When did you begin to think that Obama might be unstoppable? Was it when your grown feminist daughter started weeping inconsolably over his defeat in New Hampshire? Or was it when he triumphed in Virginia, a state still littered with Confederate monuments and memorabilia? For me, it was on Tuesday night when two Republican Virginians in a row called C-SPAN radio to report that they'd just voted for Ron Paul, but, in the general election, would vote for... Obama.
In the dominant campaign narrative, his appeal is mysterious and irrational: He's a "rock star," all flash and no substance, tending dangerously, according to the New York Times' Paul Krugman, to a "cult of personality." At best, he's seen as another vague Reagan-esque avatar of Hallmarkian sentiments like optimism and hope. While Clinton, the designated valedictorian, reaches out for the ego and super-ego, he supposedly goes for the id. She might as well be promoting choral singing in the face of Beatlemania.
The Clinton coterie is wringing its hands. Should she transform herself into an economic populist, as Paul Begala pleaded on Tuesday night? This would be a stretch, given her technocratic and elitist approach to health reform in 1993, her embarrassing vote for a credit card company-supported bankruptcy bill in 2001, among numerous other lapses. Besides, Obama already just leaped out in front of her with a resoundingly populist economic program on Wednesday.
Or should she reconfigure herself, untangle her triangulations, and attempt to appeal to the American people in some deep human way, with or without a tear or two? This, too, would take heavy lifting. Someone needs to tell her that there are better ways to signal conviction than by raising one's voice and drawing out the vowels, as in "I KNOW ..." and "I BELIEVE ..." The frozen smile has to go too, along with the metronymic nodding, which sometimes goes on long enough to suggest a placement within the autism spectrum.
But I don't think any tweakings of the candidate or her message will work, and not because Obama-mania is an occult force or a kind of mass hysteria. Let's take seriously what he offers, which is "change." The promise of "change" is what drives the Obama juggernaut, and "change" means wanting out of wherever you are now. It can even mean wanting out so badly that you don't much care, as in the case of the Ron Paul voters cited above, exactly what that change will be. In reality, there's no mystery about the direction in which Obama might take us: He's written a breathtakingly honest autobiography; he has a long legislative history, and now, a meaty economic program. But no one checks the weather before leaping out of a burning building.
Consider our present situation. Thanks to Iraq and water-boarding, Abu Ghraib and the "rendering" of terror suspects, we've achieved the moral status of a pariah nation. The seas are rising. The dollar is sinking. A growing proportion of Americans have no access to health care; an estimated 18,000 die every year for lack of health insurance. Now, as the economy staggers into recession, the financial analysts are wondering only whether the rest of the world is sufficiently "de-coupled" from the US economy to survive our demise.
Clinton can put forth all the policy proposals she likes - and many of them are admirable ones - but anyone can see that she's of the same generation and even one of the same families that got us into this checkmate situation in the first place. True, some people miss Bill, although the nostalgia was severely undercut by his anti-Obama rhetoric in South Carolina, or maybe they just miss the internet bubble he happened to preside over. But even more people find dynastic successions distasteful, especially when it's a dynasty that produced so little by way of concrete improvements in our lives. Whatever she does, the semiotics of her campaign boils down to two words - "same old."
Obama is different, really different, and that in itself represents "change." A Kenyan-Kansan with roots in Indonesia and multiracial Hawaii, he seems to be the perfect answer to the bumper sticker that says, "I love you America, but isn't it time to start seeing other people?" As conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan has written, Obama's election could mean the re-branding of America. An anti-war black president with an Arab-sounding name: See, we're not so bad after all, world!
So yes, there's a powerful emotional component to Obama-mania, and not just because he's a far more inspiring speaker than his rival. We, perhaps white people especially, look to him for atonement and redemption. All of us, of whatever race, want a fresh start. That's what "change" means right now: Get us out of here!
turned out to be insincere and endorsed Obama instead of his former running mate, I'd say jealous. What a bunch of phonies, along with Obama and his campaign cronies.
38 years ago, I was a grunt in my student cultural group. The ambitous and hormonally evocative framed the issues and tactics. Funny thing happened on the way to the ramparts with the streets filled with tear gas and pepper gas: they were holed-up in the secret societies, fraternities, and other private clubs while we "true believers" were the fodder being gased.
