What Does He Really Represent?

Hard to figure. For those who admire and cling to the possibilities he hints at, he represents the best choice for the chief administrator of the most influential and powerful country on this planet. They think they know his message. They think he reflects all the qualities that they want to see in a leader, to counteract their weariness with the current administration that has led them to a condition of severe disquietude about their country.

Embroiled in far-off conflicts the costs of which have threatened to exhaust the treasury at a time when there are quite a number of internal issues the country has been unable to deal with, like the state of Medicare and the potential of universal health care; like timely rescues of large swaths of the population fallen victim to catastrophic weather conditions; like the need to upgrade deteriorating civil infrastructure; how to deal with illegal immigrants.

Oh, and yes, there's that little item of a collapsed economy, the cataclysm of financial markets imploding under the weight of money markets forgetting the very basics of sound, ethical economic policies. Underlying all of this is the perennial issue of race relations in that vast country with its diverse populations; largely white Americans, with a sizeable black minority and an even larger Hispanic demographic.

Then there's the issue of growing unemployment as manufacturing jobs have slowly stolen away to more profit-enhanced venues abroad. The problems in facing up to society's infiltration by religious extremists whose goal is to completely unsettle the civil discourse, stealthily remove the country from its clasp of secular politics and bring it into the orbit of fundamentalism.

Is Barak Obama the man to meet all these problems head on? Can he be groomed on the job to speak to the manifold issues on the international scene that will of necessity take the attention of any sound global leader, but most particularly that of the United States? More than any other single country, or coalition of countries representing mutual interests, the United States of America's decisions impact around the world.

Can this young man with his limited executive background even given his brief exposure in Congress, claim ownership of the grave decision-making needs inherent in the position of President of the United States? He appears calm, confident, gravely intelligent, with his finger on the pulse of the nation. But many, in whose thoughtfully considered opinion the nation should give careful thought, have their doubts.

"I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such I am bound to disappoint some, if not all of them." Is this the introspective viewpoint of a self-acknowledged leader of a nation? This is not, after all, how Senator Obama portrays and presents himself and his nebulous agenda on the campaign trail. Is he capable of governing, or is he not?

Yet, this was his considered assessment of himself, as a tabula rasa, perhaps not quite completely known even to himself, in his autobiographical "The Audacity of Hope". If he indeed permits himself to become a blank screen prepared to accept the message of many different views written bold in full view purporting purpose, then where is his own persona, where his idiosyncratic self and purposeful direction?

It has been pointed out by his detractors from the dexter wing of the political spectrum that his sometimes-furtive behaviour, his backtracking, his disowning of what was originally presented as his true values, demonstrate his lack of character, his willingness to sway whichever way the political wind blows. He evolves as he goes, trying out the political suit that most resonates with voters, clothing himself in their expectations.

Expectations he has himself ignited in the hopeful minds of Middle America and Young America and Elite America who see in him long-overdue expiation of a historical wrong. He has walked a fine tightrope, trying to mollify uncertain suspicions from the black community while disarming white voters who want desperately to believe they have matured beyond the racial question that has so long dominated American life.

A community that feels it has finally moved beyond colour, to identify a candidate universal to their country's need. They want to believe him and to believe in his promise. They hope because he has encouraged them to hope. They believe because he has promised that he can deliver them out of the unhappy morass that is American society today. They want him to discharge them from guilt, and to bring them into Utopian America.

He is no Jesse Jackson, no Al Sharpton, who sharpen their rhetoric on the whetstone of blame, perpetual black rage against unkind history. Theirs is the fall-back of arrested adolescence as a people emerging from the shadows and lurking there still, fearful of the full strength of the sun. They refuse, in their ghetto mentality, to become fully accountable for themselves, for their failures to adjust to the new reality of opportunities.

He is most certainly not of their ilk. He stands tall and proud and ready to face head on any adversity that stands in the path of his full disclosure of himself as a whole human being. Trouble is, the world awaits full disclosure. Who is he, exactly? Other than representing what his supporters are looking for. Why has he changed his position so many times on so many issues?

What does it say about his certainty, integrity, gravitas, that he has exhibited a proclivity to make so many poor choices in those with whom he consorts? Until their irregular or erratic, or downright dangerously radical values are revealed publicly and he is forced to disown them, and with that, his own values adapted from theirs. From gun control, to wiretaps, faith-based initiatives, recognition of an indivisible Jerusalem, he waffles and weaves.

His supporters seem not to be able to focus on those disturbing anomalies in the character of an individual whom they take to be perfection incarnate, whose message is the shining light of hope for the future. Change and hope and empty rhetorical gestures like "yes we can", resonate with his ardent followers. They question nothing, demand no accounting, wish for no explanation from their candidate.

What record, exactly, is he running on? How has he been prepared by experience, by life's adversities, by exposure to high-level administrative exigencies, to govern a nation?