Only God can judge me
Barack Obama is going against his earlier pledge and opting out of the public financing system. If it works, he will not only win this election but open up the game for the democratic party in the future. He’s already potentially included a new demographic, young people, into the democratic camp and now he might bring in some new states to the “contested” category. If it succeeds, I predict it will be heralded as an ingenious strategy and he a genius, unintimidated by those trying to trap him into a broken system where the chips are stacked against him. On the flipside, if it fails, he will be called a hypocrit politician, buoyed by hubris. Like a lot of things in life, how he will be judged as a person depends on whether he is successful.
Of course, this captures the difference between who you are and what story you tell about yourself/what stories are told about you. I want to show up and have people recognize who I am in the moment, not understand me through some narrative constructed after the facts where people put together the “pieces.” This isn’t me talking about myself, but talking about how I think the world ought to be understood.