Yet, I made my "bones" as a connector, politically and socially, with my street comrades. Particularly with the town-activists, I made FRIENDS, not a network for personal aggrandizement.
The military had my number, 36. I chose service as an enlisted than as a much desired officer-candidate or an ex-patriot in Canada. In the military, my drill who was 2 months my junior and who'd spent two tours in 'Nam. He was still the rocker who had been in an "American Band". I shared the experience with those who didn't have the fortune for connection or privilege. Obligation to duty, authority, and title made me, the ex-Space House-Human Tragedy, very sensitive to the "why" I do and would sacrifice.
At the caucus I saw the same ideologic-apparatchik whose passion for the cause has been subordinated to be a minion of the "network"-no matter its non-egalitarian structural inequities . The search for title and status still goes on.
In the 1970 movie "Cromwell", after beheading Charles and being given a monarch-free republic, the Parliment apparatchik sought the literal to metaphorical version of a monarch, that was eventually restored several years after Cromwell.
It's a consciousness issue of perpetuity: alterior motives by those having the ends be the dissemblage for the corrupted means. For those who would be and are the fodder of those means and ends, the apparatchik is as much the potential enemy as is the explicit subject of our ire.
It's for this reason the page needs to be turned and moved on from the corrupted cynics of the 60's-70's struggles to the true-believing idealists that live and suffer the struggle.
Has Obama ever held a single job for more than 4 consecutive years?
Has Obama ever worked (in any number of jobs) for more than 7 years without taking a multi-year break?
This guy might survive the campaign, but his record suggests not a lot of horsepower on the job. Nevermind executive experience, this guy has a serious deficit of work experience of any kind.
One of the (few) constitutional requirements for presidents is they must be at least 35 years old on taking office. Seems reasonable - probably ensures some degree of minimum maturity and work experience. But, of course, most serious 35 year olds have more work experience than Obama (despite his being 11 years older).
At best this guy might be qualified to be a bureaucrat or work for some sleepy not-for-profit.
http://tinyurl.com/2mb5f4
He was IL state senator from '96-'04 uninterrupted (contrary to the lie in your "source"). He resigned that when he was elected to the US senate in '04.
He has a proven mastery to govern and lead and organize. His campaign itself is ample evidence. He has overtaken an entrenched machine that nobody could have guessed he could rival.
He has more experience as an elected official than Hillary. Hillary was elected green to the US senate in 2000.
Get yourself some sources that are at least somewhat credible/accurate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama
We'll now get to vote for the same old same old. Only one comes with a suit the other with pantsuit.
If this hits the fan AFTER BO wins the nomination, the GOP will make BO's Rezko dealings a bigger story than Whitewater ever was.
Forget the real estate deal -- it goes deeper.
I just spent an hour reading through this blog: Rezko Watch ... several interesting reports, all backed up by reliable newspapers in Chicago and beyond.
http://rezkowatch.blogspot.com/2008/02/rezko-obama-is-coincidence-not.html
Write back when you have a substantive reason for opposing Barack Obama.
No appointments could be worse than two Nazis that Bush just appointed.
Do you believe that "bomb, bomb, Iran" McCain's Supreme Court appointments will be left of Hitler?
Hey, 'Chief Justice Malloy'....
Is it not apparent to you that we have much larger problems to worry about?
Without saving our environment and calming the Muslim world nothing else matters you dolt! It is myopia such as yours that has led the charge to war thinking it makes us safer. Nobody wins a war. We just keep fighting until every one is dead! If we can't make peace with our enemies and curb co2 emissions we won't be here to give a flying fuck who is on the supreme court! Obama can talk people into doing the right thing, which is obviously painfully dificult for Many people.
Because I am embarrassed when I hear Obama talk. At first, I thought he was a good speaker, when I first heard him at the DNC years ago. But he is so overboard now, that he sounds like nothing more than a preacher or a motivational speaker.
I get embarrassed for him because I think he doesn't even realize there is no substance, no meat and portatoes, no policy talk, no reality. I just want to say "Please, stop, enough already. Don't tell me 'yes we can' again, it's too much, drop it, get over it. Say something real about something that you are going to do to make America better. No more motivational chants. I can't bear to hear it one more time."
