Contributors
Carol Platt Liebau - Columnist

Carol Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior member of the CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial board. She is an attorney, political analyst and commentator based in San Marino, CA, and has appeared on the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable and a variety of radio programs throughout the United States. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Carol Platt Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. [go to Liebau index]

Politically “Blessed”
Opportunity Knocks for Barack Obama...
[Carol Platt Liebau] 7/26//04

With all the choreographed footage emanating from the Democratic National Convention, a jaded national press corps will be only too eager to inject some much-needed excitement by swooning over a new political “star.” Watch carefully for the convention’s keynote speaker – Barack Obama. Starting this week, a lot of people will begin taking Obama almost as seriously as he takes himself.

With the implosion of his opponent's campaign for Illinois' U.S. Senate seat, Obama, a smart, articulate, and very liberal lawyer from Chicago, is running virtually unopposed. If, as is widely expected, he wins, Obama will become America’s highest-ranking African-American Democrat. Don’t expect any mistakes or missteps – he is ambitious, and he is ready for prime-time.

Obama has never lacked for gravitas. During his tenure as President of The Harvard Law Review, he spent his time socializing with professors (with whom he, almost uniquely among students, was on a "first name" basis), and maintained both a physical and psychological distance from the Review's headquarters, Gannett House. He asserted that he preferred to "work from home," which had the happy effect of insulating him from much of the poisonous political squabbling that often characterizes the Review. In retrospect, it's clear that he simply didn't believe that hanging around Gannett House was worth his time. He had bigger fish to fry.

Even then, it was clear that Obama's ambitions extended far beyond the walls of Harvard - or any university, for that matter. He always seemed extraordinarily well-suited for politics, with a gift for being able to present remarkably left-wing political views as reasonable and mainstream. He is disciplined – from his carefully modulated remarks to his cultivation of a dignified mien intended to inspire respect. He is willing to work with, even help, people with whom he disagrees politically (after his retirement as President, without any apparent self-serving motive, he once offered me unsolicited advice on how to manage the Review despite the constant internecine warfare). In short, antagonism is not Obama's style; he prefers to keep his powder dry.

There is no doubt that Obama is going to be big – very big. And the new-found power and celebrity that await him will be accompanied by big opportunities. If he chooses, he can easily dethrone Jesse Jackson as the media-anointed "voice" of black America. Obama is highly sophisticated and will avoid the mistakes and scandals that have discredited self-appointed black leaders like Jackson and Al Sharpton.

For someone with less lofty goals, that would be enough. But given Obama's strategic savvy, no one needs to tell him that any African-American political leader must display some degree of ideological independence to be viable as a national candidate. And that’s why Obama will resist the temptation to attract the kind of polarizing, Jesse Jackson-like attention that ultimately results in marginalization. Choosing a centrist course and defending it offers Obama the opportunity to become the Colin Powell of the Democratic Party – and with it, the chance to become the first African-American Democratic political leader who transcends race altogether.

In Swahili, “Barack” means “blessed by God.” It has long seemed that Obama is indeed the child of political good fortune. The question now is what he will make of it.CRO

Columnist Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review.

copyright 2004

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