He may be a Messiah but Obama is no JFK
The anointed: Kennedy patriarch Senator Ted, and Barack Obama embrace. Right, the young Caroline Kennedy at her father's funeral with her mother, and little brother, John Jr
Barack Obama is spearheading a redemptive movement: he offers nothing less than deliverance. People are invited to vote for a cause rather than a political alternative.
Americans are hungry for hope and that's what Obama is selling.
Listen to this quote from the senator. “The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It's not about rich versus poor, young versus old… black versus white.
This election is about the past versus the future.” Almost irresistible, isn't it?
No wonder he's the Doctor Feelgood of the primaries. In common with all his sound bites, it's a version of his breakthrough speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, but the message remains a compelling one: I know you're hurting but I can make you feel better about being an American.
Critics dismiss him as a ‘hopemonger’ but people queue up to buy hope, never more than in a country bitten by recession and paying a heavy price for its war on terror. The recent past is painful terrain.
However, this relatively young presidential contender represents the future – he is the blue-skies candidate. Hillary Clinton, by comparison, is associated with the past. She is a middle-aged woman with a bossy reputation, and a husband who came on so strong last week her advisers had to tell him to “decaff ”.
She has experience, but is that any match for hope? Unless Hillary can break Obama's momentum on Super Tuesday next week, when they compete coast-to-coast for 22 states, he will become an unstoppable force.
Already Obama has put together a coalition of supporters which includes Senator Ted Kennedy and his niece Caroline. “A President like my father” read the ‘New York Times’ headline above Caroline's endorsement.
It's confirmation from the horse's mouth he has assumed the mantle of JFK and the patina of the Kennedy legend. Of course, Bobby Kennedy's family have sanctioned Hillary, while Ted has a track record of anointing the wrong candidate. But Caroline's imprimatur is significant.
Sweet Caroline, the little girl in ankle socks on the White House lawn – she's living history, the last remaining link with Camelot. And remember, hope is the same heady quality that swirled around her father's presidency.
If the Clintons weren't married, I suspect Bill would also be endorsing Obama. It takes no stretch of the imagination to see the ex-Pres making a furtive phone call to him, whispering: “Listen, buddy, I want you to know I'm rooting for you – I just can't let on to you know who.” Both candidates are conscious Americans feel they are no longer in the driving seat.
Hillary acknowledged it when she pledged “we will send a clear message that America is back and we will take charge of our destiny once again”.
Someone needs to take control, that's for sure. The US is staring down the barrel of its leanest days since World War II and the phrase “it's the economy, stupid” has never been more relevant.
It's crucial not just for the US but for the world that the electorate chooses an able president who can guide them out of their messes: their recession (caused by a banking crisis, housing meltdown and employment problems) and the disaster zone of their foreign policy.
So while we can afford to look indulgently at the soap operas in France (Sarkozy and the supermodel) and Italy (on its 61st government in almost as many years), we don't have the luxury of treating these primaries as entertainment. Some 90,000 Irish people work for US companies in Ireland.
If those companies feel the pinch, we will too. In addition, 20pc of our exports go Stateside so a US recession will have repercussions for our small, open economy.
Obama, the son of a Kansas mother and Kenyan father, is a blank canvas on which people are pinning their hopes. This has transcended politics.
“People imagine he can fill an inner void,” is how one New York-based writer explained it to me.
“They are desperate for a sense of national dignity or personal purpose. He is tapping into the spiritual hunger and emotional yearning of a nation adrift.”
But is he too much of a tabula rasa? Has everyone, from commentators to supporters to his campaign team, superimposed on him more than he can possibly deliver?
To me, there's something oddly incomplete about a man with so little baggage. At least with Hillary, voters know what they're getting, warts and all. There's something troubling, too, about the constant JFK refrain. Both men are characterised by electrifying oratory and charismatic presence.
But when he ran for president, Kennedy had served three terms in the House of Congress and twice won election to the Senate, where he was an active member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Prior to that, he was a decorated World War II hero.
Obama's record is not comparable, as Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz pointed out recently. Obama was a community organiser who spent eight years in the Illinois Legislature before being elected to the Senate in 2004.
Yet he has been elevated, virtually overnight, to the role of once and future king. Hillary must confront not just a rival, but the mystique of Camelot.
