Hope vs. Success

‘Hope’ is the last refuge for the defeated dying. It is possible that when Axelrod crafted the message of ‘hope’ for Obama, he had already seen the writing on the wall. The media shock troops had performed well. Everyone was under the impression that America under Bush and Republicans was mired in the depths of debauchery; that we had hit bottom; that we couldn’t possibly sink any lower. It was a message that had echoed throughout major media for as long as Bush was in office. It had echoed in the universities and in our schools. It had echoed in the churches; in beer halls and on TV. We were told we had lost our way; that he only way out was to elect Barack Hussein Obama – or ‘the savior’, as he was known. And we did.

It was a cakewalk for David Axelrod, a man who had scored so many successes, not only at home, but oversees as well. No doubt, he knows his business. But I think of him more as a very sharp tool in the kitchen drawer than a hammer/sickle ideologue; more as a brilliant scientist in a white lab coat, entirely focused on concocting the next WMD. True, all his successes were on the left-hand side of the ledger. It’s easy to paint him as a leftie. My problem with that is that he has been productive and, what’s more, highly successful. (His firm recently engineered a win for the Russia-leaning candidate over the Orange Revolution candidate in Ukraine.) ‘Success’ is generally not so much a part of the essence of Leftists. ‘Hope’ is.

Hope is the ultimate shortcut for underachievers. There’s a big difference in the mindset of a person who hopes that things will turn out alright and a person who actively does something to improve his chances for success. Axelrod may have hit his high water mark with the election of Obama. Curiously, I have yet to see anyone pointing fingers at Axelrod. It could well be that Obama doesn’t even know he’s there; he’s likely not even listening.