that academics tend to support Obama so heavily because of the war and probably because they prefer his cerebral style to Clinton’s interest group laundry list and McCain’s apparently blissful ignorance of policy detail.
The above is a quote from Larison on a post about Obama. The bulk of the article is about why he thinks Obama will be disappointing. He also acknowledges that for many people Obama represents the anyone but Clinton or another Republican crowd.
These lines caught my fancy. I have been tired of the manner in which we conduct our politics for quite a while now. Guilt by association, innuendo and subtle appeals to baser instincts seem to have become the norm. Get elected however necessary with just some bare minimum and declare a “mandate”. This is no way to run a country. There are too many important issues we keep putting off because of this management style.
I voted for Bush twice, or rather I voted against his opponents twice, but i have never understood his personal appeal to so many people. That “he’s the kinds guy I’d wanna have a beer with” is a mystery to me. I would much rather have a beer with someone who is bright and interesting. Articulate would be nice also.
So, here I am a white guy with a couple of degrees who spends too much time reading. Was I just destined to find Obama an interesting candidate? Besides not wanting a Bush III or Clinton III, I have found myself happy that we have a candidate bright enough to understand the concepts about which he speaks. I do not agree with all of his ideas. I know that primaries distort candidates true positions. I know that candidates need advisers to help them form and finalize their positions. It would be nice to vote for a candidate who understands the nuances of his advisers positions, or at least have that as an option. For me, the criticism that Obama often takes an anthropological approach to Americans and our issues is not bothersome at all.
Steve
Where the hell is Harvey? He was all over Obama and his hope way back here, but since then, nuttin’.
Me, I voted for Clinton in the primary because she’s a two-term White House tested centrist old battle axe that’s likely to be the most prudent and pragmatic, in my book. McCain, frankly, strikes me as an impetuous old whore who’s unlikely to stay bought, and Obama a boy wonder still wet behind the ears. I can see how Obama would appeal to someone voting for change, on the basis of hope, but I already give myself all the hope that’s sensible, and, sorry if I’m the one to break the news, the situations we’re in ain’t gonna change all that much for awhile.
The thing I’m looking for now is the anti-stupid, the opposite of George H. W.’s dumbest, bobblehead son.
I don’t think Hillary has Bill’s political skills. I just do not see her getting together enough votes to work on important problems like Medicare. Her past penchant for secrecy is also bothersome.
Maybe some of what I didnt make clear is that I see clinton as a continuation of Rove style politics. Do anything, say anything to get elected. Make your campaigns just one long ad hominem attack. I would really like to se this kind of campaigning stopped. It leads to such bitterness. It is reinforced by the think tanks on both sides. On policy the two are fairly close, but I do think they differ in what they are willing to do to get there.
Steve
I’m still here. And I’m even more of an Obama fan than ever.
We watched the Wright interview the other night with Moyers and I got this sinking feeling deep inside. I saw him and heard my voice.
No. I didn’t hear the God he spoke about. What I did hear was my assumption that all offense is in reality defense. The 9-11 attack was a defensive reaction to what the terrorists felt was our threats, past and present.
One of the things that bother me so much about our current situation is it’s obvious that it’s our fault as a nation. We as a people have been selfish and self centered at the expense of others. The payment for that attitude and those actions are coming due and the bill is a stiff one.
We have to admit that a substantial portion of the reasons for the poverty in the countries that are giving us heartache right now is a direct result of us literally ripping off their birthright. I’m talking about the oil in the ground underneath their feet.
I see us ripping them off two ways. First we didn’t pay fair market value. We took advantage of their naivete because of our own greed. But the real evil we put upon them was empowering those in their midst that were as greedy and self centered as ourselves to become the rulers.
As I watch Hilary and Bill scratch and bite for this nomination a question keeps coming up. “Why is it when anyone else in the political game would have given up with the odds so stacked against them and this couple fights on?”
That bothers me. A lot.
I read the Wright interview. Strange that it didn’t get much coverage in the MSM or blogosphere. Guess he didn’t look angry enough. The guy is bright and well spoken and bet they don’t want the public to know he spent 6 years in the military, America hater that he is.
That chickens coming home to roost was a quote of course, which you do not get from the You Tube loops.
I am finishing reading Coll’s book on the Bin Ladens and Power’s book on genocide. Both are loaded with information with Power’s being so dense I tend to fall asleep every hour or so. What comes through is the extensive level of involvement America has had in Middle Eastern countries.
I had forgotten about our support for Nasser. Our entanglements with Iran and the Shah were justified because of the Cold War. We gave billions to Saddam sent false signals to the Kurds. We support our friends the Saudis who finance the terrorists. We helped finance his war with Iran.
Our actions cost people lives as well as money. I am not sure why people thought our oceans would protect us forever.
Steve
Obama and Academics…
Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania Presidential Primary this week. She thanked unions for the win. Ted Kirsch is president of the Pennsylvania American Federation of Teachers, a union backing Clinton. ……
I was looking for something I thought Red had said about what we really end up buying at the point of sale in politics but it either isn’t here, I can’t find it (search sucks, Stuart), I imagined it, or someone else said it elsewhere.
Anyway, with regard to Hillary’s political skills, or lack thereof, or relatively greater or lesser Rovian malignancy versus Obama’s or others’ relative niceness, I agree largely with what the point I can’t now find was: that contemporary elections are really overwhelmingly marketing contests in which everyone is really buying a pig in a poke with regard to future performance.
And how, really, can a Presidential candidate promise what he’ll do with the company before he sees the books, that is, the financial, administrative, or future legislative inertial realities he must deal with? The best he can say is what he’d like to do in an ideal world, and, because Presidential elections are market-brokered (because, by Supreme Court decision, political speech is alienable, interchangeable in kind with money, and may be purchased on one’s behalf with cash), to even get a chance to see the books he first must be successfully sold and bought in the campaign marketplace.
All to say, again, with credit to Red if that’s where I’m communing the thought from, that the idealism in campaigning is more largely a function of how we as political consumers are being packaged and sold to than it is of a measurable virtue or vice of the actual candidates themselves.
Yes, I did say that, and I can’t find it easily either, sorry. I also , in another forum, once compared the electoral process to going into a restaurant, carefully scrutinizing the menu, and then listening to the server explain in great detail the specials of the day. After excruciatingly careful deliberation, you order the lobster thermidor, in spite of the fact that it costs an astronomical sum a la carte, because it’s what you really really want. You wait quite a while. And then the server brings this plate, with the pewter cover, and when you lift the cover you find a Big Mac. Which still costs the same astronomical a la carte sum as the lobster thermidor.
And, belatedly, you said it:
“Which means we also shouldn’t expect to have any real sense of a candidate’s values or commitments. When a candidate talks about values, all that tells us is what kind of voter s/he wants to appeal to, not whether that appeal is bona fide. It’s generally worthwhile for you to vote for somebody who is trying to appeal to your kind of voter, if only because, if s/he wins, s/he will be sort of indebted to people like you, and that’s good for you and them.
If there is honesty in a political campaign, (a) you probably won’t know until much later, and (b) it’s probably a tactic anyway. That BTW is what Franklin really meant when he said “honesty is the best policy.” Back in those days, “policy” meant sort of Machiavellian strategy. He wasn’t just saying it’s good to be honest, he was saying sometimes it’s SMART to be honest, usually because it’s so unexpected.”
here on March 31, 2008 at 11:45 pm.