Obama '08
Clinton '16!
However, before I continue my opine let me say:
I support African-American voters in the Obama camp. You deserve your first viable opportunity to elect an African-American president. You've earned it, your ancestors died for it. And you owe it to your children to secure for them this moment in history.
But someone has to ask the following of my fellow white liberals who get dewy-eyed for Obama:
Would you be this excited about the first potential African-American president if the candiate was ...
... Al Sharpton?
A moot point indeed. Black leaders like Sharpton make white liberals uncomfortable. Be honest, my white liberal breathren ...
... Barack is your perfect "some of my best friends are black" candidate. Al is not.
While Sharpton gets in your face about the racism that still exists in America, Obama reassures you, "That's the past."
And you love him for it.
But after all this feel-good intoxication delivers the first Democratic nomination of an African American candidate ...
... Obama will lose to McCain.
Obama's ultra-liberal votes in the Illinois State Legislature will be the red meat the GOP needs to motivate their extreme right wing.
- Obama voted against allowing licensed gun owners in Illinois to carry their weapons outside their homes. The NRA will go after this with a venegance.
- Obama voted against allowing doctors to attend fetuses who survive abortion. The religious right will demonize Obama for this.
- Obama voted against death sentences for gang members who commit murder as an initiation into a gang. Three words: "Willie Horton" ads.
With this ammunition, the GOP will squeak out a win for McCain.
We know it's probable. But we risk it because Obama makes us liberal white folks feel America is no longer racist.
That is, until the GOP proves us wrong.
Americans want someone to lead them who is inspirational. I share your concern that on November election day the red state sea will close in on us and we will drown. The donkey and the rider will fall into the sea.
Can't remember the writer from a couple weeks ago but he clarified Obama's situation brilliantly. Basically we have to trust Obama that "change" will be positive because he _can't_ run on a platform of social justice. If he did he'd just be blown off as another disgruntled black preacher type in a long string of disgruntled black losers. It's an unspoken agreement we have to accept that he has to play it this way.
There may be reason for genuine hope. Thom Hartmann makes a good point that, the country in crisis, _whoever_ gets elected may be _forced_ against inclination to be creative and visionary. Then the only question is whether a person at the core of the current democratic leadership is most likely to rise to that challenge or whether a younger person has more flexibility to lead us into the future.
http://oldgloryradio.podbean.com/2008/02/16/mysterious-fainting-at-barack-obama-rallies-identified-as-obamaplexy-cure-found/
Then when he got Imus ( a radio personality) fired (I believe), I realized how much power he already had. I began to ask myself questions about his judgement. Did he really want partnerships or like he said, he "would not go on Imus' program again". Imus was fired because of Obama's words. It worried me. The power of it worried me. Everyone's acceptance of it worried me. Imus was powerful but not equal to Obama's power. Many were giddy with how powerful Obama was (because he got Imus fired). The giddiness worried me and subsequent racial divide blogs worried me.
When I was in NYCity going to school in the 80's, I was thinking that future radical change would happen by a "voice of authority" and that the voice would be a black american male voice. And that it would be so powerful as to influence masses because of a new technology. I wanted to research why this "voice" could influence masses by comparing it to the way Hitler had used the new technologies of his time - the microphone, the radio, and film. People had little experience before Hitler, of a leader using these technologies. The new technology increased by 10/100/1000? Hitler's influence or power. In my thinkiing, I imagined this voice to influence radical change. The 60's were a time of radical change. I felt good about the changes in civil rights, womens rights, human rights.
I no longer trust radical change Obama style.
You start very reasonably.....which is a prelude to all the negativity that is to come. We have seen these signs before. And then you veer off into "Obama got Imus fired."
Sorry, Obama did not get anyone fired. It was the advertisers who could not take the heat, from the all the protests of listeners, after he got his foot in his mouth, referring to the Women of Rugerts's Basketball team, as
"nappy hos".
So let's make things perfectly clear Barack
Obama had nothing to do with Imus's fighting:
it was all Imus's doing, and a little word:
"accountability". Ok?
It is about time we stood up for something.
Yes, We Can!
Enough said.
Wooo hoo!!!
http://www.taylormarsh.com/