Transforming is change that people can believe in.

          The latest round of Pentagon leaks has gotten me thinking more and more about American politics. Pretty much everybody, liberal, conservative, and defense commentator, agrees that these new documents don’t reveal anything that we didn’t already know about the war, and it’s true. Much is being made of them because apparently they depict the situation on the ground as worse than the administration has been suggesting; let's be frank, the White House probably made a mistake by going with the opening line “these are all representative of the situation before the President mandated his recent policy changes,” because even though it’s true, it sounds like an admission of guilt. Along with the recent successes of conservative obstructionists in the House, this has caused commentators to begin suggesting that Obama’s hope for a second term is slim (I personally have my doubts about that, but that’s a discussion for another time). With that in mind, I’ve been considering the question of who the next Democratic presidential candidate should be, and I’ve come to a conclusion that should have been obvious: Optimus Prime.
          As a leader, Optimus Prime is a product of the waning days of the Golden Age of Cybertron, about 9 million years ago. Created (Born? Built? There’s always been kind of a question mark hanging over Cybertronian reproductive biology.) Orion Pax, the robot who would become Optimus Prime started life as a cargo handler at a facility that stored energy produced at a plant up-river. Young Orion Pax was a somewhat naïve political idealist, and when a new group of Cybertronians, leant legitimacy by their ability to fly in robot mode, began to promulgate a philosophy of interstellar interventionalism to protect and establish the interests of Cybertron, Orion Pax found himself awestruck.
          In the meantime, the Cybertronian political edifice was entering a state of terminal decline. With the advent of the Decepticons as a political entity, long-standing divisions between the expansionist philosophies of the military equipment and the pacifist multilateral approach to foreign policy of civil machinery reintroduced the idea, long abandoned after two civil wars, that Cybertronians might wish to identify themselves as anything other than Autobots. The Autobots still controlled the planetary government, however, and frustrated with political deadlock, the Decepticons turned to violence to achieve their ends. This was to have long-lasting consequences, however, when during one such raid to gather supplies, the pliant Orion Pax was shot in the chest by the very leader he'd gushingly supported, Megatron.
          Orion Pax was brought to Alpha Trion, a well-respected elder statesman figure on Cybertron, who had managed to keep himself above the fighting to that point. Gravely concerned by the Decepticons’ continued willingness to employ violence to affect the Cybertronian political process, Alpha Trion rebuilt Orion Pax as Optimus Prime, a leader meant to spearhead a new design movement within the Autobots to oppose the Decepticons. This was not a moment too soon, as the situation on Cybertron finally degenerated fully into civil war. Over the next 5 million years, Optimus Prime was able to oppose the Decepticons militarily, even as they grew in strength. Even as the war ravaged Cybertron’s natural energy resources, the Autobots managed to prevent the Decepticons from opening fronts on other worlds. During an exploratory mission meant to discover new sources of unclaimed energy, Optimus Prime’s expedition was shot down over Earth, their ship remaining dormant, embedded in a mountain in the present-day state of Washington for the next 4 million years.
          Awakened in 1984 by the eruption of what turned out to be the volcano their ship was buried in, the Autobots immediately engaged in a campaign of military intervention designed to prevent the Decepticons from seizing Earth’s energy resources. The initial thrust defeated, Optimus Prime made the decision to remain on Earth to defend the human nations from Decepticon predation until such time as they were able to manage their own defense concerns. Over the course of the next two decades, the Autobots fought an incredibly successful campaign to defend the Earth, but at the cost of their remaining possessions on Cybertron, the Decepticons having pacified the entire planet by 2005. That year the Decepticons staged an attack on the capital-in-exile, Autobot City, killing Optimus Prime, who’s heroic sacrifice at the climax of the battle ultimately led to the Autobots retaking the strategic initiative, and ultimately the reconquest of Cybertron. Two years later, Optimus Prime was again rebuilt, and in the intervening time has managed to shift the focus of the conflict with the Decepticons from Earth to Decepticon strongholds through the galaxy.
          Fundamentally, I think that Optimus Prime’s record as a leader recommends him to the Democrats as a presidential candidate. His origins as a working-class everyman guarantee grassroots support, while his backing throughout the last two and a half decades by prominent members of the political old boy’s club such as Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy, and Alpha Trion will rally support from the political elite of America. Further, his record as an incredibly successful general could likely be leveraged to inspire confidence in an American public which remains unsure about the rise of China as a world power, international terrorism and extremism, and the ever-popular paranoia regarding Russia.
          I’d like to take a moment, actually, to discuss Prime’s approach to foreign and defense policy, which I suspect would enjoy widespread appeal. The fundamental tendency in Optimus Prime’s political philosophy is summed up by his most famous quote: “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.” This alone is perfect as a vague but appealing American slogan. While Prime opposes expansionist, imperialist, and militarist political agendas, he has proven that he is willing to engage in military intervention against rogue states.
          His record of intervention in the Middle East and South America suggests that his energy policies would have broad appeal as well. On the one hand, he has a history of deploying military assets to protect vital strategic energy supplies, domestically and overseas, while on the other his leadership during Cybertron’s civil war gave him experience managing economies in transition between major sources of energy, and his fighting on Earth demonstrates fairly clearly his stance on environmental damage; the fact that protecting the Earth's resources was the main objective of the campaign aside, when Autobot City was built as the new Autobot headquarters on Earth, it was built using completely sustainable and green technologies.
          Ultimately, Optimus Prime’s major advantage over a potential Republican candidate is that while his opposition to the Decepticon ideology necessarily puts him in conflict with the Tea Party and affiliates, he is not obligated to court these elements. The Decepticons and the far-Right share a political philosophy of unilateral military intervention, strong preference for small government, and a strong undercurrent of nationalism, characteristics that many suspect are driving more moderate conservatives away from the Republican party, as they force candidates to conservativize to gain their critical vote. Admittedly this is an advantage that many liberal politicians enjoy over their conservative counterparts, but Optimus Prime combines it with the fact of maintaining defense policies that visibly appeal to moderates and conservatives, including strong use of the military to deter attacks on strategic assets, international interventionalism, and a strong preference for local political autonomy.
          His politics aside, his biography is right for him to illicit the support of moderate conservatives. He started out as a working-class joe, and supported the conservative politics of his world. He made the switch to liberal ideologies when his support of the party led to him being shot, a shift that many moderates will be able to identify with, themselves having been stung by the rapid ultra-conservativization of their party. Besides, there can be none of the Birther nonsense that accompanied the election of Barrack Obama when the candidate has resided in the US for 4 million years.