Patriotism – last refuge of scoundrels, and undoing of Democratic candidates

Declaring their love of the US is one of the most powerful weapons in the Republicans' arsenal – and it's forcing Obama on to the centre ground

The Independent, July 6, 2008

AP
Waving the flag: Obama and family celebrating the Fourth of July in the traditional style

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On Independence Day weekends in presidential election years, the ritual is normally immutable. The candidates tour the heartland, dutifully down their hot dogs and hamburgers, and, on this most patriotic of national holidays, declare their undying love for America and all it stands for. The country, meanwhile, gets on with the barbecues, parades and fireworks, and pays not a blind bit of attention.

This time, though, there's a difference. In American politics, patriotism is the most potent of issues – and in 2008, a number of Americans seem to harbour some doubt over whether the love of the US on the part of one candidate is quite as wholesome and undying as it should be. Which is why Barack Obama, Democrat and possibly the most liberal member of the US Senate, has spent the past week on a mission to plant his own flag in the safe, indisputably patriotic, political centre.

His travels have been as instructive geographically as ideologically. First was Independence, Missouri, heartland home town of Harry Truman, that most down-to-earth of American Presidents. There, Mr Obama proclaimed his "deep and abiding love for this country". Then he was in Ohio, talking up faith-based social service, an issue so dear to America's Christian "moral majority".

Then on to Colorado Springs, a town that lives and breathes the US armed forces. In case anyone missed the point, the next day in North Dakota he was talking up the need to look after America's veterans better. Rounding things off was Independence Day itself – 4 July, which he chose to spend in Montana, "Big Sky Country" and symbol of the mythical Old West, so tightly bound up with America's image of itself.

Mr Obama's precautions are wise. Dr Johnson described patriotism as the last refuge of the scoundrel; in the US it is the first resort of the Republicans come election time.

Continued . . .