Dittoheads, Get a Grip

When Claire Hoffman recently wrote, "Is Obama a (or the) Messiah?", she was not only discussing the candidate, but also the candidate's supporters. Paul Krugman and others have raised the issue of the passionate and surprisingly uncritical way that Barack Obama is embraced by many of his supporters, as compared to the more modest and almost defensive way that people express support for Hillary Clinton.

In my opinion, both Obama and Hillary are very smart, capable candidates for president. I think that both have plenty of personal integrity, are strong leaders, and are mostly good on policy issues. But neither are perfect. I look forward to voting for either one in the general election, against a tough and likable opponent.

That said, I finding the insanely naive attitudes toward Obama to be quite off-putting, and not particularly helpful to the longer term prospects for an Obama candidacy. If Hillary has blundered by giving too much visibility to Bill (she has), the Obama campaign will be deeply handicapped by the new Obama dittoheads. The trouble with being part of a cult is that the leader of the cult is rarely the actual Messiah, and not everyone joins the cult, and not everyone wants a cult to take over a government.

Obama is plenty talented and qualified to be president, and it isn't necessary to oversell the candidate, in ways that are likely to blow up in everyone's face. Lowering expectations about his perfectness will be useful as more evidence emerges that he is not perfect.