First Impressions

Author's Note: As the 2008 Presidential Election drew to a close, I thought it might be appropriate to revisit my first impressions of my candidate, Barack Obama, from the beginning of the race.

February 13th, 2007

Senator Obama was in New Hampshire today as part of his candidacy announcement tour, and the Students for Obama group planned a trip to go volunteer. I got a spot at the last second last night, so at 2:00 today I climbed in a car with some interesting political characters and made the trek to the University of New Hampshire, where I spent an hour and a half guarding the doors until they let people in, another hour waiting and gathering Obama paraphernalia, and then an hour and a half listening to the senator's words of wisdom.

What an incredible person. There's this unbelievable ease about him, and he's got an honest, unscripted quality that I can't really describe other than to say that he reminds me of my dad... It bothered me that he was a little less than open while speaking - he almost seemed to resent the audience's clapping in the middle of his speeches, and he gave his questioners eye contact but not a smile - although he did light up when it was time to shake hands. It was almost as though he found relating to people as a group more enjoyable than relating to them on an individual basis. In any case, I hope it's something his staff catches when he's refining his pitch. And he's on the issues as far as I'm concerned, although his gay marriage / civil unions position gave me pause, as did parts of his immigration stance. Mostly I think he's good at being moderate yet dynamic, and if the America he sees comes to exist, I would be more than proud to live here.

I ended the day pretty disillusioned by some of the discussions I had - politically minded in a cynical (bordering on superficial) way. I'm so tired of hearing about and thinking about electability and the right things to do. Maybe it's just a product of being "brought up" politically on Deval Patrick's campaign, but I think there should be a little more time and thought spent on the issues and the strategies of government. Let the campaign managers think about electability - we're the ones who are supposed to elect.