Obama Stock Is Overpriced; Sell, Sell
Sell Obamas now. They are overpriced and the forward market has gone crazy. If he becomes president in two days, the bubble will burst, I guess in the spring of next year.
From the moment four years ago when I first heard of Barack Obama and read his youthful memoir, I sensed a president in the making. Like the young Nelson Mandela in South Africa, he seemed to hold the aura of incipient national leadership. His range of sympathies, his oratory, his intelligence, his energy marked him out from the run. His embodiment of the American dream was astonishing.
Today the outside world, much of it with a direct and painful interest in American policy, wants Obama to win, by leads of 20 to 60 per cent. These people have no vote. But the narrower electorate of the United States appears also to want Obama to win, albeit by a smaller margin. The world prefers him chiefly because he is black, the latter chiefly because he is not Republican.
Neither reason is robust. To most non-Americans, black is still code for being apart from the American establishment. Any visitor these days to Europe, to Africa or to the muslim world is shocked by the depth of antipathy to America. It is beyond ideology, a visceral, often racial aversion, unrelated to any personal attachment to individual Americans or their much-envied way of life. The ugly American is reborn.
Yet the same visitor is impressed by how often he is assured that an Obama presidency would "change everything". The reason is not that Obama is anti-war or pro-Palestinian or left or right wing. It is that his origins render him the one thing he most vociferously denies, not an ordinary American.
To this world, Obama is a supposed representative of an oppressed class, however much his speech, manner and career bespeak the opposite. He is black and his name is confirmation enough. He symbolises the end of the wasp ascendancy. The reason why his candidacy still discomforts many Americans is the reason the world craves it, that Obama is somehow unreal. He is a meta-American. It is why there will be an awful unleashing of grief and fury if he is not elected.
Yet Obama is real, not just a human being but a politician. In office he knows he must do more than make fine speeches and castigate the government of the day. He must grapple with the wreckage of a world economy whose collapse is in large part due to the mismanagement of American finance, from which as a senator he cannot altogether escape blame.
He must restore credit to markets and confidence to commerce. He must bring health and welfare to a country whose poor will seem ever more "third world" as unemployment bites in the coming months. To millions of Americans he will seem as a messiah. There are millions whom he can only disappoint.
Abroad, this leader would have to end not one war but two, and bring sanity to an American diplomacy that is chaotic in an arc of instability from eastern Europe to the Himalayas. The anticipation that he will be a harbinger of peace, friendship and economic salvation is probably greater than for any American since Roosevelt. The burden of expectation is awesome and unrealistic.
The qualities of charisma and rhetoric that Obama brings to this task might be a match for it. His declared policies are not. His desire to disengage from Iraq is not appreciably different from that of the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. On the other hand, his clearly expressed wish to beef up the war in Afghanistan is reckless.
Obama has approved the bombing of targets inside Pakistan (and presumably now Syria) and proposed invasion to "secure" that country's nuclear arsenal. He has backtracked on compromise with Iran and done nothing to suggest an end to the macho provocation of Russia.
At home Obama would appear from his statements and voting records to be a conventional Democrat, essentially tax, spend and protect with tariffs. While some of this is America's business, the world economy needs a protectionist America like a bullet in the head. American markets open to world goods are vital for recovery, as is America's active participation in the easing of world trade. Obama has shown no sign of accepting this.
On all these fronts there is a more alarming prospect. It is that a Democratic president, even with an overwhelmingly Democratic congress, must beware of seeming soft or dovish or "appeasing terror". Such is politics that the more liberal the man the more illiberal he can feel compelled to behave, as was the case with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Obama has yet to indicate a retreat from the patriot acts or the language of George Bush's war on terror.
Any modern leader parrots the language of change. Obama proclaims himself the embodiment of a revolution in American public life. Yet his record is anything but radical. He even supports the right to bear arms. Were it not for his colour, he would be a candidate running on a conventional Democratic ticket, with few policies more constructive than those of his opponent, John McCain, on how America might now escape from its many predicaments.
