly defined categories, but the candidates insist on doing it to themselves as well, sometimes to their own detriment. While focusing on his ability to inspire has worked well for Obama so far, partly because of the confidence he projects, Clinton’s insistence that she is the experienced candidate has fallen flat. 

Along with criticizing Obama’s recent mailers that dissect her stance on health care reform, Clinton reminded her supporters in Cincinnati on Saturday that Obama may talk a good game, but so did George W. Bush, and look where that got us. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me," she said to a crowd at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.

But by focusing on her experience and not her ability to inspire, Clinton further entrenches herself in the “more of the same” role, which has largely contributed to her downfall. Experience is comfortable and safe, but perhaps we’ve moved past post-September 11 fear to a time when we want a candidate who makes us feel something. Fear and want of security just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Like it or not, the American people are looking for an inspirational candidate, especially young people. During life at an Ohio university, I am presented daily with evidence of this – jackets adorned with Obama buttons, t-shirts with Obama’s image and the word “Progress.” At a local bar on Friday night, I stumbled upon a sizeable Obama gathering. Obama has a certain quality that young people can really get behind; perhaps because for most of us, the only presidents we’ve known have had the last name Clinton or Bush.

Maybe in some ways we long for a president that we can look upon with as much reverence as our parents’ generation looked upon JFK. With an African-American and a woman in the running, there has been a lot of focus on how races and genders will cast their votes, while the young demographic as a whole has been largely ignored. 

Obama has been courting younger voters, with his moving Super Bowl ad featuring young people in a crowd and hip music interspersed with moving images of the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina.  After showing this video to 23 of my 18-year-old students, along with ads from Sen. McCain and Sen. Clinton, all but a couple agreed that Obama’s ad was most likely to capture their attention and their eventual vote. Because Obama is an inspirational candidate, he inspires you to believe him and believe in him. That’s the advantage. 

Ideally, America will end up with a president who embodies both experience and inspiration, and provides security as well as hope. Maybe all of Obama’s empowering speeches have made an optimist of me, but I believe that both can exist in one individual.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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