I've always been a firm independent, and probably right of center for the typical Obama constituency, but Obama himself has made me a lot more of a big-D Democrat than I ever thought I'd be. I find the transformation well worthy of some reflection.
First of all, a bit about how I see myself politically. I'm a classic liberal, which in the US means a hybrid of "liberal" and "conservative". The misuse of the word "liberal" in US politics is absolutely infuriating. If Republicans in the 90s needed a bogey word for Democrats, why pick a perfectly clear political designation in common use, and completely mix up its meaning? I'm a liberal in the sense that I cherish individual rights, and tend towards suspicion of the meddling of governments. This doesn't mean I have no suspicion of markets, but I think it's important to balance the role of governments and the role of markets. The biggest event relevant to that attitude in the US was Roosevelt's New Deal. Roosevelt was the greatest president of the 20th century. Period. I think Lincoln just pips him as the greatest president in US history. But even the work of great presidents can go stale. The New Deal was supposed to be a temporary measure, an extreme response to extreme national distress. It introduced ideas that labor had long fought for—massive regulation of agriculture, industry and banking, and most infamously a huge social welfare regime. All of these are reasonable in small doses to my center-right sensibility, but the New Deal was anything but a small dose. Still, it was desperate measures for desperate times. The only problem was that Labor, having finally gotten what they'd been pining for, engaged in extremely heavyweight political manipulation, and so the program lived on well past it's best-before date. The over-extension of the New Deal had several ill effects. We're still waiting on the ticking time-bomb of Social Security, and many of the welfare programs have put huge brakes on US economic productivity, even after reform, but the biggest effect was in radicalizing entire generations of fiscal liberals, and wedding these to the conservative movement, so that when these finally came to power, notably under Reagan, they pushed for the equally disastrous opposite of the New Deal—almost complete dominance of unregulated private interest. That's the sort of counter-over-reach that's brought us to today's meltdown of financial markets. On fiscal and government policy matters, I tend towards moderate Republicans (such as Christine Todd Whitman to throw out a random name) rather than Democrats. On social issues I think that law should generally balance local prerogatives with evolution of a universal sense of fundamental rights. I tend to recoil from groups looking to translate local moral prerogatives into broad law, and it so happens that at least in the US the groups I see as doing so are social conservatives. That has the effect of making me a Democrat on social matters, and not really a moderate, either. As a random example my healthy respect for Gavin Newsome probably puts me beyond the pale of moderation in such matters. So I figure I'm light red on fiscal issues (F) and deep blue on social issues (S). Interestingly enough, that tends to align me more with people at the top of the Democratic party than at the top of the Republican party. The Democrats' recent leading lights are Clinton (F=light red/S=deep blue) and now Obama (F=light red/S=deep blue). Contrast G.W. Bush (F=deep red/S=deep red) and McCain (F=deep red/S=light red). I think it's clear there has been more moderation at the top of the Democratic ticket. This keeps me independent, with a Democratic lean. I will say that both Dems and Repubs seem to have a penchant for extreme kooks in the legislative branch, which is why I share the public's general contempt for recent congresses. But I have a trump issue. I've spent 18 years of my life outside the US, having been born in Nigerian, and having lived in Nigeria, Europe, and the US. I'm incapable of seeing anything from a purely US point of view. International savvy is my trump issue, and immigrants are my dear constituency. My solidarity with fellow immigrants is very visceral, and very powerful. I identify as an immigrant (well before I would identify as black, for example). Incidentally, my other strong points of self-identification are as Nigerian (before my Igbo ethnicity) and Coloradan (before my American citizenship). I've found how powerful this impulse is: it's more powerful than almost any other political impulse of mine. I admired George H.W. Bush a great deal because of his foresight on China, and his role in détente between the US and China, taken at first at great risk to his career. I was not a US citizen, and thus not eligible to vote in 1992, but that respect for Bush Sr. just about balanced out my strong instinctive liking for Clinton. Of course Clinton quickly and emphatically proved himself on the international stage, in my eyes. Bush Jr.'s global uncouthness and buffoonery is as poisonous to me as his abysmal stewardship of his own country. I could watch every Ali G, Jackass and gross-out comedy and never see a scene as cringeworthy as Bush's attempted back rub of Angela Merkel. And the global picture is what really puts stars in my eyes for Obama. First of all, despite his youth and admitted sketchy experience, he has the bearing and presence of a diplomat with 30 years under his or her belt. He is as close to an immigrant as our constitution will allow in an presidential contender. He might even be able to speak some Indonesian (of course he would never admit that until he was safely elected—too many Americans are inexplicably suspicious of people who can speak a foreign language). So he has strong family connections to Indonesia and Kenya. He has a sister named Maya Soetoro-Ng. And for that reason we had some one with a surname of Soetoro-Ng addressing a major US political convention! Ooh. Checkmate. I'm smitten. Thanks to my global fetish, I'm completely head over heels. Race has little to do with it. If Obama were Kjell Håkon Knutsen with similar strong ties to Norge, I'd probably be just as moonstruck. Just the fact that he could get people over the fatuous coincidence of the "Osama" rhyme, or soar above the "what kinda fool name is Barack, anyway" factor is worth fighting for. Obama is actually the candidate who for perhaps the first time underscores the fact that Americans don't live on their own, oblivious planet. And I love the fact that he's the sort of guy who can go to Britain, France and Germany and get tens of thousands Europeans to wave American flags. Even Franklin and Jefferson in Paris weren't quite able accomplish that. I'm always having to defend Americans to non-Americans—to explain that most Americans are not as stupid as you'd think from watching our leaders. I believe Obama would help rehabilitate our image abroad on a gigantic scale, and that means a lot to me. A lot. It's not that I think McCain is any worse than the typical US president in the global picture frame. You could put a monkey in the White House and find improvement over G.W. Bush, but McCain actually has a respectable international background of his own. But it's really on the typical order of magnitude, whereas for me Obama completely re-calibrates the scales. There is also the footnote that I'm having a tough time forgetting that McCain in a sillier moment actually sang "bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" in public. Ugh. When I went to our local Democratic caucus to vote for Obama in my primaries, I mentioned the above reasons for my support of Obama, and I guess those in attendance appreciated the perspective (we had almost 100 people total for our precinct, compared to fewer than ten in 2004, as I was told).
They voted me an Obama delegate for Boulder, and the Boulder delegation voted me for state. I half considered running for the national delegation, until I saw how heavy the campaigning was for that (you'd almost think the prize was 6 years in Senate, the way folks were pitching themselves). Combine that with my (and Lori's) having volunteered a bit for the campaign, and I've gone so much further for Obama than I thought I could ever bring myself to do for a political candidate. I guess that's the way it goes. You never really know what will light your bulb for a leader.
So am I a Democrat now? Hmmmmm. Obama as president would still have a lot of work to do, for me. Most importantly, he has to not just navigate the current financial crises, but he also has to follow through and lead his party towards a rationalization of the remains of the New Deal. He has to do so sensibly and equitably. If he accomplishes that, he will have led his party to accomplish a great deal more than their supposedly fiscally conservative rivals ever managed in all their years of power. I could possibly settle for less than that, but that would certainly be the sort of accomplishment that could truly wed me to a party, and not just to its most extraordinary leader.