I'm in the Tank

I support Barack Obama for president.  It's not just that I'm completely wowed by everything he says.  I have substantive policy disagreements with him.    I used to think he was callow.  I still think its a bit of a leap of faith.  I can't completely disagree with the idea that I'm projecting my desires on him, that he is more about hope than about substance.  Yes, I agree that some of this is about a cult of personality.  Then again, that's a pretty time honored reason to vote for someone.

I'm pretty disgusted with the counter arguments for Obama: that people only vote for him because he's black, or because he's not a woman.  I think it's pretty clear that he appeals to a very broad spectrum.  He's transformational: a candidate for all of us, and if he is like the illustrated man, so be it.  I, for one, have been waiting for a symbol of America that is not so tired and so one dimensional.

If I have to pick a shallow reason for choosing Obama, it's because he's likely to be my only shot a voting for someone from my home town.  We share a common story.  We are both born and raised in Hawaii.  My class looked something like his:

I think I recognize some people in that photo - or maybe I know their brothers or sisters.  At any rate, growing up as a white kid in Hawaii in the 70's was pretty special.  And how many times am I going to have the opportunity to vote for another kid with any sort of a background that I have.  Call Hawaii what you want, it's corrupt politics, its racial problems, its closed economy - it is a place like no other.  As much as I love the city I now live in, and love it despite many similar problems, Hawaii remains the place I feel most comfortable.  I'll take rice over potato.

Take Barack: Hawaii born, American mother, Kenyan Father, father left when he was young, taken to be raised in Indonesia and back in Hawaii,, Punahou School, California and New York for college, an awakening and finding a place in Chicago.  Barack is a traveler, and he's had nothing if not a broad experience growing up.  I don't mind that many of my countrymen don't find commonality with his background.  But many Americans, like America, are sheltered by the coasts.  The heartland, our lebensraum, is far removed from the rest of the world, and America only confronts the outside at its edges.  There is something admirable in that removal, something that we can be proud of and which we should protect.  But it is also something that allows us to ignore the reality, that we have a larger place in world affairs.  We have a duty to ourselves and the world to confront and engage the world in more sophisticated terms.  Barack Obama gets that.

My place is in the City of Angels.

My story: Born in Hawaii to an American father and a Danish mother.  Until I was almost nine or ten my father sent us to live with my grandparents in Denmark every summer.  I left Hawaii at eighteen and travelled in Europe and in Australia/NZ.  I went to college in Oregon and found some place, but was not a huge fan of that place.  I went back to school in California and New York.  I now practice law in this city, a wonderful city.  I did not have to search as hard to find a home like Barack.  My dad's dad raised a family here and, well Hawaii kids have a tendency to move away if they want to make something of themselves.  I have heaps of childhood friends who live in this state with me.  I still call them friends.  I have family here.  But I do understand the need to get away to some place larger, a place where I can put myself to use.

BTW: I'm not tired of the Duke.  I think he's one of the greatest of Americans.  I just think the common regard for him is too simplistic.