As Barack Obama’s campaign becomes defined by a series of embarrassments — his assessment of what small-town residents cling to, a mentor who believes the government created HIV, a friend of 20 years who takes to the pulpit and demands whites give up 401(k) accounts to atone for their ancestor’s racist sins, a wife who pledges to take away some people’s pie and give it to others, an associate who expresses no regret over planting a bomb in a Pentagon women’s bathroom, etc. — it seems mind-boggling that this candidate was once promoted as a healer, a unifier, and a groundbreaking, post-partisan leader.
But back then, not terribly long ago, it did seem like Obama could, at the very least, promote a tone of mutual respect, decency, and trust.
Perhaps one of the best examples of this came shortly after he was elected to the Senate. In 2005, he wrote his second book,
The Audacity of Hope, and described an e-mail from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School. The message expressed how the campaign’s website made it impossible for the doctor, a pro-life Christian, to support Obama:
The reason the doctor was considering voting for my opponent was not my position on abortion as such. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, suggesting that I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” He went on to write:
“Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded. ... I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”
I checked my website and found the offending words. They were not my own; my staff had posted them to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade. Within the bubble of Democratic Party politics, this was standard boilerplate, designed to fire up the base. The notion of engaging the other side on the issue was pointless, the argument went; any ambiguity on the issue implied weakness.
Rereading the doctor’s letter, though, I felt a pang of shame.
Cynics will look at this and see only an early example of Obama’s rogue staffers, who seem to misstate his beliefs with bizarre frequency. But an abortion-rights-supporting politician expressing “a pang of shame” for the way his campaign had characterized pro-lifers struck a profoundly decent chord. The candidate had the language changed and responded to the doctor, thanking him. Obama seemed to recognize that he set the tone for his campaign, that the buck stopped with him, and that he had to accept a certain level of responsibility for an unfair and harsh portrayal of the opposition. The abortion debate will probably never see consensus, but civility would indeed be a major step.
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