Obama's indirect approach to our darkness --alluding to it glancingly while holding up the light-- worked beautifully for the early phase of his campaign. Perhaps now, while the darkness is coming after him, he'll need a different approach.

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How will --how should-- Obama deal now with the dark forces that now permeate the arena of political power in America?

For me, this question has a most interesting history.

Up until the second half of January, I essentially disregarded the Obama campaign, and those of all the other candidates, because I was not hearing the "prophetic" message I was listening for. By my lights, there was one clear thing most needful in America ever since the election of 2004: that the evils of this criminal regime --unprecedented in American history-- be exposed and denounced and repudiated.

This was the unequivocal message of the piece with which I launched this website, "What America Needs Now: A Prophetic Social Movement that Speaks Moral Truth to Amoral Power" at
But America -- the opposition, the press, and the people-- has in general shrunk from that task, a failure that led me to write, last fall, my "Lament of a True Patriot." (See click here And then, in the Democratic campaign for the presidency, that voice of prophetic truth-telling was also absent, which prevented my feeling invested in any of the candidates, including Obama.

And then, on the night of the South Carolina primary, I suddenly saw in Obama something that hadn't registered before: maybe there was another, less confrontational way for the Good to triumph over the Evil, and maybe Obama was showing the way. And, moreover, maybe Obama's INDIRECT way --working to build up the good without directly fighting against the evil-- was better suited to the spiritual state of today's America than my more CONFRONTATIONAL, prophetic way.

Here's how that idea came out back on February 29, on the "Schmookler is Available for Conversation" thread of that day. (See click here

Above, I said of myself that, if I’d been confronted as Obama was in the debate with video of Hillary’s mockery, I’d have done something differently from Obama’s gracious way of deflecting –even appreciating– what many people found offensive. I said:


"I would have used that as an opportunity to talk about hope vs. cynicism, and about the importance right now of a sense of possibility in America, so that no, it would not just automatically happen, but that if the American people are inspired, truly, great things are possible. And that it is the job of leadership to inspire that energy, to summon forth the best of our possibilities and, by channeling that energy to the hard work ahead, help the American people fulfill their potential to create a better, healthier, more honest, more harmonious society."

Although, in some respects, I like my response better, I came to suspect that Obama's way is more effective for this time and place.

What would have happened had he responded my way? I think that America would “trust” him less-- trust him in a particular respect, because of a particular need that America now seems to have.

Here’s the essential point: I BELIEVE THAT AMERICA IS AFRAID TO GO TO BATTLE against the Bushites, afraid to acknowledge and combat the dark forces. That’s what I think is behind the panorama of failure in the American body politic that I described last fall in “The Lament of a True Patriot." I don’t really understand the fear, but I believe that IT IS POSSIBLE that Obama recognizes that fear, or intuits it, or perhaps that he has a style that just by chance is well-matched to the moment.

Americans, at any rate, have flocking to Obama, I am venturing to suggest, because he is doing two things: a) he’s saying that the Good can win (”Yes We Can”) and that b) we do not need to enter into the arena of battle against the evil to achieve that victory.

Americans yearn for something better, and they are afraid to confront evil in order to achieve it. Hence, Obama taps into the yearning while calming the fears.

That’s why his pattern of deflecting –his akido, his agreeableness, his willingness to find humor and good performance in Hillary’s mocking of his inspirational summoning forth of hope– is so well suited to the needs of this moment. And why he appears to be heading toward the presidency.

I was full of admiration, and happy to follow Obama in his way of gathering the forces of goodness while downplaying the picture of evil's ascendancy in the body politic and while steering clear of confronting those evils too directly. Happy to learn from him that there are other ways than mine of fighting and winning such a battle.

But then came a significant change. Then the dark forces came looking for him.

Then came the dark, kitchen-sink assault on Obama in the final days before the Ohio and Texas primaries, and then also the clear evidence from the results of that voting that these attacks had succeeded. The success of lies, distortions, and innuendos in blunting Obama's rise and damaging his prospects demonstrated that the destructive political forces and spirit that Obama had refrained from attacking had now come gunning for him, and thus --I would argue-- Obama's path of non-confrontation ceased to be a viable, or at least wise option.

That deft and indirect manner in which Obama had dealt with the darkness had worked wonderfully for the first phase of the campaign. But now, clearly, it was time to develop a second approach for this new phase. Perhaps if that second approach had been ready and brought into the battle in the days before Ohio and Texas voted, the nomination process would already be successfully completed. But the Obama campaign was not ready, and besides, it did not recognize until the damage was done that what had worked so well before was no longer sufficient. Generals are always fighting the last war, and Obama and his strategists can certainly be forgiven for being a bit slow to alter a posture of proven success.

