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Obama is unlikely to be the next president of America. Not because he is black - his tacit offer to white voters of absolution from the sin of slavery is his greatest political asset - but because his values are not those of most Americans. In the battle for the Democratic nomination. Obama invariably won university towns and state capitals - i.e., the redoubts of the talking classes. Clinton dominated those counties where the majority of voters are what political analyst Michael Barone describes as Jacksonian Democrats. Barone's Jacksonian Democrats are typically of Scotch-Irish stock (though many white Catholic males of later immigrant groups fit the profile). Primary among the core values of the Jacksonian Democrats is the belief in liberty, including, crucially, the willingness to fight to preserve that liberty. They are fiercely independent. "Live free or die" might serve as their motto. Freedom of speech and the right to bear arms rank high on the list of personal liberties that they value. In international affairs, their independence translates into dedication to the preservation of American sovereignty and support for a strong American military. The Jacksonian values are quintessentially American. The promotion of liberty has played a far more prominent role in American foreign policy than that of any other nation. Americans are far more ready to join the battle against Islamic jihad than Europeans. Free speech is better protected in the US today than in Europe or Canada, where various human rights councils have stifled free political speech in the name of "cultural sensitivity." Only on American university campuses do speech codes threaten freedom of speech.
THE CORE Jacksonian values explain in part why the US is the only country in which Israel enjoys overwhelming popular support. Americans view Israelis as doughty defenders of their freedom, relying on no one but themselves against a host of enemies. American religiosity - another crucial component of American uniqueness - also helps explain the widespread support for Israel, which for millions of evangelical Christians is the fulfillment of the biblical promise to Abraham. Religiosity in America tends to reinforce core Jacksonian combativeness. The more one believes that morality is not just a lifestyle choice, the more inclined one will be to fight to protect one's moral values. Not only in the minds of their enemies, then, are the United States and Israel invariably linked. Obama's world view (which might be termed irrational rationalism) is that of European elites and Ivy League campuses. Its central premise is that virtually all conflicts can be solved by more talk. Thus his signature foreign-policy promise has been that he will immediately engage in unconditional talks with Iran, North Korea and Syria - as if the only problem with these folks until now has been that we weren't sufficiently nice.
