Like the people who end up running for president, this anonymous novel about Barack Obama’s re-election campaign isn’t as good as you hoped or as bad as you feared. Maybe the American people get the roman u clef they deserve. Because regardless of how closely “O” anticipates next year’s campaign, it’s an uncanny response to this month’s call for a more civil political discourse.
In fact, its anonymity may be the sexiest thing about “O.” The publisher is being coy, claiming it was written by someone who “has been in the room with Barack Obama,” which means we can rule out Kim Jong Il, but just about everybody else is still fair game. (Reports last week claimed the author is Mark Salter, a former aide to and speechwriter for Sen. John McCain.) In any case, trust me, it’s far too earnest for Christopher Buckley. And “O” has none of the snazzy wit of Joe Klein’s briefly anonymous novel about the Clinton campaign, or the grandeur of Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men,” or the pathos of Ethan Canin’s “America America.” No, in the pages of this new novel, primary colors fade to soft pastels.
The story opens just a few months in the future: The economy is picking up slowly, the war in Afghanistan is still grinding along, and the political operatives are getting their soldiers into position for that once-every-four- years ordeal mandated by our Constitution. A tawdry scandal has swept aside Obama’s campaign manager and opened up the job for Cal Regan, a handsome, affable insider who plays the novel’s central character.
Cal’s job is to engineer the re-election of Barack Obama, and like a well-run campaign, everything in this novel remains relentlessly “on message.” Even the physical world seems excluded from these characters’ lives, a fair representation, I’m sure, of the claustrophobic concentration the campaign requires. In fact, that’s what “O” does best — without any undue cynicism or gooey romanticism: It clearly illustrates, season by season, just how effectively presidential campaigners plan, draft and articulate the political discourse that the media pretend they control.
Dramatically, “O” suffers from its concentration on a pair of candidates determined to be civil and restrained. That would be nice for our country, but it’s damning for a novel. The author seems incapable of competing with the outlandish real-life characters who have blessed and cursed American political life. Sarah Palin, “flaunting that whole lusty librarian thing,” has decided not to run. “But I’m not going away,” she says in a brief, barely parodic appearance. “I’ll be keepin’ an eye on our candidates.”
Instead, Obama’s opponent is Tom “Terrific” Morrison, the perfect amalgamation of John McCain (without the maverick instability) and Mitt Romney (without the Mormonism): “square-jawed, straight-backed, irresistibly perfect.” He’s got it all: military service, humility, savvy and business acumen. And he’s determined to run a clean, fair, courteous campaign. Wake me up when it’s over.
But at the center is Obama himself — the cool, brilliant black man from Chicago, with “an anthropologist’s detachment,” who has to keep worrying about coming across as too articulate, too good a talker. “O” stays very close to the conventional wisdom and never presses into the intimate details of his life or his marriage. It wouldn’t be fair to say “O” is a stridently partisan novel, but it’s clear that the author’s sympathies are with the current resident of the White House. Obama comes across here as determined but weary. “I’m tired,” he tells his staff as they begin planning for “nine miserable months” of campaigning.
According to this story, the White House will run with the slogan “Promises Made. Promises Kept.” That’s a little flat, but it feels about right for what we’re about to endure over the next 22 months. If you want to get a jump on all that — the ads, the debates, the op-eds, the speeches — here’s a blueprint that’s probably pretty close to the mark.
FICTION: ROMAN À CLEF
O: A Presidential Novel by Anonymous
