Barack Can Win

Dick Morris says that Barack can win this election. It's going to take some work to escape from the burden of his radical past, but Morris says it can be done. First, Morris reiterates the obvious problems:

Hard racial divisions have softened in America but fear of the “other” persists. Their possible next president has a strange name. He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia. He had a Muslim Kenyan father who left when he was a baby. He made his political career in the cesspool of American politics -- the traditionally corrupt Chicago Democratic machine. His pastor of twenty years after whose sermons he entitled his book seems to hate white people in general and America in particular (despite getting $15 million in federal funding for his church).

This is an important point about the oft-discussed effects of racism on this election. Race is not the issue, but race can come to symbolize difference with someone as politically odd as Barack.

If he were white, with similar associations, he would be suspect. But he comes from a world few white voters know or understand and the fear lingers that he is some kind of latter-day Manchurian candidate, a sleeper agent, poised to take control of the United States government.

So how does Barack escape responsibility for teaming with the terrorists, the racist preachers and his convicted fundraiser?

To win, Obama must reach down deep and dispel the doubts people hold about him. So far, he has avoided inflaming them and taken great care not to lend them any credibility from his own statements or positions. Now, he must go further and reassure voters who want to believe him, but are afraid.

That's it? He just has to go on Oprah?

To blow away this miasma of doubt will not be easy. Obama, a private person who dislikes emotional displays in public, will have to speak from the heart about what America means to him. He will have to embrace our national sense of uniqueness...

It will take quite a performance. But Morris' description of the problem Barack faces is unique and compelling, and lends some insight into what he's talking about.

American exceptionalism is deeply rooted in our national consciousness and it has been so offended by Rev. Wright’s characterization of the United States as a terrorist nation, a force of evil in the world, that Obama must assuage that hurt if he wishes to appease our fears.

While the United States has always worked to keep church separate from our government, there has always been a kind of civil religion in America which speaks to our values and mission in the world. The president of the United States is the high priest of that religion and it is up to him to give it voice and apply it to the challenges that pop up in our path. Obama must make it clear to his countrymen that he subscribes to that faith and can pick up his duties as high priest. He needs to articulate the national narrative.

Good stuff from the often over-the-top toe man.