To Dream a Little Dream of Us
This contest is not about who is the best orator; it is more about who is the best dream merchant.
It will not be Ronald Reagan's "Morning again in America." the times are too dicey for that. But the Republican National Convention this week, no less than the Democratic one that just ended, will be a showcase for dreams—and arguments about how to make them real.
The Republicans will do their best to match the Democrats' soaring rhetoric. Though, on that front, they will be challenged. It's hard to imagine Cindy McCain evoking the fervor of Michelle Obama, or Tim Pawlenty and Arnold Schwarzenegger generating the drama and heat of back-to-back Clintons. And as compelling as John McCain's own life story is, he will be hard-pressed to top the oratory of Barack Obama—whose acceptance speech was all the more poignant for coming on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legendary discourse on a dream whose fulfillment some see in Obama himself.
But this contest is not about who is the best orator; it is more about who is the best dream merchant. Make no mistake: both candidates, and both parties, have dreams to sell. Or, more accurately, they have different versions of the same dream— the American Dream. In the end, the election is likely to go to the candidate who best argues his dream is the more authentic—and his approach the most American.
Both candidates claim they are children of the Dream. Both are eloquent in offering up their versions of what it did for them, and of what it can do for other Americans. McCain's Republican version emphasizes toughness, individuality and loyalty—to country, to friends—that trumps virtually anything else. The Republican convention, themed "Country First," will wrap that vision in an American flag. It will roll out the narrative of an authentic war hero fighting a battle to lead an America that, while enduring some hard times, is basically sound. It will also be a celebration of the doggedness and ingenuity of the American people—people who, in McCain's opinion, are smart enough to know that a young man with a silver tongue but meager experience cannot lead them into a brilliant morning.
Obama's Democratic version of the Dream focuses less on celebrating individual success and more on protecting the vulnerable. But Obama also believes something that McCain does not: that the Dream itself is endangered. Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, said the dream "feels as if it's slowly slipping away." Many Obama supporters share his concern and think that dramatic measures are required. As Bernard Anderson (an assistant secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration and an Obama delegate) put it, "The fundamental process of upward mobility has broken down."
Within seconds of Obama's speech in Denver, the McCain camp blasted out what it deemed to be a corrective of the misleading claims Obama had made. Among them was Obama's statement that McCain didn't believe American families were hurting—that in McCain's view, the country had made "great progress economically."
In the longer version of that interview, McCain dutifully noted that the nation's great economic progress was of "no comfort to families now that are facing these tremendous economic challenges." Only after that caveat did he add: "the fundamentals of America's economy are strong. We're the greatest exporter, the greatest importer, the greatest innovator, the greatest producer, still the greatest economic engine in the world." He also acknowledged that times were tough and that families in small Pennsylvania towns were aware of that. To McCain, he was not out of touch, as Obama said, but very much in sync with the feelings of the public. The larger point was that the Dream was strong and that his policies would make it even stronger.
Like all campaigns, this one will be not just about competing dreams and proposals. It will be about character, maturity and leadership, and how those things are measured; about ground operations in battleground states, and who has the strongest. It will feature all matter of attacks and counterattacks, and smears by surrogates careful to keep a certain distance from the candidate they favor. And it will induce endless debate about that which arguably should not matter at all—race, age, depth of religious beliefs and feelings about subjects ranging from bowling to gays.
But in an interesting way—and for all the noise in the background—this may be the purest election since 1980, when Reagan reduced the essence of it to a simple question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
McCain and Obama have fundamentally different takes on how to keep the Dream alive for the millions who are hurting and fearful of the future. In Denver Obama made his best effort to date to explain why he is right. This week McCain has his chance. In the next two months, political operatives will blow a lot of smoke in voters' eyes in an attempt to distract us from what is truly important. The way out of such confusion now, just as in 1980, is to do what Reagan did: make the contest about which candidate can best help Americans realize their defining dream. Then everyone votes accordingly.
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Ellis Cose, author, columnist and contributing editor (since 1993) for Newsweek magazine and former chairman of the editorial board and editorial page editor of the New York Daily News, began his journalism career as a weekly columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times—becoming, at the age of 19, the youngest editorial page columnist ever employed by a major Chicago daily. Cose, who is also an independent radio producer, is a popular campus lecturer and public speaker.
In addition to serving as a columnist, editor and national correspondent for the Chicago Sun-Times, Cose has been a contributor and press critic for Time magazine, president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Journalism Education, chief writer on management and workplace issues for USA Today (where he has also served as an occasional columnist and member of the board of contributors) and a member of the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press. He has also been a fellow at the Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia University, at the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences, a senior fellow and director of energy policy studies at the Washington-based Joint Center for Political Studies, and a consultant to the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.
Cose's Bone to Pick: On Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation and Revenge, was published by Atria (a Simon and Schuster imprint) in April 2004. The book is a wide-ranging look at a number of societies—the United States, Ghana, South Africa, East Timor, and Peru among them—and their ways of coping with cruelty and pain. The Washington Post had this to say: "The complex questions surrounding 'forgiveness, reconciliation, reparation, and revenge' probably require a scholarship of jurisprudence, philosophy, psychology, history and literature. This is the kind of ambitious enterprise that the world's great religions deal with. But Cose meets the challenge, and Bone to Pick ranges over centuries of contested histories, across five continents, spinning individual tragedies in and out of collective traumas, seeking the nature of 'forgiveness, albeit as a proxy for a larger set of values.' … The truth may be a prized (and politicized) commodity in the quest for social justice, but as Cose observes, quoting Czech novelist Milan Kundera, 'The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.' Bone to Pick is a timely reminder of that axiom and a useful addition to the canon of that struggle."
