I'm as passionate about politics as anybody can be outside of actually holding a substantive elected office, which, hey, may happen someday, who knows? In high school, I was president of the Science Club, after all. How many states of matter could I carry with those credentials? (But seriously, folks...)
So I'm naturally excited as any other moderate or progressive especially would and should be who's ready to move on from eight indelibly horrible years of George W. Bush's criminals and cronies. I still clench my jaw bitterly recalling my vote for Al Gore back in 2000, the same year I also helped elect Hillary Clinton when I lived in New York City. I spent over half a decade in the most urbane city in the world, and I think she's been a fine Senator who has genuinely worked across the aisle to build bipartisan support not just for the Empire State but for all Americans. I liked Obama's speech in 2004 and was pleased he won an Illinois seat in the Senate during an otherwise awful year for Democrats.
I've gone back and forth between the merits of these two candidates quite a bit over the past several months regarding who I genuinely think would be the best president and who I think is the most electable. Sometimes it's the same individual, sometimes it's not. Recently, I read Dreams From My Father and have the Audacity of Hope, as I'm trying to learn more about Obama. I also attended a Clinton campaign rally in Arlington a few weeks back where I was fortunate to meet the distinguished senator, shake her hand, and get her autograph on my copy of Living History.
Voting in the Virginia presidential primaries, Gwen and I deliberately split our votes - one for Clinton and one for Obama. We both really had been agonizing over whom to support. Despite fevered protestations coming from both campaigns, these two really would have quite similar administrations from a policy point of view. For a realistic moderate who is conservative fiscally but leans to the left socially, as I am and I think more of the country is becoming, the question ultimately becomes who is more electable, I suppose, against John McCain. Sometimes I think that's Obama and sometimes I still think Clinton could do it.
One thing, however, has really put me off the Obama campaign. His crusade, if you will. Let me put this in earthy, coarse language so my point isn't lost. And let me crucially note I voted for the Illinois senator in the Virginia primary.
Most Obamamaniacs need to get the fuck over themselves.
From Joe Klein in Time Magazine last week:
"And yet there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism — "We are the ones we've been waiting for" — of the Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It's different not because of me. It's different because of you." That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause — other than an amorphous desire for change — the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is."TPM's editorial "Barack Obama is not Jesus"
"The Obama campaign's instruction to their volunteers to steer clear of policy questions. How can we truly bring about real political change if the movement the Obama people are building is devoid of ideological content, content merely to mouth gauzy generalities about "coming together" and "yes we can"? Such a movement becomes a cult or personality rather than engine for social justice and political transformation. And personality cults can be a huge turnoff to those who are not already drinking the Kool-Aid..."I worry, however, that some Obama supporters have become so emotionally invested in him that they would not support Clinton if she eventually prevails. And that would be tragic. Voters are fed up with Republicans, have moved significantly to the left on many political issues, and are more open to voting Democratic than at any time in years. Democrats are well-positioned to finally to enact a progressive agenda and maybe even achieve long-deferred progressive goals like universal health care and labor law reform...
"So I say, we should all get a grip, stop all this unseemly mooning over Barack, see him and the political landscape he is a part of in a cooler, clearer, and more realistic light, and get to work."
And from Fred Siegal in the City Journal earlier this month:"It will be ironic if in the name of post-partisanship we manage, with the contrivance of both Left and Right, to elect Oprah’s candidate, a man with a narrowly partisan record who has never demonstrated a capacity (rhetoric aside) either to lead or to govern. Only Clinton derangement syndrome can explain the alliance of so many otherwise thoughtful people of both parties who speak well of the candidacy of a man with scant knowledge of the world who has never been tested and has never run anything larger than a senatorial office. The question that we need to ask is whether this man—who candidly admits, “I’m not a manager”—can manage the vast apparatus of the federal government. Will packaging be enough to deal with our problems?"
From the Emory University Student Newspaper:
"Pollster Frank Luntz asked college students at a recent focus group to name the candidate they were going to vote for. All of them said Obama, but when Luntz followed up by asking them to name a single accomplishment of the senator, they couldn’t name one. Nobody could name a single accomplishment that Senator Obama has achieved...
"Obama has a history of voting 'present' — which is neither a vote in favor or against — on controversial items so that nobody will know his real stance on an issue. In the Illinois legislature, Obama voted present on bills that would prohibit partial-birth abortions, a bill that reduced the sentence for carrying a concealed weapon and a bill that required adult prosecution for firing a gun on school grounds. In 1999, he was the only member of the legislature not to support a bill that protected the privacy of sex-abuse victims by sealing their court records. This is the man who wrote in his book, The Audacity of Hope, 'You must vote yes or no on whatever bill comes up, with the knowledge that it’s unlikely to be a compromise that either you or your supporters consider fair and or just.' "
Lastly, this article from this week's issue of The Economist:
"None of this is to take away from Mr Obama's achievement—or to imply that he could not rise to the challenges of the job in hand. But there is a sense in which he has hitherto had to jump over a lower bar than his main rivals have. For America's sake (and the world's), that bar should now be raised—or all kinds of brutal disappointment could follow."
As I said, I voted for Obama in the Virginia primary but I still have concerns. After two terms of what historians are already noting is likely the worst presidental administration in United States' history, Americans deserve better than new age slogans.
These recent Obama plagiarism allegations are nothing to be taken lightly, moreover. For a man whose campaign and vision is based on soaring speeches and being a new and different kind of public servant, to crib words - ironically a "Just Words?" flourish about the power of rhetoric - is disturbing. It doesn't matter if other politicians, including Hillary, do that to varying degrees, as well. He's selling himself as the CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. So far, that change has been words and apparently some lifted, unattributed words.
I can't emphasize this enough: it is not remotely cynical for me to have these concerns about Obama and his campaign. It is VITAL I have these concerns, and I believe it's important for others to have them, as well. Obama fires people up at rallies decrying cynics, but that's a pejorative designed to make his supporters feel good. There are legitimate reasons to be skeptical about him and what he can really do to bring about change to the Washington culture and the American psyche.
Should Obama be forthcoming, admit he's not perfect, and then start offering more realistic, detailed proposals about how to fix the government other than being purposely vague in talking about solutions?
Yes, I hope he can. And, more importantly, yes he damn well should.
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