Cassilis

The row over Hillary's remarks about Martin Luther King seems to be obscuring a perfectly reasonable and decent observation she made - of course social changes require movements with visionary leaders that create hope and force the issue at the political level but elected officials, and perhaps presidents above all, are needed too in order to turn those hopes into real social changes. From where I'm sitting Hillary wasn't disparaging MLK's contribution to the civil rights movement at all, far less employing any sort of crude calculus to weigh his contribution against that of Lyndon Johnson. She was just pointing out that both individuals were needed to make stuff happen. Surely that was just a valid rebuttal to Obama's simplistic assertions about "hope" and "change" and his implied dismissal that experience has any part to play in the campaign?

My opinion hardly matters of course and I remain undecided between the two but it feels as though Obama's campaign can only really benefit from what I consider a worrying trend in politics - the elevation of wooly platitudes and idealism over clear and practical policy solutions. Being a political nerd I was as thrilled by Obama's Iowa speech as everyone - it was stirring and emotional, I could almost see Josh and Toby standing just off camera. But reading it again now it's remarkably devoid of anything of substance. There's a danger that Obama's candidature will have resonance only with those people who are motivated by single issue pressure politics, who enjoy the 'narrative' about the first black US president and are dripping in wristbands and t-shirts proclaiming their loyalty to this consumer boycott or that campaign group. We need these movement of course but by themselves they are not enough.Most of last century's social advances had their roots in that sort of individual activism but real change only came about when the mantle was picked up by elected representatives and placed at the heart of political discussion. That up-front passion and commitment to a cause had to make way for solutions and these had to emerge from the messy swamp of political compromise. All the evidence suggests that it's this messy process of actually making things happen that then turns people off but it will never go away.

Politics is difficult and that needs to be more widely understood than it is at the moment - we need to challenge the idea that solutions to these problems are there to be simply picked from the shelf by the willing politician (the casual implication being that our elected representatives are simply not bothered). Basically being Bono or Geldof is easy, being Brown (or Bush etc.) is difficult. The growing interest in single issue campaign groups is actually eroding respect for the political process and our senior politician's readiness to embrace 'wristband' politics may hasten rather than halt the process. Hillary's reminder of the balance that must exist here was simply that and a plea that people not be swept along with the Obama story at the expense of what can realistically be achieved from next November.

Labels: Politics