The wisdom of crowds US elections 2008: Barack Obama's critics say his campaign has become a cult of personality, but what's wrong with a little optimism? Michael Tomasky The Guardian http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_tomasky/2008/02/ the_wisdom_of_crowds.html It is evidently now incumbent upon Barack Obama to make a campaign appearance not in Milwaukee or Madison or Kenosha - Wisconsin cities that would constitute logical pit-stops in the week leading up to that state's important primary - but on the Sea of Galilee. There's a public beach there, as I recall from a trip made in my youth, and what Obama apparently needs to do is to walk across the sand and into the water, probably at least sternum high, in order to prove to doubters that he cannot walk on it. Because, you see, Obama's campaign has become a "cult of personality". Young people flock to his appearances. Some of them have mystical, faraway looks in their eyes. Many speak of the man in a hopeful and buoyant key that is not "appropriate" to politics. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton's supporters are by contrast a wizened (and wiser) cohort, alert to life's inherent unfairness. Obama's people want the delivered truth. Clinton's just want some healthcare. Like any caricature, the portrait has some basis in truth. Any time you get millions of young people involved in a project, it takes on the feel of a movement. It becomes a little idealistic. Its defining features do tend to include optimism - even perhaps a somewhat unrealistic optimism - and do not tend to include steely pragmatism. I would have thought these were good things! Would it be better that young people were once again floating along on the usual currents of dissolution and apathy? Would dark pessimism about the country be a preferable state? And most of all, is it incumbent upon the candidate, having inspired this reaction in people, to tamp it down? The New York Times implied as much last week in an editorial that said the Obama campaign seemed at times "to teeter on becoming a cult of personality - a feeling that the candidate and those around him do nothing to dispel". Later came Paul Krugman, who repeated the phrase in a column a few days ago that bordered on incoherent (equating Obama's appeal with George Bush's flight-suit trick, among other oddities). It was in mulling over these gems that I got my idea - brilliant, if I may say so myself! - for the ablutionary rite at Galilee. But more seriously: There are some obvious differences among types of mass movements. It's pretty clear looking through history that the scary ones are built on anger that demagogic leaders channel into hatred of a scapegoat, and it's pretty clear that while Obama and his admirers are angry about a lot of things that have happened in this country - exactly the same things that Clinton and her admirers are angry about, by the way - Obama's people aren't hating on a powerless minority group, and Obama isn't a demagogue feeding their seething resentments. Jim Sleeper has an excellent post over at TPM Caf é that goes into more detail and makes an argument about Obama's ability to "balance anger with disciplined love". In political terms, the phrase "cult of personality" comes, of course, from Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech" in which he denounced Stalinism and Stalin worship. The phrase has taken on more general meanings, and I wouldn't allege that the Times and Krugman were equating Obama with Stalin. But I do think that given this particular history people ought to be careful about such phrases. "Final solution" has generic meanings, too, but you don't see editorial boards and pundits saying that Politician X has come up with a final solution to this or that problem. And with damn good reason. Obama has excited millions of people not only about politics but about the possibility and potential of their country. He's done it by imploring them to be hopeful and united. This is sinister or creepy? Please. That's just about certain people's need to be cynical or clever. I understand that and will even allow that the world needs such people, who will stand outside the crowd and ask it difficult questions. But cynicism and cleverness can be overrated, as indeed Obama may yet prove. --

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