Will they kill hope again?

For a few weeks I thought maybe I was wrong.

For a few weeks I thought my original belief that Hillary Clinton was the establishment candidate - and would be assured the nomination because of their support - was going to be disproven by the power of the popular movement surrounding Barack Obama.

For a few weeks I thought maybe hope would win, maybe the people would prevail, maybe we were heading to an epic change in America that would signal a real return to democracy.

For a few weeks I contemplated that this might actually be a tranformational election, one in which the country would finally be baptized in the waters of civil rights and inclusiveness and equality and at last atone for the original sins of slavery and inequality that have so infected this country until this very day.

For a few weeks I rejoiced that the ugly politics of Bush-Clinton, of Rove and Attwater, of Hannity and Limbaugh, might finally be over and the people would not be fooled again.

For a few weeks I imagined a country united by a Christian, half black, half white, young and brilliant orator who preached hope and unity and change.

For a few weeks I held what now seems to be a delusional hope.

Prior to Barack Obama's entrance into the race I held the cynical view that the establishment (corporations and the political elite) choose the nominees of each party. It isn't hard to see how they do it – they provide the money, manipulate the news, determine the story lines, and focus on what takes down one candidate and what elevates another.

They did it in 2000 – focusing on stupid and false story lines like the one about Gore insisting he "invented the internet" and ignoring the stories that might have taken down Bush – like his avoidance of military service, his arrests, his total ignorance of domestic and foreign policy, and his mythical religious conversion. Then they failed to report that the "ordinary citizens" demanding a stop of the recount in Florida were actually Bush staffers sent in to create a false outrage. When long after the Supreme Court unconstitutionally anointed Bush president, they buried on the back pages of newspapers the reality that a recount would have given the state and the presidency to Gore.

They did it in 2004 – broadcasting the Swift Boat lies as if they were truth, allowing the false stories surrounding Kerry's military service in Vietnam to grow like a cancer until no treatment could make them go away. They did not look into the multiple false red terror alerts that happened almost weekly prior to the election, and magically disappeared once the vote was held. They then ignored the stories of the manipulation of the vote in Ohio which once again gave the presidency to the worst candidate in the history of the country.

And now they have chosen their favored candidates: McCain and Clinton. The press loves McCain and boosted him into the nomination with their favorable, hero-worshipping coverage. And while the press really doesn't like Clinton, their bosses do, and so the ugly racist stories about Obama are now coming forward.

So the airways and the blogosphere are full of stories about Obama's pastor, stories that indicate he is a black separatist, an angry black man, a man who does not love his country. The earlier stories, the ones about Obama being a Muslim, couldn't stop him, so now the story has changed. Obama is no longer rumored to be a Muslim, now he is said to embrace a view of America that is hateful and critical and unpatriotic. He may be a Christian, but he is a black Christian, a Christian whose views threaten white Christians, making him a dangerous black man.

Never mind that what Obama's pastor said is literally true, that Hillary Clinton, for instance, doesn't know what it is to be a black man, and that 9/11 happened because of the violent foreign policy American has perpetrated on the world. He said politically incorrect things you are not allowed to say if you are connected in any way to a presidential candidate.

Well, that's not actually true. You are allowed to say politically incorrect things if you are connected to a favored Republican political candidate. McCain's minister supporters are allowed to say 9/11 was God's punishment for abortionists, gays, lesbians, feminists, and the ACLU. They are allowed to say Katrina was God's punishment because of the gay pride parades and the gay lifestyle in New Orleans. They are allowed to say that the Catholic Church is "The Great Whore."

McCain is allowed to publicly and enthusiastically accept the endorsements of men whose views are outrageous, while Obama must be attacked and shamed because he has connections ranging from none (with Farrakhan) to close (with Wright) with men who have also expressed unacceptable views. What's the difference? There can only be two answers: that Obama is black, and that Obama is not the establishment candidate.

Obama is not the "dangerous black man" that some of Clinton's commercials and viral emails imply. He has no criminal past, though one Clinton staffer said people will wonder if he has ever "dealt drugs." He does not fit any of the racist stereotypes of blacks created by bigots and white supremacists. He does not even appeal to race to secure votes. In fact, Obama's campaign has consistently transcended race.

