The last few days I've been like lots of people around the world, enjoying the afterglow of last Tuesday and wondering whether and why this is meaningful to me as it seems.
Particularly strange from myself, I guess, as I'm opposed to the idea of representative democracy, and have basically no time for politicians. So why 'that one', why now? Even I'm a little puzzled.
Well, first and foremost, I've been following this guy closely for over four years, and so far I'm still impressed and haven't seen him sell out to any real degree.

"I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' Instead of being appropriately [the tape is garbled]. So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

Now the old familiar thing on the left is to hope that a politician once elected will actually start to rollout a more left policy than he'd promised during the desperate dance to get elected. And everytime there's disappointment and usually the elected official tacks even further to the right to ensure his part in the hegemony and reelection in term.
Obama though never really tacked to the centre, for all that he sometimes shimmied and gave the illusion of doing so. The 'Apollo Project' for renewable energy is still at the heart of the policy. The withdrawal from Iraq is still essential. And most importantly, the understanding of the bottom-up approach is still central. Hilary Clinton, early in the primaries, was advised that her options were limited. She wasn't running against a candidate, she was "running against a movement". The footage of young students in Texas marching down a highway to demand their right to vote in a Democratic primary should speak volumes.
Obama was a community organizer, and he apparently is an admirer of the influential Chicago organizer Saul Alinsky. And in this quote from Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals' is a big hint that the fantasies of the left may be not entirely groundless:

"taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."

Now if Obama's followed that precept in his campaign, and I have no reason to think not, then the phrase that's been bandied about this week, the 'Obama Revolution'. may be nearer the mark than intended.

One of the reasons that Obama's difficult to portray as left or liberal or conservative, as one wing or the other, is because his politics clearly come primarily from the Black Civil Rights and Black Power tradition. In those scenes, a polticial theory that was individual of the dominant "White" didacticism was created. Instead it was a more liberationist theory, not surprisingly, and maybe that's why it can also be recognised by the white right. The prime driving principles were - and are - freedom, community, peace, self-reliance and equality.

Look at this and what would you bet he's also read Ralph Ellison widely:

"America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many. This is not prophecy, but description."


more later...