Barack Obama 'saves the world' (between speeches)

First, it was "Change you can believe in," a nice friendly bit of folderol that was no more scary than "I Like Ike." Heck, Bill Clinton used "It's Time to Change America" back in 1992, and he only scared a few Republicans.

But lately the slogan coming out of the Obama campaign is "We can save the world," which shows that some people can believe anything - and will - without the slightest provocation or evidence.

Now before any of Barack Obama's supporters light their torches and come after me, I want to point out that I am not making any of this up. That really is a slogan used by Obama's campaign - like it or not. I personally don't like it, and I don't see any reason why I should not say so. It seems to me the reason our country is in the mess it is in today is because too few people are willing to speak up and say what they believe. The golden rule today is "Go along to get along." Only trouble is we are not getting along.

I'll leave it to someone else to dig up evidence of the exact evolution of the Obama campaign's slogans, but from what I can tell, "We can save the world" actually started out as "We can change the world; we can save the planet," and then somewhere along the way it got shortened to the messianic trope that bedazzles soccer moms, high-powered execs, ghetto kids and seasoned politicians about equally.

I've been able to find references to it that date back as far as the Texas primary. A Time magazine story refers to "Obama… running Austin television ads that are vaguely Woodstockian with smiling faces and young, casually dressed supporters cheering and waving. 'We can save the world!' the graphic exclaims." (www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1715329,00.html)

I suppose in some respect it doesn't matter whether you are promising to save the planet or save the world. Either is overreaching, but offering to save the world also seems a bit, well, messianic. How could you vote against someone who can save the world? That silly Hillary just wants to give people universal health care. How can she possibly compete with a brazen promise of salvation?

But for those few people who still have their feet on the ground, a couple of questions - When exactly did politics become concerned with salvation? (I always thought that was the proper job of religion.) And how exactly do we save the world?

Of course, the idea is not new. Christians believe that Jesus arrived on the planet 2,000 years ago with the same mission, so we should not dismiss the idea out of hand. The question is: Do you want a politician doing the saving?

Oh sure, through the years there have been some charismatic candidates who have aroused something like religious fervor among their followers. Bobby Kennedy may have been the last of the serious candidates before Barack Obama to do so. William Jennings Bryan a hundred years ago apparently was quite a spell-binder as well, and was even something of a Bible thumper.

In other countries, with other systems, political leaders have used their personal charisma and rhetorical gifts to achieve great power. In the last century, many examples abound, most notably I suppose Hitler and Mao. In both cases, there were certainly those among their followers who may have mistaken powerful men for true avatars - gods who have descended to earth for a special purpose (usually mixed in with nationalistic agendas).

That kind of threat has never been a problem here. The common sense of the American people has so far guarded us against every threat of royalism and despotism starting with Aaron Burr, and it may well protect us again. There is no absolute certainty that Americans would blindly follow a charismatic leader into dangerous territory, but we should at least be aware of the possibility. Certainly, there is a strain of cultic thinking in America which occasionally leads us to such dead ends as Jim Jones and the Guyana Kool-Aid Massacre. People who will believe anything will do anything, and ultimately may be willing to die for anything.

No, I am not saying that Barack Obama is Jim Jones - or Mao - or Hitler. What I am saying is that the lessons of our past - our very recent past - are full of examples of what happens when people follow blindly a leader who they don't really know. After all, Hitler wasn't "Hitler" either when he was a 20-year-old art student. He only became "Hitler" because the German people allowed him to do so.

The American people have never been similarly fooled. Could you imagine anyone voting for Richard Nixon if his slogan had been "We can save the world"? Or what about Hillary Clinton? She would be locked up with 24-hour observation for exhibiting symptoms of megalomania if she tried to save the world! If John McCain said he was going to save the world, people would start building bomb shelters. But Obama's messianic fervor is dismissed as "change you can believe in."

It looks more and more like Obama will win the Democratic nomination (or anointing, which may be more appropriate in his case) so I would just encourage people to start thinking about whether or not they think salvation comes from slick-talking politicians or from God. If it is from God, you might start praying.

. Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com