Candor Candidate -- Barak Obama

Truth tellers don't do well at the polls, at least that's what history shows us. More often than not it's the candidate that tells us what we want to hear that gets our vote. I will admit, I'm susceptible to that as well. Maybe that's why Mitt Romney may in the end do well -- he seems to have an ear for what's hot!

Karen Tumulty, writing in Time, suggests that Obama is a candidate that "tells people what they don't want to hear." Others have done this to no avail -- Gary Hart (I liked him too), Paul Tsongas, and Bill Bradley to name a few. She writes of Obama: "Whereas other candidates like to throw red meat before their audiences, Obama is developing a penchant for hurling cold water at them."

Maybe that's another reason why I'm attracted to him. Even when it comes to matters of faith he doesn't seem to pander. He just speaks from the heart.

So, could things be different this time? Could the truth teller -- who tells a Detroit audience that the auto makers need to do more, do it at the polls?

But this time, he says, he thinks the result could be different. "The country understands we have a series of choices now that, if we put them off any longer, will be much tougher to deal with, and we may not be able to deal with them at all," he says. "So I think there's going to be greater responsiveness to people who are actually saying what they think." It helps that Obama delivers his truth telling with a heavy dollop of optimism--a politically useful distinction from those truth tellers, like Tsongas, who came across as dour and depressing. And Obama's campaign is counting on the fact that America is different now--that in 2008 the national mood for change will be so powerful that voters will reward candor more richly than they have in the past.

Obama is the candidate with a message of change -- if the nation truly wants change (and as a pastor I know that churches often talk about the need for change, but when change comes they resist), then he should do well. If on the other hand, we as a nation decide to stick with the status quo (as we're doing right now with immigration) then things could get tricky and the next President of the US will be Mitt Romney who seems to have an ear for what we want to hear!