News and Features
Obama Vision
By Deborah Campbell published Jan 1, 2009
How Gregor Robertson rode the Obama wave, and Peter Ladner didn't
The most heartwarming aspect of being at Grant Park in Chicago on November 4 wasn't the sight of a jubilant young black family shouting, "Obama's on the money!" (Mom, Dad, and two adorable girls were selling souvenir greenbacks bearing his face that nearly convinced me to part with five bills of my own, proving that capitalism was not defeated that night.) It wasn't even seeing tens of thousands of people wearing T-shirts of a face as iconic as Che Guevara's. (Best slogan: "A black man is running and it ain't from the police.") Or the frisson of hope that history might possibly change this night, from eight years of terminally bad news to something actually good.
No, the most heartwarming aspect was being part of a crowd that had an all-white Harvard contingent standing alongside young black men in will.i.am-style hip-hop attire for perhaps the first time in their Ivy League lives, breathing the same air as the young president-elect who strode onto the stage to unite them with grace and humility.
It was difficult to summon the same enthusiasm for an election in Vancouver (impossible in the federal non-event that preceded it); nonetheless it was fascinating to observe themes of what might be called the Obama Effect course through the municipal campaign, reaching a peak on election night, November 15. If the central issue in both campaigns was change versus status quo, Gregor Robertson of Vision Vancouver was the obvious change candidate, and the Obama comparison, though hyperbolic, was used to maximum political advantage. While both Robertson and the NPA's Peter Ladner supported Obama, it was Robertson who capitalized on the parallels. On the night of the U.S. election, at the bar where Vision supporters gathered to watch the results, Robertson leapt onto a table to congratulate Americans for bringing their country back. "Now we're going to do that here in Vancouver," he added. "For lots of the same reasons." Robertson was also the prettier candidate with the Tom Cruise looks, the polite one attacked for his lack of experience by a more seasoned rival. (Rather than a Harvard law degree and a world-class intellect, however, Robertson holds an English degree from an American college and has been criticized as having more beauty than brains-and, yes, his personality is by all accounts genuine and nice.)
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You know what would keep people from needing welfare or payday loans, or unemployment? Jobs! (Surprising, huh?) No state government (or the federal one) has considered a public works project to curb joblessness. President Obama has proposed several plans to bail out the jobless people. There's a slight change, but we are still looking forward to a big one. Let's just hope this year would be our lucky year.
