Obama the Uniter

A good column by Eugene Robinson for the Washington Post about Barack Obama.

Vernon Jordan, a longtime friend and supporter of Hillary Clinton, helped raise money for Obama’s Senate campaign but told me he advised him not to run for president this cycle. Jordan told Obama that this is not yet his time. The candidate concluded otherwise:

“I think that there’s the possibility — not the certainty, but the possibility — that I can’t just win an election but can also transform the country in the process, that the language and the approach I take to politics is sufficiently different that I could bring diverse parts of this country together in a way that hasn’t been done in some time, and that bridging those divisions is a critical element in solving problems like health care or energy or education. . . .”

So far, it’s this sense of mission that has defined Obama’s campaign rather than his specific agenda for the country. Obama invites people to believe in him, and in the power of “both-and.”

He seems to focus more on bringing people together, building a broad consensus, etc. than on partisan politics… which is a good thing of course.

However, bringing people together should not be one’s only focus. It’s a means, not a goal. First determine what policies to persue, than try to get people to unite to support your ideas.