Obama 2008 memewatch
Every few months someone does a piece on Obama's prospects for 2008. Eric Zorn had a piece in the Chicago Tribune back in January that I was singularly unimpressed with. Now the WAPO is getting into the game, with a lengthy profile of Obama Appeal TM. The article does correctly point out, however, that Obama generates so much interest not due to his stance on the issues, but his personal story:
What the article doesn't note, however, is that the undercurrent to the appeal is how profoundly Purple Obama is with his rhetoric. If you reload Nation-Building blog a few times you'll see a quote on the sidebar from him that perfectly captures the spirit of the Purple movement. It's from his keynote address at the 2004 DNC convention, and the entire speech is just a masterpiece. You never hear Republicans give speeches like that. Just reading the words alone is enough to make a patriot, tired of divided politics, yearn for Obama to run in 2008.
But as I have pointed out before, Obama is just too green to be entrusted to run for President. He barely faced any challenges in his Senate run, and a victory over Alan Keyes is hardly better than McDonald's fry cook as far as your resume is concerned.
No one is as pro-Obama as I am. But we need to keep him in reserve, and let him ripen. There's a lot of work he has to do for Illinois before he is ready for the nation.
He has yet to carve out a distinctive profile on the policy and ideological debates that are central to how Democrats will position themselves in a post-Bush era.
In his stump speech, he offers a standard Democratic criticism of President Bush's tax cuts as favoring the rich, and promotes energy independence with only modest detail about how to achieve it. Nor does he dwell on the Iraq war, assailing the administration's handling of the conflict but not addressing such questions as a timetable for troop withdrawal.
Instead, it is almost entirely Obama's biography, along with his gift for engaging people in large audiences and one-on-one encounters, that is driving interest.
What the article doesn't note, however, is that the undercurrent to the appeal is how profoundly Purple Obama is with his rhetoric. If you reload Nation-Building blog a few times you'll see a quote on the sidebar from him that perfectly captures the spirit of the Purple movement. It's from his keynote address at the 2004 DNC convention, and the entire speech is just a masterpiece. You never hear Republicans give speeches like that. Just reading the words alone is enough to make a patriot, tired of divided politics, yearn for Obama to run in 2008.
But as I have pointed out before, Obama is just too green to be entrusted to run for President. He barely faced any challenges in his Senate run, and a victory over Alan Keyes is hardly better than McDonald's fry cook as far as your resume is concerned.
No one is as pro-Obama as I am. But we need to keep him in reserve, and let him ripen. There's a lot of work he has to do for Illinois before he is ready for the nation.
Comments
Obama's speech at eth DNC was important because it too the prime public speaking position for one of the two major political parties and made it a referendum about unity. Not neccessarily lockstep agreement on issues, but about a shared respect for all americans, a willigness to debate, an appreciation for what the others who disagree with you have to say (even as you firmly disagree!).
The RNC in contrast used ther convention to push the meme that half of America is on the side of terrorists. That was the take home message. Not about building a true majority, but about forcing their plurality down the throats of everyone else and WINNING.
Obama's speech was magnificent and is exactly the right direction for the DNC to take. He used that pltform, that bully pulpit, to influence the Democratic Party. The changes may not be immediate but they will manifest - the vast majority of Purple politicians are Democrats nowadays because the GOP has as its raison d'etre an intrinsically anti-Purple mission. Tear down and divide rather than unify around common principles. I applaud Obama for saying it, at that time, at that place.
As for Obama's record, I think that the "gotcha" approach of characterizing votes is meaningless. Every bill in legislatures or congress is a mish mash if things. Obama Truth Squad is an agenda-driven Repblican hack site, and puts as selective a spin as they can possibly find, just as MEMRI does with translations from the middle east. Whether "Obama puts rigid ideology before what's best for the people of Illinois" is true or not is a matter of genuine debate - I'm a native Illinoisan myself (and not a Democrat, mind you) and Ive been following him for many years. The characterization of Obama as put forward by sites like OTS is a cartoon. Cao is a hack, too - how else to explain his otherwise incomprehensible conclusion that Alan Keyes won Debate #2? I saw that debate and Keyes was crushed. It was a joke.
agreed in principle, but I'd trust you to do it yoruself. I don't trust it done from Obama Truth Squad or Cao. And I think if you pick one of the bills you mention at random and go read the original bill, youll find it wasnt as cut and dried as it was made out to be. Sometimes, a bill might suck; even if it does contain a clause that puppies are cute.
I think that a Truth Obama project - run by people without an atack agenda - would be useful. If you do decide to dig further into his voting record (and I'd hardly call the votes you listed as "key" ones, BTW), post on it here! criticism of Obama is a good thing, and better we do it (er, you do it) than a smear artist.
Other African American candidates with great poll numbers have stepped out in statewide races and the actual results on election day have showed something totally different in past races. Recently, we've seen results reflecting the actual polling as in the Harold Ford, Michael Steele, Kenneth Blackwell and Deval Patrick races.
The question is, when all is said and done, when all of the stuff come out of the closet and Obama gets attacked for his short US Senate and his Illinois State Senate record, will he emerge as a viable candidate strong enough to defeat a Republican challenger on the merit and conviction of ideas? Even though we are probably light years away in political time from former Secretary of State Colin Powell's retirement from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the long book tour and fascination with how "he's very smart" accolades, Obama should definitely ask Powell what his advisors were saying when he was pondering the decision and consider and reconsider the uphill battle of a run for the presidency.
The advantage is he lose nothing in running if there are no monkeys in the closet or huge gaffs similar to Howard Deans fiasco and John Kerry's "botched joke" of late.