I Am Not Impressed By Barack Obama
In honor of the major political primary day in the US. I'm going to do a somewhat "meta" political post again, since this is for the teeny-tiny echo chamberish audience rather than any delusion of world-changing significance. That is, I'm going to disclaim A-lister's Disease (a subclass of Grand Pundititous) in that I will make no pretension of Knowing It All. I'm not the Common Man, I have no special expertise on how the average voter reacts, I'm often wrong when I make political predictions and I'm aware of that.
But ... I am not impressed by Barack Obama.
Yes, he makes nice speeches. Yes, he's anti-war. That's great. I don't hate him. He's a good guy for a Presidential candidate. However, I feel no great inspiration, and there's a lot of ways he seems to me to be an inferior candidate to Hillary Clinton. He's a lightweight in terms of track record, with no experience in dealing with all the mud that can be thrown at a Democrat by the Republican campaign apparatus.
These days, when someone makes an emotionally appealing speech to me, my guard goes up and I start considering how they might be trying to take advantage of me. Maybe the conference-club doesn't have that reaction since they're generally treated as symbiote peers rather than as potential prey. But the mania which seems to have gripped many of the bloggers I read, just leaves me cold. Instead, I have the same reaction I often have these days when dealing with an ambitious holder of political power: This person talks a good line and is professionally pleasant - but never ever forget they'd sell me out in a minute if they saw it as advantageous to them. I don't "believe" (and I don't want to).
I had some detailed thoughts on factual refutation of Lessig's Obama promotion video. But I've already written a public plea on Lessig's "corruption" studies, so it's not worth risking getting him mad at me over this (so much for the great ability of the Internet to enable political discourse, more like political marketing :-().
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in politics | on February 05, 2008 11:59 PM (Infothought permalink)
And about Ron Paul, you say nothing? :-)
I voted for Obama, and since I hardly watch any TV, I have heard very little of his oratory. Mostly I voted for him rather than Clinton because he made the right call on the war and Clinton didn't, and Clinton seems generally more hawkish than Obama; since Presidents have pretty wide discretion in how they conduct foreign policy, I weigh foreign-policy differences much more strongly than domestic-policy differences.
Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has a pretty good argument for why policy wonks should like Obama even if they don't care about his speeches.
All that being said, Clinton is obviously a very gifted politician (mere name recognition and machine politics couldn't have carried her this far) with good policy proposals, and if she wins the nomination, I'd have no qualms about voting for her.
The issues that are tilting the see-saw for me are:
the policy Barack has on accepting money from PAC's (that needs to be encouraged)
the level of discourse he uses. Example, his response on an immigration question regarding it's effect on the jobs for poor black americans: he said he say np value in scapegoating. That took some real courage to take a principaled stand on what essentially tends to create a simple target for him with opponents. He essentially sided with principle and can he attacked when speaking to poor americans and there's no real soundbite for latinos eitI her.
Of couse you should remain a skeptic... that's your strength. You refuse to accept anything on the basis of passion or opinion.
I will vote for the candidate that I think can fix two issues:
the way government is destroying the american economy (selling out the public fund for the benefit of the military-industrial complex)
changing the tide of lublic opinion around the world regarding what America means as a world leader. We have truly become an Imperial Empire to serve the needs of expanding the M.I.C. again...
GWB will be a historic president for harm.
I simple want one to reverse that trend and be historic for position change.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. As a fellow skeptic I to want to see a better test of Obama before I'd let him into office. Hillary will likely be that test (as well as the Democratic Party power base).
SethG: Tangling with the "Paultards" is very unappealing to me these days :-(. Making the right call on the war is a positive, but it's not to me an instant pass to be President. Especially when I think people describe that call as if it were a moral crusade rather than considering it could have been a reasonable political calculation. See the article I linked above http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3677868 . Again, it's good, it's just not an elect-him-President-now! qualification.
