No he will not transform politics. He won’t abolish our problems. He won’t eliminate our enemies. He won’t disappear partisanship. That’s not the point. ~Andrew Sullivan

So, in other words, he lies to his audiences frequently when he is explaining the main rationale of his candidacy, or if he isn’t deceiving them he is not disabusing them of what you could call their false hopes.  But then Obama doesn’t believe in false hopes, so perhaps he thinks he doesn’t have to disabuse anyone of anything. 

Perhaps you will say that Obama doesn’t actually promise these things, but then why is it that so many people who listen to him think this is what he is offering?  Why do prominent supporters claim to believe the same thing?  For example:

“Barack is the best candidate to unite our country and transform our politics in the cause of progress,” said Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who was the first governor outside of Obama’s home state of Illinois to endorse the Illinois senator.

“Today, voters showed confidence in Barack’s ability to unite this country and transcend divisive Washington politics as usual,” he added. 

Transform!  Transcend!  Excelsior! 

Story after story reports that this is what he is offering:

Obama runs as a visionary who would transform politics by inspiring a broad new coalition united behind change.

Bloggers at his own campaign site say the same:

Hillary is running to change of parties in Washington, while Barack is running to transform the political system.

Finally, there is the man himself:

This election is about the past vs. the future. It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today or whether we reach for a politics of common sense and innovation, a politics of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.

More to the point, even if Obama never explicitly made such promises his entire candidacy has now been identified with the promise of not just bipartisanship, but “post-partisanship,” whatever that might be, and the appeal of his candidacy to his fans is that he will accomplish these goals that have been set absurdly high by him and his supporters. 

This is why, incidentally, I can’t stand optimism.  Optimism is the creator of a thousand false hopes and the source of profound disillusionment and resentment when those hopes are not realised.  Few things are more dangerous to sober, responsible citizenship than movements that promise such transformation and transcendence in the political realm, because these things are not available in a realm governed by disparities of power.  It is the antithesis of pragmatism.  Ultimately, optimism is at the heart of every flawed modern ideology that believes the basic structures of human society and the inevitable factionalism within human polities are somehow mistakes that must be erased or overthrown.  The problem with optimism is that it is always and everywhere at war with reality.  It is also pits us against the future, as Prof. Dienstag argues in Pessimism:

Optimism makes us perpetual enemies of those future moments that do not meet our expectations, which means all future moments.  It is when we expect nothing from the future that we are free to experience it as it will be, rather than as a disappointment.

The Obama campaign is a giant expectation-generating machine, which is another way of saying that it will also generate enormous disappointment.  It is not just politically foolish to build up expectations so high, but it is actually the cause of future suffering.