None of this is an argument for not voting for Obama. In present-day Washington even modest competence might seem revolutionary. But democratic leadership is like Icarus. Its wings melt as soon as it flies close to the sun. Obama is flying close indeed.
The instant message that an Obama victory would flash round the world is not in doubt. It would transform and refresh America's image, exhilarating its friends everywhere. It would restore to that country the reins of global leadership so missing in the era of Republican xenophobia. It would be an utterly good thing.
The next message could be very different. The skills that Obama has brought to his campaign are essentially personal and organisational, not the superhuman ones that will be required of any occupant of the White House in the immediate future. The higher the anticipation, the more crippling will be the effort needed to meet it, and the greater the fall if it is not met.
The prospect of a failed Obama presidency sometime in 2009/10, whether by his doing or those of circumstance, is heartbreaking to contemplate. It would more than undo the gains secured by his election and devastate the cause he is seen as representing. The least his supporters can do is not raise the bar of expectation too high.
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You seem to under-estimate the international public. Unlike a vast majority of americans most international observers are aware of what goes on in the world outside their own borders. The international community at large has had enough of the corrupt/incompetent/hypocritical/bigotted administration of George Bush and co. it also seems implausible to most international observers that in 2008 such a large swathe of American politics can be dicatated by religious beliefs. Europe put God to bed a long time ago, and there is no place for religion in political discourse. the international interest generated by obamas rise has a lot more to do about politival ideologies than a black/white divide. The world wants to see how many people in the States still believe that a women does not have the right to have an abortion if she so chooses, or how many Americans believe that sex education should not be taught in school. the world also wants to know how many americans believe they can overcome the worlds worst economic crisis in century WITHOUT RAISING TAXES. Trust me sir the international community are well aware of the issues that are on the table.
You've given voice to those demons of cold, stark realism that I've been trying to suppress for so long. I was reluctant to even read this because I was afraid I might agree with it, but I just had to hear what you had to say.
You'll take a lot of heat in the comments for saying anything critical of Obama, but I must say the criticisms you do have are spot on. He won't really END the war in Iraq and he will only increase our presence in Afghanistan. He won't singlehandedly end the recession and curtail global warming, and he won't end world hunger or disease either.
But as you pointed out, the fact that he can't live up to our loftiest expectations is no reason whatsoever not to vote for him. At the very least, he'll get things moving in the right direction. And as much as we Obama supporters hate to think about his shortcomings, we must recognize them so that the opposition can't point the finger right back at him in 2012 and say "you were supposed to fix everything but you didn't!" It's important to be able to say that we never EXPECTED him to fix everything, but that he's still the best hope we have.
PS limbaugh used the same "sell obama" meme- you posted before 12AM EST when he goes on so it may be he read your post-
it's not that hard- the last twenty years when america could have been having intelligent discussions on solving everyday problems and mindful of overpopulation, global warming, alternative energy, it instead was highjacked by the right wing of the GOP with the help of its talk radio monopoly. it couldn't have done it if reagan hadn't killed the Fairness Doctrine and the GOP hadn't used the biggest soapbox in the country and the coordinated uncontested repetition it allowed to purge the GOP of moderates, replace it with sicophants, and replace bipartisanship with unremitting swiftboating and distortions and lies. and it was so invisible to progressives/dems/liberals that they are still strategizing and analyzing and writing history as if rove's most important weapon, the tool that took the attwater style national and ubiquitous, didn't exist. what obama brings is not unique and would not be so rare if we didn't have a talk radio monopoly and people like limbaugh and hannity sitting on the biggest soapbox in the country dictating the principles and moral direction of the country through sheer volume. the real problem was not some public american consensus of adjusting values, it is that the Party of Lincoln became the Party of Limbaugh.
We are in for some interesting times. We'll just have to get used to reminding people that it took 8 years for Bush to get the country in this mess so we need to at least give Obama 8 to get us out.
