(picture-graphic by Terry Michael)

2008 prediction....
Tiger Obama vs. Mitt Cleaver

by Terry Michael
January 1, 2008

Hope and heritage.

Those two words suggest why the 2008 finalists in the race for Leader of the Free World, after the early caucus and primary dust settles, are likely to be Tiger Woods and Ward Cleaver--though you may know them as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Too much has been made this year of “change” as the quality sought in candidates for president. It is to state the obvious that voters want out of the boxes, both foreign and domestic, into which an under-qualified president has put the country.

To be sure, stasis, no matter how comforting it may be to those unable to admit a mistake, is not an option for the swing voters of 2008, no matter how hard the stubbornly independent John McCain argues for staying the course, or how much the authoritarian Mayor Mussolini-in-drag attempts to verbally strong arm us (“The Terrorists! The Terrorists! The Terr....") into believing only he can stay the curse of the evil do-ers (just like he did in his own City of New York?)

Southern hucksters like Sen. Trial Lawyer to the Underclass Edwards and Gov. Music But Not Evolution Huckabee cleverly talk about change, with slick language reminiscent of the ever-beguiling William Jefferson Clinton, who can seduce women, men, pets and perhaps even inanimate objects, but to whom truth remains a stranger. (He was against the war from the beginning? Sure he was.)

But change, like “experience,” is just a chilly buzz word, a bloodless message-oid peddled by political consultants advising calculated candidacies like that of Hillary, Inc., at a time in our political history when anxious, data-pummeled voters need a warm, comfortable human connection to the past, and a safe passage to a better future for the kids.

And that’s where Tiger and Ward come in.

Obama, like Tiger Woods, is Everyman. Literally. Some DNA from column A, and some from column B. A little of you, and some of me. Seeking a connection to a mixed race past, and experiencing a solid grounding in the present, with a strong, successful partner. And audaciously hoping for a better future not only for his two little girls, but for a tribe of Americans whose time doesn’t have to be later, but can be here and now.

Romney, like wholesome Leave It to Beaver TV father Ward Cleaver, is grounded in a stable “get-married, get-kids, get-a-bank-account, and then, give something back” American style of noblesse oblige. It’s advice he took from his everyman father, anchored in a personal belief system that is all about connecting generations, with five vibrant sons from a woman with rather remarkable courage and strength.

Dismiss, if you will, a perhaps too saccharine psycho-graphic case for the outcome of a very imperfect national leadership selection process, which (none-too-soon) will see prognostication displaced by actual caucusing in the living rooms of Des Moines and real voting in fire houses that serve as polling places in Manchester.

But I would submit that something unusual is about to happen in a political environment in which voters are weary of calculation and artifice, satirized so well on those cable comedy fake news shows. Americans, particularly younger ones, are craving the real deal--witness the phenomenon of the flawed-but-authentic messenger, Dr. Ron Paul.

Both of our political parties may be about to nominate two warm, likeable humans, each of whom at least seems to possess most of the qualities of leadership we should always be seeking. Enough history-informed intelligence to make good judgments. The moral authority to command follower-ship. A level of personal happiness that can sustain a president through burdens placed on any White House occupant. The ability to articulate and mass communicate a vision to the rest of us. And--most important--the WILL to lead, to spend political capital for a larger-than-self national purpose.

It’s been awhile since both Democrats and Republicans nominated candidates with that whole package of leadership qualities, in the same election.

I believe it’s about to happen, regardless of what those mis-leading national polls would lead you to believe. And such an outcome offers hope to those of us who were dazzled by the transition from the old to the new in 1960, but who find ourselves a little cynical about politics as we begin to experience our own sixties.

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A former Democratic National Committee press secretary, Terry Michael is executive director of the non-partisan Washington Center for Politics & Journalism and writes personal opinion at his “libertarian Democrat” blog, www.terrymichael.net.