But Obama is dangerous for another reason. He is a different kind of politician. He doesn't play games with lobbyists and with the rich. He goes directly to the people and the people are responding. He wants them to join him in changing the nation and renewing its promise. With that message, he has simply won too many contests and has to be stopped. The corporations and the powerful in the country cannot afford to let an entire generation actually believe they have any say in who will be president. They must squash hope once again, as they did when they made sure Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy could not be allowed to succeed.

We will see what comes of all of this trashing of Obama. The media and the power brokers are doing their best to destroy him. So far he has maintained his cool and seems to be continuing his transcendence of it all. But voters are gullible, and dishonest and vicious appeals to racism and fear may work with enough people to destroy Obama.

If they do they will also destroy the hopes of a generation, as the assassinations in the sixties destroyed the hopes of my generation.

Hope is a fragile thing, easily dislodged. If Obama can continue to inspire his followers to hope, in spite of these ridiculous and vicious attacks, if he can prove himself to withstand the last vestiges of the original sin of this country as well as the awesome ability of the corporations to control our elections, he will truly transform this country.

We are at an epic turning point – will we go back to the old and the vicious and the ugly or will we courageously move ahead and renew this country, destroying that which divides us and turns us against each other? If Obama can lead us to do that, he will be a transformational figure, the likes of which we have not seen since FDR.

But I fear the powerful elites will not stand for it.

Minister, Mormon, Muslim?

Mitt Romney gave his "don't disqualify me because I'm a Mormon" speech today, trying to fend off Mike Huckabee's surge among evangelical Christians. He spoke some moving words about religious freedom and tried to convince listeners that people of faith are all alike (until he talked about Muslims later in the speech). But he indicated that the president should be a man of faith, and should represent all people of faith in America. What he did not say is that the president represents all people in America, period. In fact, for blatant political reasons, he attacked people who profess no religion. He said:

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

In this deliberate slap at atheists, agnostics, and also people of faith who believe in a much clearer separation of church and state than most of the republican candidates, Romney is saying it is important to have religion in politics, and those who wish to have less religion in politics are somehow less worthy as Americans.

Romney also referred to the founders' determination not to have a religious test for candidates for public office, but instead of agreeing with them, Romney was basically implying that there is a test, and he has passed it. By saying a president must be a person of faith, Romney was instituting his own test, which would exclude atheists and agnostics as viable candidates for the presidency.

What Romney, and many in the Republican Party don't seem to grasp is that it is possible to consider oneself a member of a religious faith, or a very spiritual person with no specific religious affiliation, and still desire a secular society. There is no secular "religion" that I know of, but there is a desire on the part of some of us, including some with deep religious faith, to keep religion out of politics, because when you don't keep religion out of politics you get two things: insisting God has anointed you as candidate, or using religion as a weapon against an opponent.

The current religious test that many evangelicals seem determined to administer is one that says one must be an evangelical Christian to be president. This is why Romney, a Mormon, felt he had to give this speech today. It is also why you hear ordained Baptist minister Mike Huckabee saying, in response to a question about what accounts for his rise in the polls, that it was God responding to all the people praying for his candidacy. "It is the same power," he said, "that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 500 people."

When politics and religion get all mixed up together you get this kind of response. You get Mike Huckabee in 2007 implying that God wants his candidacy to succeed, and you have George W. Bush in 1998 saying he believed God was calling him to be president.

At the same time, you have slanderous emails saying Barack Obama, a devout Christian, is a secret Muslim, who is hiding his real faith and who is a tool of al Qaeda who will help them destroy America from within. Anyone who has followed the candidacy of Barack Obama knows this to be absurd, but if you mix politics and religion, (and in this case paranoid fears of terrorism) and if you set up an informal religious test for the presidency, then all you have to do to succeed in getting yourself or your candidate elected is to prove you meet the test and your opponents do not.

Huckabee, like Bush before him, is sending signals to evangelicals that he passes the test, while Romney and Obama are faced with an uphill climb just to prove they are worthy. Romney, a Mormon, must prove Mormonism isn't that different from Christianity, while Obama, a Christian, must prove that he did not adopt his father's Muslim faith.