"The world prefers him chiefly because he is black, the latter [America]chiefly because he is not Republican. "
Say what?! where'd you drum up that idea? The world prefers him because he is a democratic, intelligent man with mostly sound policies. The Americans who prefer him do so for the same reason.
You say, "The least his supporters can do is not raise the bar of expectation too high.
After you've said his skills are not "the superhuman ones that will be required of any occupant of the White House in the immediate future." Whose are, pray tell? McCain?! Certainly there might be some messianic dreamers out there who might have reality bite them, and yes there is the charm of the unconventional, but my opinion is that most supporters are hoping for some relief from the Republican nightmare that has plagued the US, and a return to a respect for our Constitution and democratic ideals.
I need a pres who will deliver a sane and just supreme court. It's our last shot......
Would Simon advocate a dose of John Major and his chancellor Norman Lamont who came blinking out of his bunker to address the press and announce 15% interest rates?
Simon Jenkins wrote: "At home Obama would appear from his statements and voting records to be a conventional Democrat, essentially tax, spend and protect with tariffs. While some of this is America's business, the world economy needs a protectionist America like a bullet in the head."
I live in West Virginia, where most of us are dying on the vine, ravaged by Republican supply-side economics that give tax breaks to the wealthy in the belief that they will trickle down their gains by creating new businesses and jobs. It hasn't happened here since David Stockman first proposed the preposterous idea. Please, give me Obama with tax cuts for those making less than $250,000 per year, and at least restoring the tax structure prior to GW. Protectionism with tariffs to help regrow U.S. industries that actually produce something, unlike the paper ( or computer) profits of Wall Street that apparently can disappear in a weak breeze? Bring it on!
Why isn't West Virginia going to go for Obama? Read Joe Bageant's "Deer Hunting with Jesus." A frightening title, I know, but his chapter alone on the Scots-Irish heritage in the U.S. helps explain GW along with our ability to be taken in by Republican slogans that "sound right."
I think you miss one key reality in your comparison to Nelson Mandela. Mandela could do NO wrong in South Africa. It wasn't he who caused his supporters a let down. It was Mbeki, his successor, who ran into the problem of expectations. And if Barack is a metaphor for the forthcoming liberation of African Americans and indeed ALL Americans from the long wide and deep prison of race and racism in America, then there will be NO disappointment.
Nice try. A better guess is that, just as those on the right veer wildly from conspiracy theory to conspiracy theory (witness those online who are arguing, as we speak, that Obama PLANNED the death of his Nana--which is absolutely absurd), it is likely that O's supporters will have a rational, built in understanding should he not reach "Messiah" status: George Bush and the Republican looters of the public trust and common weal have only surrendered the country to a Black man after it has been completely trashed and left on the side of the road, barely breathing.
For six years, the Republicans did this, blaming Bill Clinton for every single thing that went wrong with the country: Iraq, Afghanistan, and other issues. It won't work this time.
Here we go again with the fear code: "protectionist", "socialist". In other words, let's have more of the same, where prosperity trickles UP, the middle class begins to disappear, and the U.S. of A. becomes just a source of cheap resources. Remember, these same folks want to privatize profits, and socialize the losses. And they have the gall to label those that want safeguards in what is a system in chaos as socialists! Yup, they want a brave new world where nations cease exist to become cogs in the New World Order machine. Let's hear more code, as in "nativists", "xenophobes", etc.
Face it, Reaganomics/Trickle Down Theory/"Free" and "self-correcting" markets are all dead, at the hands of the same folks who would have us believe otherwise. To paraphrase Reagan, all of it wound up in the trash heap of history.
Simon, you're on the right track, but (like the vast majority of commentators), you have a slight error here, you wrote: " He symbolises the end of the wasp ascendancy."
Actually, the heart & soul of the radical, reactionary Right-Wing in America has been equal parts White _ANGLO/ Saxon_ Protestant, MIXED with Scots/Irish CELTIC roots.
