Should Liberals Support Barack?

No sooner does Barack hint that he might run for President than he comes under attack. What surprising is that the criticism is coming from Democrats. I'd link to Bob Herbert's piece in the Times, but I can't because the NYT wants me to pay to read their opinion about things. Matt Stoller at MyDD wants Barack to run, but apparently that's because he thinks it'll be the end of Obama's hype. And Ezra Klein wonders whether any black man can get elected.

There are three separate issues here: whether he should run, whether he can win, and whether liberals should support him.

1) Should he run? If he wants to. I think everyone who wants to be President should make a run for it and see what happens. There are those who think he should wait, but the opportunity is there for him now, and it might not be there later. Charlie Cook is right - he has the hot hand right now, and you don't have the hot hand for 6-10 years. I might be now or never.

2) Can he win? I certainly think he has an excellent chance to win the nomination. Democrats are hungry for an inspirational leader, and Barack is certainly that. He'll come under attack for not being liberal enough (which I'll get to in a minute), but rhetorically he can run rings around everyone but John Edwards - and maybe even him. Obama is a "fresh face" - which always sells well. He would deprive Hillary Clinton of one of her key voting blocks - African Americans, who make up about a quarter of the Democratic primary electorate. Barack would also have a good chance to win over the liberals unhappy with Clinton's moderation and support for the war. Barack is in fact a mortal threat to Clinton's chances. And if Clinton and Gore both don't run, I would hazard to guess that Barack might be the frontrunner.
Oh, but you meant can he win the general election? To which I answer, why not? The factors that make him a contender for the nomination would prove equally beneficial for a general election run - his eloquence, his newness, and high black turnout. It has been argued that his inexperience would hurt him, as it will hurt Edwards. To which I would respond that while in some cases experience is very important in the minds of the electorate (it was in 2004), in most cases it isn't. There's also Klein's "Bradley effect" - that there are a lot of white voters who will never vote for a black candidate. I think that there's a strong possibility that this problem is less serious than it appears. The unreconstructed racists who hate black people aren't going to vote for ANY Democrat. I could be wrong, but I really don't think that we would lose anyone that we weren't going to lose anyway.

3) Finally, and most importantly, should liberals support a Barack candidacy? It has been suggested that Barack lacks experience, that he has never been tested in a campaign, that he's timid, and that he's a closet moderate.
I'll confess that Barack's limited experience gives me pause. I could give you a list of successful Presidents with almost zero experience, of course (Lincoln being the most famous example), and experienced candidates proving disastrous Presidents. Or I could argue that none of the other potential candidates have much more experience. Or that there is perhaps no job other than the Vice Presidency which gives any meaningful experience of what it's like in the White House. These are all debating points, however. Barack's lack of experience would be a mark against him that he would have to overcome by proving that his other assets outweigh that liability. It's a problem, but by itself not a decisive one.
Barack has never been put through the test of a major campaign. Fine. But does anyone think that the act of running for President wouldn't mean he would go through that? Also, no election is like a Presidential election. How many proven vote-getters have been nominated, only to prove the weren't up to the rigors of a Presidential contest?
The accusation that Barack is too timid (he wants to get along in the Senate), that he hasn't been an outstanding leader in liberal causes in the Senate, and that he uses moderate or conservative rhetoric on occasion is the most serious criticism of Obama.
First of all, I think people have to understand what the Senate is like as an institution. It's very clubby, and if you make a stink as a freshman, you will get frozen out of the legislative process. Obama's first responsibility is to the people of Illinois, and if he had been an ideological champion in the Senate from his first day, he would have annoyed everyone in BOTH parties and lost any ability to influence legislation. If he decides to run for President, he will have to make more of a public stand. Some have suggested that he should have behaved more like Russ Feingold, but they forget that Russ wasn't much of a firebrand in his first term. He had to build his credibility with his colleagues and his constituents before he did so.
Second, Matt Stoller and others who have been angry at Obama's occasionally moderate to conservative rhetoric have been pretty unfair. They have been very selective in their quotes, inflexible in their ideological approach, and have even grossly misinterpreted what Obama was saying. For example, Matt attacks Barack for saying nice things about Bush. But I saw the Russert interview, and he said that Bush was a decent man who was very clear in his beliefs. For all we know both of those things are true. Barack also said that Bush's clarity had thusfar been a political asset - which it has been. This statement is polite, but scarcely an endorsement of Bush as a leader! What does Matt want, Barack to burn Bush in effigy? Has Matt forgotten that any Democratic presidential nominee is going to have to win voters who aren't lefties?

I think liberals have a couple of very good reasons to consider supporting Obama if he runs. He knows have to defend liberal causes while appealing to middle American values, a characteristic we desperately need. He is in fact pretty liberal. And I think the fact that he a credible African-American candidate for the Presidency is a strong reason to support him. A black President would do an enormous amount to heal racial divisions in this country, much as Kennedy's election as President did for Catholics. Barack is in this sense what JFK was - a talented candidate who happened to be a member of a minority. Since 1960 it hasn't mattered whether someone is Catholic. Can you imagine what it would be like if being black didn't matter any more either? I'm not saying that we should support someone just because he's a minority. I'm saying that the fact that he's a minority is an additional positive factor, much the same way that because Hillary is a woman is a positive reason to support her. It's important to break barriers - after they're broken we don't have to use their existence as a considering factor anymore.

I'm not saying that I'd necessarily support Barack myself if he runs (although I'd be strongly tempted). All I'm saying is that he deserves as much consideration as John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Russ Feingold, Evan Bayh, and whoever else runs. We shouldn't just write him off because he's not liberal enough, or that he hasn't been in the Senate for 20 years.