Cose's The Envy of the World, an in-depth essay on the state of black men in America, was published by Washington Square Press (an imprint of Simon and Schuster) in 2002 and has appeared on several best-seller lists, including the Essence magazine list, where it was number one. Newsweek featured the book on its cover and National Public Radio produced a special a program based on it. Kirkus Reviews called The Envy of the World, "A slender volume with a substantial and significant message." The Washington Post described it as "lucid, eloquent and deeply personal book." The Chicago Tribune called its author "a gifted, rhapsodic essayist." "Cose charts both an urgently argued history of black masculinity and a moving and nuanced snapshot of where it is now," declared Publishers' Weekly. The paperback edition was published in January 2003.
In May 2004 the Rockefeller Foundation issued Beyond Brown v. Board: The Final Battle for Excellence in American Education—a major report authored by Cose on the legacy of the historic Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision and the current challenges facing American educators. The report was the basis of a Newsweek cover feature and for a David Broder column and other stories in the national press. In November 2006, the Institute for Justice and Journalism at USC's Annenberg School published Cose's Killing Affirmative Action: Would ending it really result in a better, more perfect Union? That report, featured in several newspaper and in Newsweek magazine, examined California's 10-year experience living with Proposition 209, the measure that ended affirmative action in the public sector in California.
Cose's best-selling The Rage of a Privileged Class, a book-length essay on race in America, was published by HarperCollins in January 1994. It was featured as a Newsweek cover story and described by The New York Times Book Review as a "disciplined, graceful exposition of a neglected aspect of the subject of race in America." His A Man's World (published by HarperCollins in June 1995), was featured in a front page review in The New York Times Book Review. The Washington Post called it "a valuable, cogent and well-written contribution to an enormously complex subject."
Color-Blind: Seeing Beyond Race in a Race-Obsessed World (published in January 1997 and also excerpted in Newsweek) explored America's continuing obsession with race. The New York Times Book Review called it "a book this country desperately needs, one with genuine healing potential," and included Color-Blind among its best book of the year recommendations for 1997. Cose edited an essay collection entitled The Darden Dilemma published by HarperCollins in March 1997. His debut novel, The Best Defense, was published by HarperCollins in September 1998 ("a formidable first novel...crisp, fast-paced and engaging. In a genre glutted with lightweight fare, The Best Defense reaches higher"— The Seattle Times).
Cose is also the author of A Nation of Strangers, a history of American immigration, published by William Morrow and Co. in 1992 and of The Press, published by Morrow in 1989. He is the author of Energy and the Urban Crisis (1979) and the editor of Energy and Equity: Some Social Concerns (1978), both published by the Joint Center for Political Studies. He also wrote The Rebirth of Community Power, published by Westview Press: 1983.
At the Institute for Journalism Education (at the University of California, Berkeley), Cose designed and directed a widely quoted study on journalism careers published by IJE: The Quiet Crisis: Minority Journalists and Newsroom Opportunity (1985). He also instituted and served as inaugural director of IJE's Management Training Center at Northwestern University.
In his capacity as president of Ellis Cose, Inc. Cose has produced, written and hosted the pilot for a multimedia documentary series: "Against the Odds." The radio project (which has received funding from the Ford Foundation and will be distributed by Public Radio International) profiles individuals who have overcome tremendous adversity. It aspires to provide continuing and better coverage—in public radio but also on the web and in other media, including print—of people and communities often relegated to the margins of society. It also aims to stimulate thinking on how they, and their respective societies, can overcome that marginalization. The pilot focuses on a young man from a refugee camp in northern Kenya who, studying by the light of a rechargeable lamp, managed to get himself into Princeton University.
Cose has appeared on The Today Show, Nightline, Dateline, ABC Evening News, Good Morning America, the PBS "Time to Choose" election special, Charlie Rose, CNN's Talk Back Live, and a variety of other nationally televised and local programs. He has been interviewed for British, Brazilian and Canadian television. He is also a judge for the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. Cose has received fellowships or individual grants from the Ford Foundation, The Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, and numerous journalism awards—including the University of Missouri medal for career excellence and distinguished service in journalism, two Clarion awards, and four National Association of Black Journalists first place awards. He was also named the 2002 winner of the New York Association of Black Journalists' lifetime achievement award, winner of the 2003 award for best magazine feature from the National Association of Black Journalists as well as the winner of two New York Association of Black Journalists' first place 2003 awards for commentary and magazine features. In 2004 Cose was named the first recipient of the newly inaugurated annual Vision Award from the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. In 2006 he won a Unity award for commentary and also shared in a first place award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
A Chicago native, Cose holds a master's degree in Science, Technology and Public Policy from George Washington University. He is married to Lee Llambelis, former legal director for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and current director of intergovernmental relations for the Attorney General of New York. He has a daughter, Elisa Maria.
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