Barack Obama on the campaign trail

Last night after the debate, I was watching Charlie Rose when one of my favorite contributors, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, was asked by another participant what she thought Obama’s motivation was. In previous presidents like Clinton, Bush I, and Bush II, the pundit claimed, there was a deep-seated need to prove themselves, a desire to serve, yes, but married to a desire to “be the president.” Obama, he said, doesn’t seem to have that kind of personal stake, so where does his energy and commitment come from?

Kearns Goodwin replied that her sense was that Obama had decided to run now (instead of waiting his turn as others in the Democratic party might have wanted him to) because he sensed that now is the opportune time when Americans can and will take the leap into the future. He sensed that this is the time when he could have not merely a presidency, but a great presidency, one in which he could truly lead and truly serve.

She likened this attitude to Abraham Lincoln’s in the run up to the Civil War and stated that it takes a special kind of person to want to lead in turbulent, chaotic times. Obama doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone on a personal level, she said. Instead, he sees that the time is ripe for America to flower more fully into the promise of what it could be, and believes he can facilitate that change.

Of course, I don’t know Barack Obama well enough to know if Kearns Goodwin’s analysis is accurate or not, but I hope with everything in me that it is. Now is the time for us to change everything, and we need a leader who understands that.

At the same time, I was a bit disappointed in the debate last night, as I have been with all of the debates. Both candidates are talking small—a tax cut here, an energy program there—when what we need are big ideas for rethinking everything we do.

We need to remake our economy so that it serves the real needs of human beings rather than the creation of ever more money. We need to rethink the way we see ourselves in the world, realizing our fundamental interdependence with every other living thing on the planet. We need to open our minds and hearts to the idea that unending material wealth is not a human right, nor does it even make us happy.

We need even to rethink the way we produce the food we eat, and Michael Pollan lays out a vigorously researched and thoroughly though-out plan for doing so in this week’s New York Times magazine, in an open letter to the next president entitled “Farmer in Chief.” In this piece he exhorts the next president to use governmental policies to encourage the shift from our current industrial fossil-fuel-based industrial food system to a decentralized sun-based system.

Right now it takes 10 calories of fuel, on average, to produce 1 calorie of food, which seems completely upside down even to me. He proposes instead a network of farmers and gardeners taking advantage of the special attributes of their regions in order to grow varied, healthful, fresh food all over the country.

His piece culminates in the vision of a lovely organic farm on the White House lawn as a symbol and example of this new thinking, where each of us participates in the life process in an individual and a collective way. By transforming our food system, Pollan says, we will address our environmental, economic, and health problems in one fell swoop.

I hope that Obama reads “Farmer in Chief,” because I believe that Pollan’s plan could form the centerpiece of the new way of living we are trying to find and that, if Doris Kearns Goodwin is right, Barack Obama wants to lead us to. We need to convert from a fuel-based food system to a sun-based food system, yes, and we also need to convert our educational system from metrics-based to child-based, and our healthcare system from disease-based to strength-based.

Our society as a whole needs to change from being based on consumption and money to being based on humanity and life. We need to find something to live for besides our next paycheck, our next home, or our next giant TV. Our next administration can provide the external stimulus to get us moving in a more humane direction, and I certainly hope it will.

At the same time, it’s up to each of us to open ourselves up to what the future could be, and to step up and create it. Each of us must be willing to be the one to make it happen. From educating ourselves and pushing our elected leaders to change government policies, to planting Freedom Gardens and forging connections with our neighbors and communities, the stand we take can and must take many forms.

It’s true that we probably can’t expect everyone to take up the mantle, but if a lot of us do, then that may be enough. In the end, there’s really only one way to find out, and that’s to commit ourselves, put our heads together, and figure it out.

As I sit here on pins and needles for the next 20 days, waiting to see which leader our country will choose for this turbulent time, and waiting to see what that man will do with his opportunity to lead us, I’m also thinking about how I can change my life to be more focused on responsibility, community, and reality. I have lots of ideas to share over the coming weeks.

What do you think about the election and how much do you think a new president can change things? How can we use the current crisis our culture is facing for the purposes of transformation? I hope you’ll share your ideas in the comments.