Michael Chabon on Obama

Jews on ice | Salon Books:

We sent out an e-mail to pretty much everybody we had an e-mail address for who we felt like we had a right to pull on their sleeve. You can create this page through the Obama campaign where you solicit donations and people just click on the link and they can donate any small amount. It seemed like a really great way to raise money for Barack Obama, of whom I'm just completely enamored. I've been voting since 1984 and in every election I've always had to hold my nose, or at best I was all right with the idea of whoever it was I was voting for. I mean I've never been completely certain, completely passionate about a candidate in my entire life as a voter until Barack Obama and it's such a strange, exciting feeling.

What is it about him that you like so much?

In addition to that he's of my generation, he's the same age I am and I feel like he speaks my language in some way --

Not Yiddish?

No, not Yiddish, at least as far as I know. For one thing the guy can write. He's a really good writer and that means a lot to me and is not true of almost anyone else who's ever run for office since I've been voting. I know that might seem silly, but that means something to me. But it's not just that he can write, it's that his writing, especially when he writes about America and American history, displays this sense of complete ambivalence. Of being fully conscious of both what's great and what's terrible about America and American history. The ills, the evils, the massacres, the injustices that have been done, and at the same time a sense of pride and faith and optimism that's coupled with a totally clear-eyed sense of the grimness that's there as well.