Obama doesn't worry me

I know a lot of people who are worried about Obama: who he'll choose for vice-president, how he will respond to the endless attack ads, the kind of advisors surrounding him. One thing that seems to be constant about the people I know who fear he'll blow it in some way — pick Sam Nunn or become a supply-sider or do a Kerry on the ads — few of them had Obama as their first choice. They are supporters via the process of elimination.

I have supported Barack Obama from the beginning. When I knew in early 2007 that I could not support Hillary because of her terrible vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq, and it was pretty clear Al Gore was not going to run, my inclination was to check out Obama. I did not have to finish "The Audacity of Hope" to realize this man was special and deserved my support. But once I did finish the book, I not only sent him money, I began doing what I could to actively support him.

And as the primary campaign went from exciting to amazing and then to gruelling, I learned an important lesson about my candidate: He has the ability to not merely meet the great challenges facing him; he finds a way to exceed hopes. His speech in Philadelphia in reaction to the Rev Wright situation was incredible. Could any other politician have taken what was becoming a runaway disaster and turn it into a pivotal moment in American history? Yet no matter what the outcome of this election, that speech is going to matter as we move into the future. It will become the "I have a dream" of the early 21st Century.

So do I fear how the man who made that speech will run his campaign? Not at all. Does this mean I have no worries about how the campaign will end? Not at all. There are far too many things Obama, Axelrod and Plouffe cannot control. Given the mainstream media's refusal to apply the same critical standards to McCain that they do to Obama — where, after all, are the stories about how McCain dumped his first wife soon after he got back from Vietnam because she lost her good looks in a car accident? — it's entirely possible this election could be lost to negative advertising and the refusal of the MSM to apply journalistic standards to those ads and the people and groups behind them.

Yet I am confident that Obama and his campaign team will be up to the task. He has not failed to come through yet. He has hit back at McCain, not every ad but enough that, here in August, when few people are paying attention, enough to let people know that he won't be repeating Kerry's mistakes. They won't be able to take on every attack from every group, but there are plenty of groups in support of his candidacy to help in that regard. More importantly, there are millions of supporters who can hit back where it really counts: in the community, at home, at work. The ads will be all over the place, but so will we.

It's also possible they'll over-do it. The debates will show Obama as thoughtful, intelligent, witty, and about ten million times more qualified than McCain. The more the ads try to tear him down, the more people are likely to react at the abundance of attack. And given that Obama's own responses are going to be measured and thoughtful while still hard-hitting, I think for a change we have a chance to make it through the shitstorm that's a-coming. Of all the factors involved in that success, the one I have the most confidence in, of course, is Obama himself. I worry about a lot of things, but almost never about the candidate. He has my confidence.