This is not an insignificant difference, because in the "Old World" England (Great Britain) was masscring & enslaving both Scots & Irish as recently as the 1800s.... the Great Irish Famine of 1840 was brought about by the British economic strangulation, the "enclosures" forcing Irish families off the land they had worked for centuries. At the height of the famine, English absentee landlords WERE EXPORTING GRAIN FROM IRELAND while hundreds of thousands died of starvation & related diseases!
Andrew Jackson is the iconic Scots American - he was so Anglophobic, that he refused to salute President Washington for Washington signing the "soft on England" Jay Treaty! To fully understand Jackson's victory over the battle-hardened English at the Battle of New Orleans, you simply must understand the depths & fervor of his anglophobia.
All the above to point out that "One generations' eternal enemies" are the next generations friends, allies, & marriage partners." In the absence of Blacks (Africans), the English, Irish, Scots, Romans, Anglos, Saxons, Danes, & Normans (William the Conqueror) hacked and slashed each other with lust and gusto.
Tracking roots of Ethnic Hatred is a vital componet of making a less contentious, more
British author Brian Sykes, writing about the Genetic makeup of the English isles, details just how RACIST... if not OUTRIGHT GENOCIDAL - English "Anglo-Saxon" sentiments were against the native Celtic strands of Scots, Irish, Welsh (& etc.) in his book, "Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland"
http://www.amazon.com/Saxons-Vikings-Celts-Genetic-Britain/dp/0393330753/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
Attitudes of prominent English writers, authors, & authorities were no different from the scornful, condescending attitude White authorities had towards native "Indians" here in America - with the most outspoken English writers & authorities calling for GENOCIDAL treatment of their neighboring Celtic-blooded neighbors!
The most glaring examples of these genocidal opinions can be found right in the London Times, editorials written during the Irish Great Famine ruthlessly and relentlessly advocated NO aid or assistance for the starving Irish... because it was WASP Englishmen's solemn duty to.... DISPLACE (exterminate) the "low-born" Celts!
Indeed, Sykes explains how Germans (besides just Angles and Saxons) were the most enthusiastic embracers of English genocidal views - views that would evolve over the decades to the Nazi Party's German supremacist views!
Even as many English were being genocidally contemptuous of their Celtic neighbors, here in America, and especially in the American South, the difference between "WASPS" and CELTIC roots melted to insignificance - they were both WHITE - and millions of Scots-Irish Americans adopted identical GENOCIDAL, SUPREMACIST views towards Africans, native Indians, and other "lesser" races here in America!
It still amazes me when republicans try to bash Obama when they voted into office a man that has clearly demonstrated during his first year in office he did not have the chops to be commander in chief. They now plan to vote into office a ticket worse than what we have now!!!
It is truly unbelievable! If I had voted into the office the current administration, I would think my judgment is off and would sit this one out!!!!
What people like Jenkins fail to mention is the any person ele.cted as president would have to deal with 8 years of the corrupt!on and malfe.asance of George Bush, Di.ck Cheney , etc and the Republican party that has lead this country as.tray. Jenkins has failed to lay blame as to why this government is hated around the world and why they are not to be trusted. He also fails to realize that no one person will be able to undo this mess in 4 years, not with trillions of dollars in deficit. The current administration has left a dis.mal record for generations to come, now he wants to put the burdens on OBAMA. Jenkins has also failed to mention that the rac!al divides in this country was not brought upon by blks but by many Wh!tes in which many are now understanding its time for a change. The change is that they realize that Obama is for the people, people of all spectrums. No one is laying the blame where it clearly belongs on this economy or country and it li.es squarely with GEORGE BUSH SR and JR.
We don't expect Obama to be perfect, good grief. Imagine millions of different people expecting him to do exactly what each of them want him to do? We trust him to do the right thing and simply ask him to do as good a job as he can.
As far as political pundits are concerned....... just SHUT UP because you've been WRONG about everything else and I don't see you improving your batting average anytime soon.
If you were around at the time you probably would of been an ankle biter of President Lincoln as well. So, just shut up unless you have something truly intelligent to add to the conversation.
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