Commentators since March 4 have been widely discussing the supposed "dilemma" of the Obama campaign: should it just take this punishment, and show weakness, or should it get down in the mire with Hillary and lose its luster.

I have argued that Obama has a better choice that avoids both those pitfalls: in "Here's How Obama Should Fight Back," I say that Obama should fight back in a way that will be fully integrated with his overall message that the Old Politics is dark and corrupt and destructive and that he is offering a new kind of politics based on truth and honor and enlisting the best energies of the American people. (See
Although the commentators were presenting a false dilemma, there IS a dilemma: if Americans flocked to Obama, in part, because he gave assurance to Americans wanting to prevail over evil but not wanting to face it too squarely or to go to battle against it, how much of his appeal might Obama sacrifice if he now turns and speaks more directly about the darkness that his campaign promises to prevail against?

In my "Here's How Obama Should Fight Back," I illustrate the Aikido approach of transforming Hillary's attack into grist for his "New-Politics" mill with words like these:

"When Hillary tries to change the rules in the middle of the game and be awarded the delegates from the disallowed Michigan and Florida primaries, Obama should do more than argue against it. He should say: "After seven years of a president who has violated the Constitution he took an oath to defend, and who has run roughshod over the rules that are supposed to maintain our precious system of checks and balances, does America need another president who shows so little respect for the rules everybody agreed to follow in this election process?"

Is that too strong? Are enough of the American people ready to hear such language? In his majors speeches, Obama has at least gestured indirectly toward such a truth, saying that America needs a president who knows the Constitution, and who RESPECTS the Constitution. But even with the emphasis on "respects," that is far more gentle on the ears of an apparently timid American people than talk of "a president who has violated the Constitution he took an oath to defend, and who has run roughshod over the rules that are supposed to maintain our precious system of checks and balances..."

(Likewise with Obama's glancing and gentle references to the Bushites' divisiveness, their making America hated around the world, their serving corporate power at the expense of the people, and other ways in which they've assaulted the political culture of America: Obama has subtly signaled that he sees the darkness, but does so almost parenthetically, while putting virtually all his emphasis on holding up the light.)

For many of us --perhaps even numbered in the millions-- strong language would be thrilling to hear. Over these past few years, when any of our leaders --Feingold or Conyers or Leahy or Dodd-- have spoken of the Bushite darkness in clear, strong language they've become our heroes, if only for a moment before the conspiracy of silence about the elephant in the room descends again, and the country goes on with its business as if the White House were occupied by a normal president instead of by the very kind of usurpatious power that our Founders warned us about.

But there's reason to doubt if there are ENOUGH of us who like to hear this dark truth spoken straight. And Obama does need to calibrate his degree of confrontation to achieve two tasks which may be in tension: first, to successfully turn the attacks on him against the attackers, leaving them discredited and the reasons why America needs Obama high-lighted; and second, to preserve what is hopeful and positive and reassuring about his offer to be a transformational leader for America.

Two hopeful points to make about this need for calibration:

**It is not necessary to make any hard-and-fast decision about how to pitch it. Between now and the Pennsylvania primary, Obama can try different levels of confrontation with his attackers, as well as different levels of vividness in describing the frightening aspects of the status quo he seeks to transform, and see how the electorate responds.

**And Obama has shown himself to be gifted at crafting messages that operate at different levels to achieve subtleties of impact. There are reasons to feel confident that he and his team could pull this off as well.

That is, unless there's something in Obama that disables him from the combat that has been foisted upon him by the way that dark forces are now coming at him. And if such combat is not within his impressive arrays of competency and talent, then he's not the president we need in 2009. For America's failure uo deal with this crisis as our Founders had intended has left the forces of evil largely intact, and a transformational president will not succeed without being able to go up against monsters and slay them. He will not succeed unless he's fully able to prevail over the ugly, the false, the destructive, and the unfair.

Let the battle begin. I relish the prospect.

Authors Bio:
Andy Schmookler, an award-winning author, political commentator, radio talk-show host, and teacher, was the Democratic nominee for Congress from Virginia's 6th District. His new book -- written to have an impact on the central political battle of our time -- is WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINST. His previous books include The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution, for which he was awarded the Erik H. Erikson prize by the International Society for Political Psychology.