Has Barack Obama Left the Primary Season Unaffected?

What won me over about Barack Obama from the onset, and even before he had officially announced his candidacy for President, was how he came off as an honest person, one who wouldn't play Washington's game, but was getting involved to make a genuine difference. Certainly, this was the crux of his second, most recent book, The Audacity of Hope. Obama expressed a deep desire to get involved in politics so that he could turn it into what it was supposed to be: a representation of the governed. This is why I did not vote for Hillary. In every aspect, her goal has always seemed to be to "make it". It always feels like she's just trying to prove what she can do, and trying to get the glory that she feels like she so rightly deserves. I couldn't vote for somebody who is in the contest for the sake of being a winner, instead of for the sake of making the world a better place.

Over the past six months, though, I have begun to get the feeling that many of Obama's insiders have been encouraging him to make a point of saving face when being attacked by his opponents. I feel that instead of claiming ignorance Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermons, he should have stood against the attacks and stated that Barack Obama is not Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Regardless of what church Senator Obama attends, Rev. Wright is not the man running for President, nor can the people should not hold Obama accountable for Rev. Wright's opinions, regardless of how the media feels like portraying it.

Going further along the same vein, a member of Obama's team resigned this weekend after it came out that he had received special treatment from Countrywide, the nations largest mortgage lender and one that nearly lost everything in the subprime debacle, having been deeply involved in the issuance of subprime loans to unworthy, and sometimes unaware, borrowers. James A. Johnson, the man in question, had been CEO of Fannie Mae before joining on with Obama's team as the man in charge of finding Obama a running mate for the election in November.

When the subject first came up on Saturday, June 7th, Obama pointed out that his only job in Obama's campaign was to vet his potential running mates, and that he was neither making important decisions for Obama, nor getting paid for any work he was doing. At first, Obama did stand against the media's (and John McCain's) attacks, but on Monday, Johnson resigned from his volunteer post with the Obama campaign. Obama accepted his resignation and his campaign issued a statement.

I am at least glad that the decision seems to have been made by Johnson, instead of by Obama himself, however this is just another example of Obama stepping out of the way of the media to keep from getting burned.

Now I do not mean to imply that Obama should accept any sort of defamation for having been involved with Rev. Wright or with Jim Johnson, but rather that he should stand up against the media and his opponent and say, "I will not let you do this." These attacks are the exact types of things that Obama promised to change, yet instead he is starting to play the game by saving face.

One might say that he and his staff simply realized that he couldn't make it through the election if he didn't start pointing out the faults in his opponents instead of just promising change, but my question is, "Why not?" That is what he promised to do: to show the country and the world that you CAN succeed in changing this country without playing the Washington game. And I certainly hope that, in the end, that is what he will have done.

Even if he does become greatly changed by the electoral process, and finds himself unable to return to the Barack Obama he once was, he will still get my vote. In my opinion, he is a far greater candidate than any of the alternatives, real or presumed. But I pray that he realizes what is beginning to happen and breaks the restraints that have started to keep him down. If he does, we will finally know that it is possible to win the Whitehouse without playing the game.