Barack Obama, John Kerry and Access Hollywood
I've just read Erica Jong's excellent piece on Hillary Clinton in the Huffington Post and though I agree with much of what she writes, I don't think it goes far enough in making some fundamental points about the Democratic race. I see far more than sexism in the denegration of Hillary Clinton; I see ageism at its most malevolent. Thanks to the Hollywoodization (ugly word, forgive me for it) of the news, exemplified in the Obama candidacy, candidates are put on a red carpet to be examined much as film stars on the way to the Oscars. There is a voracious lust for the new, voters are now viewed as a fan base rather than an informed citizenry, and experience is regarded as a negative. We lust after the fresh faced fast talking candidate as we do the new big-screen star, the thinnest, largest TV, and the latest Apple gadget, spitting out those who have demonstrated probity, pragmatism, and wisdom, as indigestible old virtues in today's world.
Of course people who have been around the block have made mistakes - serious mistakes - the vote on the war being a perfect example of a serious Hillary blunder, one that gives me pause, but such mistakes cannot be blown up to such a size that they rob the candidates of the valuable experienced garnered, the decency of past acts, and the possibility of future greatness. The disposal of Dodd, Richardson, and Biden, the most informed, most experienced of the Democratic candidates, is telling to me. It says that America has now become a huge supermarket fan magazine where the photogenic are the only viable candidates. Pluck out that gray hair or cover it with bleach and for God's sake go for an eye-job if you want to run a race in America today, or better yet, speak in such obfuscating generalities that you are everything to everyone, and thus nothing to anyone.
If you think this is an attack on Barack Obama, it's not. Yes, I am suspicious of the schoolgirl/schoolboy crush that so many otherwise bright and caring people have upon this candidate - it appears to me to be more high school than real life - unless one regards high school as real life - and even I can see his many virtues. Idealism has its charms, aiming high can get you to the moon, but still...but still...I worry about his approach to political life which has too much of the grandiose about it, too much the acceptance speech and too little of the practical. I may well choose to vote for him when all is said and done, when I hear more about what his plans are for this country's daunting problems (not the talking points he puts out on his web page, but the talking points he actually speaks in a debate) but for the moment I am reserving judgment, something that John Kerry might well have done, if he was not so eager to attach himself to a rising star, and slap down his older Senate colleagues. Incidentally, I thought his endorsement of Obama was a travesty - it was so full of gas and cliches it was more like an ad for Tums than the considered evaluation of the candidates. Maybe life with Theresa, a smart, plain speaking woman, is rough enough to make him turn against the Clinton candidacy, but as one who has been married forever to a smart, plain speaking woman, I find the wisdom of such women something to treasure, and not to be dismissed by the glamour of the current Hollywood political star. Can someone please tell me what is wrong with waiting and seeing, with reading, watching and evaluating the candidates carefully? Why this rush to judgment? Of course I know the answer, or at least a part of it. The political press has become just another form of star chasing paparazzi, and that is part of my deep concern about this coming election.
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Hillary played her poor me, self-pity act (her so-called authentic moment) and Media complicit in this charade, played this teary-eyed Hillary over and over again to get out the "sympathy vote", which she did, but neglecting to air the piece right afterwards in which she lashes out at Barack Obama . This policy blunder will be huge ammunition for the Republicans if she wins the nomination. They will ask: How can she deal with the critical issues facing us today? This "teary-eyed" piece will be aired over and over again in campaign commercials; citing her as too weak and too unstable to lead the country. ? A big mistake for her! Another Republican Swift Boat, and the Republicans will win the Presidency Again!
May be Sen. Kerry did not have to wait and observe, that he knew, intuitively and intimately, the Person of Obama, his views, his judgment, his integrity, after all they share the Senate together, just like he knows Hillary and for him Obama was the better person. Like Kerry said, Thomas Jefferson was just 33 years old when he wrote the Constitution, and that it is not years on this earth that makes a man what he is.
What this Republic needs, in my view, is a National Primary. Voting should be a legal holiday. Any candidates (both parties) in the national primary should get equal time---ALL mainstream media have thus far in my view abused the public airwaves criminally. Campaign reform begining with Public Financing would be a gret start toward equal time for all candidates during a National Primary. Also, Pollsters should be legally banned from national primaries elections and take a time machine back to the period of Ptolemy and stay in the synthetic linear-statistical circular orbit of their imaginative phantasmagoria. This might lead to the necessary exercise of discernment in substantive dialogue of issues with cogent solutions.
Obama is a great person, there is much to like about him, but he will not get my vote. I am an adult citizen of the USA, I do not need someone handing out the Opiate of Hope to me, I want candidates with substantive plans for action instead of generalized homilies. I have respect for John Mccain and like much about him also, but he will not get my vote either; I am a survivor of PTSD and traumatic brain injury from a major stroke, I don't think I could trust him in the whitehouse. I want to know who is going to protect us from unregulated and non transparent Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms (the 10,000 special interest groups in the USA not spoken of) driving policy creation and debacles of diasappearing 401k's, pension funds, subprime loans, etc.
