Obama's Challenge and the FilAm Response

Published Setp. 29, 2008
INQUIRER.net

One of the interesting moments in last Friday’s presidential debate was when Barack Obama blasted past American foreign policy of supporting allies who are undemocratic, even tyrannical leaders -- a policy in which Washington says, “He may be a dictator, but he is our dictator.”

It was clearly a play on how former US Secretary of State Cordell Hull described Rafael Trujillo when he was dictator of the Dominican Republic in the 1930s: “He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch."

On Friday, Obama was referring to the ousted Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in a coup that deposed a democratically elected president, and whom Washington eventually supported and coddled.

He was essentially sending a strong message to leaders who would follow in the footsteps of Trujillo, Musharraf and even Marcos. And that convinced me even more that for the Philippines, a President Obama would usher in an exciting era in US-Philippine relations.

On the other hand, John McCain came across as John McCain: the former fighter pilot who is bold, daring to the point of being reckless and impetuous. That sometimes works in war. But it often doesn’t. And it surely can lead to disastrous results when dealing with more complex issues, such as a financial meltdown.

In the days leading up to the debate, McCain seemed to be blasting away without any clear target or objective. He said the fundamentals of the US economy were strong, then later tried to backtrack and even called for the firing of the highly respected head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Then he suddenly suspended his campaign, purportedly to help solve the crisis, and called for the debate to be postponed. But he ended up playing a bit role in the negotiations. And some lawmakers even said that his political stunt derailed the sensitive talks.

These were bold, daring, attention-grabbing moves. But what was the point?

As many people expected, McCain displayed a slight edge in foreign policy expertise during the debate. But as many pundits also stated, he needed to make up for three days of seeming incoherence and pointless impetuousness by clearly out-debating the newcomer on the U.S. political scene.

But that didn’t happen.

Obama showed himself to be intellectually engaged and politically pragmatic. He also was incredibly cool, a trait which will be critical for the next US president who will have to deal with two wars, a slowing economy and a financial system that’s rapidly falling apart.

The bad news is that the race is still tight, and presidential debates, historically, have not had much of an impact on the outcomes of elections. John Kerry outperformed George W. Bush four years ago, but that didn’t matter.Many reasons have been cited for why the race is so close, despite the clear unpopularity of the Republicans. Let’s go straight to a critical reason: Obama is only slightly ahead of McCain because of his race.

Sadly, race is an issue even for Filipino Americans. I already discussed my views on this issue in a previous column in February. And since then, I’ve only heard more examples of our own brand of racism and ignorance, of judging a leader’s potential based on skin color.

But there have also been signs of hope.

“It will now depend on ground operations in which Obama has an advantage,” Francis Calpotura, a veteran community organizer in Oakland who founded the League of Filipino Students-USA back in the 1980s, told me. “Para sa akin (to me), it will still boil down to this question: Would older (40-60 yrs) white voters in those swing states be ready to elect a black president?”

He added, “What would be good to see is what Filipinos in Nevada would do. That's why I'm going to Reno and hopefully reach out to the Filipinos there.”

Calpotura was among the leaders of a group of Filipino American activists who traveled to the battleground state of Nevada to pound the pavement for Obama

Then there’s Gayle Gatchalian who wrote to me about my earlier column, which asked, “Will Pinoys reject Obama because he’s black?”

“I just wanted to thank you for writing that,” she said. “My entire family hates Barack Obama and I can't have a decent conversation with them without a mention of Muslim, Hussein, evil etc. and the myriad other issues that have come out that proves he is a decent human being. I understand that it's because they have something against black people, and my black friends have tried to explain it to me.

“It’s hard to be post-racial and clearly, if America is going to move on from the 20th century, it needs someone who can take them there and the B-man is the best (and only) option on the table right now.”