Convictions in Things Not Seen

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the convictions of things not seen,” the Letter to the Hebrews tells us. I couldn’t help thinking of that today when I scanned the list of articles on Real Clear Politics .

A piece in Roll Call ponders which notes the discrepancy between the two possible versions of Barack Obama that could be elected: “After 22 months that he’s been campaigning, after thousands of speeches, dozens of debates and reams of position papers, it’s still not clear if he is a pragmatic post-partisan unifier or a populist liberal ideologue.” After a back-and-forth consideration of many questions and the possible sides Obama could take, the article ends: “Let’s hope he’s the man we hope he is.”

An article in the National Journal has a similar list of hopes and wonders, concluding that Obama “the liberal ideologue could be a political failure; the pragmatic reformer could be a great leader.”

Finally The Economist endorses Obama, noting that: “the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.”

I’m not so sure. I tend to think that a man’s voting record and remarks outside of a campaign are just as important, if not more so, than his conduct in a debate or in a convention hall. Furthermore, I have much less faith than these authors that a President Obama would rise above the party agenda he supports to attain a common ground he wouldn’t need.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the convictions of things not seen.” Maybe I’m too much of a pessimist, but I haven’t seen anything more solid than rhetoric—albeit the finest rhetoric America has seen in a long time—on which I can base a hope that is more than foolish, wishful optimism.

If he’s elected, I sure hope Sen. Obama’s the man many hope him to be. It’s just that the things I have seen keep getting in the way of any assurance or convictions of my own.