Hope is for children. I live in the greatest nation in the world, I don't need hope or inspiration. I want a leader who is a statesman not a puppet of the Hedge Funds, Private Equity Firms or Sovereign Wealth Funds which are driving the Multi National Corporate Borg Behavior and their parasitic policies. Such a candidate could have been Biden or Dodd and thankfully they had an opportunity to speak.
In Summation--"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Sherman is right! The Obama Candidacy is being sold like "he's fresh he's new you must join the movement." Let's have a meaningful primary process. How is Obama going to bring together the country? And to do what? He is going to make Republicans join him? Who is he kidding - Look the other night Joe Scarbourgh (ok he is repub and I really don't like him much but) said after the Obama win in Iowa. A huge donor to the Repubs called him and said what a genius he was to be cheerleading Obama because at least obviously to his well healed Repub - Obama is hands down the easiest dem to defeat!
THANK YOU! I believe ageism IS obnoxiously present in this campaign.
I'm trying to remember to moderate my own personal reactions.
It's tough.
Hillary is 60. Good golly, but that's young to me. That's seasoned.
I'm 55. I'm way past being excited over media events. I've seen so many come and go.
The notion that this type of hype is what this country needs is so silly to me as to not even really draw my ire.
It's just.....well, Brittany Spears silly stuff.
The real deal is in the policy differences. It takes more work, but thinking it through is also much more satisfying to me as a voter.
I do think that Obama's medical plan is unworkable.
I think Hillary's plan makes sense.
I do think his stance on the war doesn't add up.
I think hers does.
I do think his attitude toward the economy is fuzzy.
I liked her propositions today.
The rest? We could all argue until the cows come home, I suppose.
I know, for this voter? I do value experience. I value my own.
The rest of the world may not value my experience. That's OK. I don't think I valued it either when I was younger.
What goes round, comes round, I guess.
But I still have a vote. I very much do vote. And I will not discount hard-won lessons about how to really get things done in life. I don't think Obama is so young as to be idiotic. That's clear he's not.
I also don't see a seasoned politician.
If he had hit the scene when the country wasn't in such dire straits? I'd probably risk it.
But I personally think we are way in trouble and need a very, very savvy and strong president right now.
We cannot afford to take the risk.
So I say, Take a number. Prove yourself in Congress.
Show us, really, what you're about by action.
You will most likely get your chance, and you may very well make big history.
But not this year.
Sherman,
I do research for about 70 people so they will be well informed. Your Jan 11, post will be included.
Voting for the more charismatic and photogenic candidate is certainly not new in America. It's how JFK beat out LBJ and prevented another run by Stevenson 45 years ago. I don't agree, however, agree with those that believe that that is all of Obama's appeal
I think you denigrate "otherwise bright and caring people" by characterizing their support of Obama as a schoolboy/girl crush.
Did it escape your attention that most of us don't get our news from Access Hollywood and that our support might be based on facts and not sound-bites?
Did it escape your attention that we might have read his books and looked into his record in Illinois and decided he was the candidate best qualified to lead us through the profound changes that MUST take place if we are to survive as a country?
Did you fail to notice that Obama's support comes from across the spectrum of political thought and that many of those folks aren't the pop junkies you make them out to be.
Characterizing Obama's campaign and support as some sort of MySpace-driven freak of nature is not only dismissive, but it is rude and ill-informed as well.
Perhaps we understand that electing the same people over and over again hoping for different results is actually insanity.
Perhaps the very thing we need right now is a little "inexperience" in the way things have always been done.
This blog was lazy writing at best and just plain stupid in most respects.
This is so true. Obama is being sold to us like a new detergent/pop star, and the news media is making sure we don't forget it.
This post reminds me of the song that goes "and they call it puppy love". Why is it that the fact that the media may be picking up on the American people's deep fundamental problem of a Hillary and Bill presidency. People were uncomfortable with the idea the first time around what makes you think we would be more for it now.
Nuclear war, terrorism, the idea of an inexperienced candidate perhaps. Calling on the fear of Barack Obama as inexperienced and the people's choice for change a crush is an insult to the candidate and the people.
I'm certainly not for calling this race after a caucus and one primary. But unless Bill Clinton goes poof and magically disappears there's no gender or color or age change, a reason that you think matters so much, that can make me vote for her.
That is too bad because Hillary may deserve a chance based on the issues. Unfortunately she comes with something, like an arm, that unless you cut it off you just can't get rid of it. I voted for Bill Clinton, twice. I blame his stupidity and arrogance for Al Gore's loss of the presidency in 2000 and for sticking us with the Bush Administration.
I don't care if he was the first black president, the reincarnation of John F. Kennedy or Mahatma Ghandi. Bill and Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush, with the help of the Republican party, have divided this country for 16 years. Stick a fork in them. They're done.
Hillary Clinton is beautiful and would be very attractive on the red carpet so I don't know what you mean. The political process leaves the obese, the bald, or the "geeky" out.
We've gone directly from "Young people don't care enough about politics" to "Young people just have a superficial schoolboy/schoolgirl crush on a candidate."
There's not much thought or analysis that goes into pushing the "Clinton" button for "Bring Back Peace and Prosperity."
If you thought Al Gore was "stiff" and John Kerry was a "flip flopper" then Obama as an "empty suit" is the narrative line for you.
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