Familiarity breeds support for Obama

Familiarity breeds support for Obama
By LAURA WASHINGTON LauraSWashington@aol.com
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
June 18, 2007

I call it "Obama osmosis." Webster's New World Dictionary defines osmosis as "an apparently effortless absorption of ideas, feelings and attitudes."

A Barack Obama candidacy is a complicated and treacherous proposition. Whether it's Shirley Chisholm or the "Revs" -- Jesse L. Jackson Sr. and Al Sharpton -- there has never been an African-American candidate with even a remote chance of lassoing the white vote.

Most have certainly never voted for a black candidate. Most white voters have certainly never imagined themselves voting for a black presidential candidate. From a historical perspective, it seems that Obama didn't have an ice cube's chance in Hades.

Here's where the osmosis kicks in: His poll numbers are slowly and ineluctably rising. The white voters of America are waking up to a cup of coffee and Obama on ''Good Morning America'' and ''Meet The Press,'' and saying nighty-night on "Nightline" and ''The Tonight Show.''

A USA Today/Gallup poll taken early this month reports Obama is virtually tied with his chief rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton. Obama was ahead of Clinton by one percentage point, 30 percent to 29 percent.

He hasn't moved in next door. Still, he seems ubiquitous. Americans are becoming more familiar with this doe-eyed, lanky, cerebral, big-eared black man. The old expression "familiarity breeds contempt" is being turned on its head. The notion is being replaced by its antithesis: Familiarity breeds comfort. White voters are getting comfy with Obama because they are not seeing him as a black man or a black political leader, but as a political leader, period. Not only that, but an interesting alternative to the so-called career politician.

Obama the Lincolnesque black man is not seen as a threat. He doesn't exude the machismo of a Rudy Giuliani or a John McCain. He's not a preacher or, apparently, much of a sinner. In fact, his well-publicized battle with cigarettes humanizes him. Obama's appropriation of the Lincoln legacy may be tenuous, but it works with many Americans.

So the voters are charmed -- and impressed with his intelligence and candor. His nuanced rhetoric and self-conscious connection to Abe Lincoln are piquing our collective curiosity. We are intrigued by the possibility of a politician who is about more than politics. Obama's presidency could be the ultimate racial succor. They are not going to talk about it, but here's a little secret: Many white voters view the Obama candidacy as a road to redemption from centuries of white guilt. An Obama presidency would, once and for all, release them from the trick bag of racism.

Others hope that his elevation to the White House would usher in the arrival of a race-blind society. They dream that a President Obama will answer Rodney King's prayer once and for all. We would "all just get along."

That's not going to happen, of course. Yet that flawed but seductive formula is quietly oozing into the American psyche. It's a psyche that may be prepared to gleefully ignore 200 years of economic, social and political inequity.

Case in point: In a speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama first invoked what would become a campaign mantra, "the audacity of hope." That speech instantly catapulted Obama, then a mere Illinois legislator, to the status of presidential contender. He intoned, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America -- there's the United States of America."

Yeah, right. Whatever works.