Ron Walters on Obama's Issues

Obama Lacks Specificity. Really?

By Ron Walters

In the last few weeks, I have heard several analysts, who should have known better, say that Barack Obama’s presentations “lack specifics” and that he is only good on inspirational themes, making him sound more like the stereotypical Black preacher than a U. S. Senator who was also a brilliant Constitutional scholar. So, I looked into this charge and found it totally false.

First of all, in this age of computerized information, those who make such charges apparently have not visited Obama’s website. In his two dozen policy papers I counted at least 328 specific policy proposals. And although these papers are occasionally referred to (I heard one commentator say that they existed in “outer space somewhere”), rather than treated as mere artifacts of the campaign they should be taken seriously as a guide to what the candidate would do once in office.

Second, Obama’s website also contains a list of speeches that he has given which in 2007 alone amounted to nearly 100. Most of these speeches contain specific policy proposals, some drawing on the policy papers, but others commenting on breaking issues of the day, such as Katrina, Home foreclosure crisis, Stimulus Package, the Iraq Surge and others. Moreover, the subject of these speeches invited his serious attention, as most of them dealt with complex issues such as: economy/labor (15); foreign policy (12), health care (6), technology, urban/family (7), nuclear proliferation/security (6), and many others.

Finally, these analysts admit, by such a charge, that they have spent their time doing something other than watching the Presidential candidate debates. Barack Obama participated in 18 such events, accounting for nearly 50 hours of discussion. Any review of these events should convince the objective person that they were designed to elicit responses from the candidates on specific issues of public policy and that Barack Obama either held his own or won a substantial number of them.

Given the weight of such easily available evidence to those in the media, I am baffled by the ease with the charge is made that Obama’s proposals have been non-specific. It says that otherwise competent people are making such evaluations based on the thinnest resource such as a few minutes of his televised stump speech. But this is serious because it suggests a misunderstanding of the differences between the basic speeches of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton has attempted to portray herself as the most experienced candidate to be president and with that experience she has offered herself as the person who can successfully propose and get enacted a series of policies that are perceived to be in the interest of the American people. And while this is laudable, it also lacks context.

Barack Obama has provided the context by giving Americans an understanding of where we are at this moment in history – at the era of a politics of deep ideological, racial and other divisions that have reigned for the past two decades and prevented the adoption of many things that would bolster the condition of the middle class the poor. His message of change logically and powerfully suggest what is possible and evokes the psychology of commitment necessary to believe that it can be achieved. Both are important speeches, but if one is looking at what has excited the American people to turnout in such great numbers and why Barack Obama has run an historic race thus far, it will not be found in any shopping list that one might construct.

Dr. Ron Walters is a Political Scientist at the University of Maryland and author of Freedom Is Not Enough: Black Voters, Black Candidates and American Presidential Politics (2005). He was also a Senior Staff member for Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.