McD: The problem is that the Democratic nominee has to win, and that requires being able to fight some very dirty politics. Hillary Clinton and the party power base can't do some of the inevitable politics, not because they wouldn't if they could, but because they can't play the racist appeals which will be inevitable since they'd alienate their own power base. We saw what happened when they even nibbled at it, instant media conflagration. But that is a Republican stock-in-trade (i.e. "Southern Strategy").
Seth,
As usual you are thinking a half dozen steps beyond my crude analysis and attempt to influence without any real evidence.
This election promises to be one where old tactics fail as the base of voters shifts generationally. Obama has the capability to trigger that effect. Pull new voters into the process of filling out another multiple choice quiz that can actually change the world in some significant manner.
Apathy is fed my hopelessness up to a point and then... people sense that a shift of power is in play.
Issues like "Pro Life", the "War" on fanaticism, and Homeland Security are probably NOT going to be the issues that determine who wins.
Of course Rovian techniques will be applied but they all play to fears that I don't think Obama resonates with... he's a transformational figure.
But, I've voted and supported a lengthy stream of people that couldn't get the job done.
Blue to the core.
Seth,
As usual you are thinking a half dozen steps beyond my crude analysis and attempt to influence without any real evidence.
This election promises to be one where old tactics fail as the base of voters shifts generationally. Obama has the capability to trigger that effect. Pull new voters into the process of filling out another multiple choice quiz that can actually change the world in some significant manner.
Apathy is fed my hopelessness up to a point and then... people sense that a shift of power is in play.
Issues like "Pro Life", the "War" on fanaticism, and Homeland Security are probably NOT going to be the issues that determine who wins.
Of course Rovian techniques will be applied but they all play to fears that I don't think Obama resonates with... he's a transformational figure.
But, I've voted and supported a lengthy stream of people that couldn't get the job done.
Blue to the core.
"Is this mic' on?"
"Is this mic' on?
Sorry. Delete redundant transmission. Over. Stop.
PS> You may denegrate the volume of readers you have but I got the largest influx of readers yesterday that I've ever had solely from your readers. Close to 50. I should actual write something on my own pathetic outpost. Commenting is a key to getting traffic.
I fear Seth, you have a case of the "nothing-can-be-done" syndrome.
McD: Thanks for comments. But how do you know that theory is true? There's plenty of beautiful theories slain by ugly facts. Here's a small example: Regarding readers I believe there's some sort of counting error. I've only had some 80-odd hits in total to this post from my comments on Lessig's blog, and that post got many thousands of readers. There's no reasonable way there were around 50 readers from this post to your blog.
Nick: Speeches and slogans are easy. Doing things is hard.
Yes Seth, doing things is definitely harder than talking about them, so why put a president in place that is going to have to fight an even harder battle to pass legislation? Both Hillary and Obama know the challenges that the next president will face, but the need for a mandate or general consensus is important in actually tackling these problems.
So saying that, "Speeches and slogans are easy. Doing things is hard" is completely understandable and probably should be accepted as fact. Yet, why chose a candidate that will most definitely divide the country and thus make passing potentially landmark legislation near impossible? Why make the "doing things" part even harder?
Yes Seth, doing things is definitely harder than talking about them, so why put a president in place that is going to have to fight an even harder battle to pass legislation? Both Hillary and Obama know the challenges that the next president will face, but the need for a mandate or general consensus is important in actually tackling these problems.
So saying that, "Speeches and slogans are easy. Doing things is hard" is completely understandable and probably should be accepted as fact. Yet, why chose a candidate that will most definitely divide the country and thus make passing potentially landmark legislation near impossible? Why make the "doing things" part even harder?
Also, you might want to check into the corruption that is so characteristic of the Clinton's. Google these names for a small taste:
Peter Paul
Frank Giustra
In addition, on policy, how is Hillary going to ENFORCE universal health care?
What, no comment?
I wasn't inclined to go around it all again. I don't think Obama is anywhere as clean or as unifying as his boosters claim.
Ahh, I see. Do you have some links for me to check out to support that claim?
See "factual refutation" above. Check out some of the stuff on factcheck.org . See
Obama fairy tale has Chicago-size hole
That's just a sample.