If we really honored the intent of the founders to disavow any religious test for public office, they wouldn't even be in that position, and those who are attacking them wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

I do not believe what the Mormons believe, and as an outsider I view some of their beliefs as more like science fiction, but I also don't think Mitt Romney would bring his religious beliefs into the presidency, nor allow leaders of the Mormon Church to tell him what to do. I know Barack Obama is not a Muslim, and having a Muslim father (who left the family when he was a baby) and having lived in a Muslim country for a few years doesn't make him one. And I also don't think Obama would allow his Christian pastor to influence his decisions as president.

There are many things worse than promoting a secular society where people are free to practice any religion they want even as they keep it out of politics and government. One of them is ending up with George W. Bush as president. The others are voting for candidates because they profess the "right" religion, or demonizing them in the name of religion.

The only presidential candidate representing a new direction

It's just over one month until the Iowa Caucuses, the first chance ordinary citizens - and not journalists and pundits - get to say who they want to be the party nominees for president.

The caucuses are different than primary elections where people simply mark a ballot. In Iowa, people actually get together, discuss, debate, and lobby each other. They talk about electability as well as personal and policy matters and often end up voting for the person that started out being their second choice. This is why the results in Iowa are often such a surprise and why they often change the dynamic of the entire race. People aren't just voting alone; they are talking to each other and thinking things through with other citizens. What a concept!

Currently, Obama leads the Democratic field in the Iowa polls, but just barely. Hillary Clinton is close, as is John Edwards. As we all know, Howard Dean was the favorite in Iowa a month out, but his surprise loss there pretty much ended his campaign.

On the Republican side, Romney's early advertising and digging into his own pockets has him first in polls, but Mike Huckabee is closing in. Giuliani and McCain have not paid much attention to Iowa and so are not high in the polls. I guess they don't want to upset their slick media based campaigns with an appeal to the great unwashed masses. This way, they can simply discount the results in Iowa by saying they never really tried to win.

The way I see things today, I believe Obama might just pull off a big victory in Iowa, which will enable him to come in no lower than second in New Hampshire. Then it will come down to super Tuesday in February, when 22 states will hold primaries.

In fact, I think it just might be possible for Obama to win the nomination and even go on to be the first African American president in the history of the country. I don't say this because of any inside knowledge, but because I think he represents the best candidate in either party on which the American people can pin their hopes and dreams.

Every other candidate in the race is either a well known commodity infused with the negative taint of politics (Clinton, Giuliani, McCain, Edwards, Romney), a second tier candidate who excites some but is way too ideologically bound (Tancredo, Hunter, Kucinich, Paul, Huckabee) or someone who is really running for Vice President or Secretary of State (Dodd, Biden, Richardson).

Obama is someone new with a fresh face and a quick mind. He is psychologically just what the American people need right now. He is nothing like George W. Bush, and for that matter, nothing like Bill Clinton. His intelligence and ability to speak clearly outshine Bush. He seems more sensible and down to earth, and is not nearly as ideological as Bush has proven himself to be. While he shows strength, he doesn't display arrogance, something we have seen too much of with the last president and vice president.

He has charisma, but not like Clinton. He is not nearly as slick, having already made a few mistakes on the campaign trail. But the mistakes only make him more human, more likeable and more trustworthy.

His moving up in the polls is an indication, I believe, that the American people are starting to feel quite comfortable with him. At first, the Democrats gravitated to Clinton, believing she was tough enough to take on any Republican. But the people may be growing weary of her for a variety of reasons, and having second thoughts about voting for her. Like the Iowa caucus voters, Americans are thinking things through and may be deciding that the best solution to the national depression we feel, after seven years of Bush and six years of fear and war, is to turn in a completely different direction to a completely different kind of candidate.

I sense a real change of mood with the American people, and I think that is good for an Obama candidacy. We will have to see, however, if the monied interests and the media will prevent the American people from really knowing their own minds, and influence them to vote not only against their own interests, but against their political instincts.