Geoff Elliott, an Australian political correspondent, writes a fascinating article on some obstacles facing Barack Obama (whom I now move into the presumptive nominee column, having seen his effect on literally thousands of people at my local caucuses). Click here to read the entire article...."It was early 1994 when Nelson Mandela gave a speech in a slum outside Cape Town and spoke in grand terms of a new beginning and how when he was elected president every household would have a washing machine.People took him literally. A few months later he became South Africa's first black president. That's when clerks in department stores in Cape Town had to turn people away demanding their free washer and dryer.
"Having spent some time as a reporter in South Africa watching the Mandela presidency I was reminded of that story this week when I travelled with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on the campaign trail.
"How does a cult figure, in the eyes of some something akin =to a messiah, make the transition to a political frontrunner - president even - where disappointment will soon crush what seemed to be a journey to a promised land?
"Looking into the faces of a more than 16,000-strong crowd in a basketball stadium in Hartford, Connecticut this week, the Mandela magic I'd seen before was there too. Black and white, and the youth; they appeared in a state close to rapture watching Obama speak. Here and there one could see women crying and the some men wiping away tears too. "
Perhaps as interesting is Frank Rich's take on the poll driven corporately managed candidate "leeched of most human qualities".
ReplyDeleteIs it strange that Clinton supporters see in Obama a messianic fool while Obama supporters see Hillary as a calculated automaton?
I don't think they see him as a fool at all. Most of the perjoratives seem to head from the Obama camp-->to Clinton.
ReplyDeleteAnd even her supporters see her as mostly a closely-managed candidate, with the possible exception of the three recent boohoo incidents, which may also have been scripted events, for all we know!
The Rich essay is a really disturbing and credible. And if you consider Obama's demonstrated superior ground game v. Clinton's arrogance toward states she thought wouldn't matter, why shouldn't we support him vigorously. And, oh, there is that potential for a dem majority that will make his load a far sight lighter.
ReplyDeleteYou must know that if she pulls that FLA & MI gambit and wins she will have destroyed the party for many many years. It's hard to imagine that she will win the WH in any case.
I think you are missing the point on the delegation seating. Delegations are frequently challenged. In fact in 1972, a huge number of chgallenges to delegations occurred...so many in fact, that George McGovern ended up giving his acceptance speech at 2 in the morning! That didn't work out so well. But challenges happen.
ReplyDeleteIf it's a close convention, you may find Obama challenging delegations that could deliver hundreds of Clinton votes.
It is interesting how the Obama supporters are all huggy and misty-poo until someone actually challenges their assumptions or tries to engage in debate. Then they begin piling on Senator Clinton. For our part, we acknowledge his presence, his charisma, and even "his superior ground game." We just think he is running 4-8 years early. And yet any hint of debate or criticism sends the hordes of Obama zombies into paroxysms and ends with them most often launching personal attacks on the Clintons, and shrieking like wounded swamp sows.
In fact, did you know that Obama still often gets lost in the Senate Chambers? IN three years, who knows how many times he's actually been through a full day in the Capitol.
Nice, it's funny that Clinton supporters disparage Obama's experience at every turn and yet when asked can never, I mean not once, substantiate her 35 years of experience. She intones it, they buy it. If she can't assemble a superior ground game with $100million why do you have confidence she can deliver even a shred on her pandering laundry list.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Jackie, while you're right that delegate challlenges have always occurred in DEM nominations I think you might agree that the stakes are quite different in this cycle. The Clinton campaign's crass, dare I say racial, hatchet jobs against Obama have put an enormous and historical segment of DEM suppport at risk. That can't be good for the party. Yeah, we are all latte sipping, affluent, sissified zombie dreamers. My question to you: If he fights her to a draw in TX, PA & OH and still leaders her by 150+ pledged delegates and she pulls a back room stunt to take the nomination with a combo of super delegates and seated MI & FLA do you like the party's prospects in the near term to long term? Won't be able to scapegoat Nader on that one.
She was prosecuting people like Gordon Liddy for part of the time, working as an attorney in Arkansas, attempting to build a real national health care system, working as The First Lady, oh, and actually completing a term in the Senate, and becoming know as a doer and a person who can work as a bipartisan. She was doing some of this stuff while Obama was getting baked in Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not the point. When people ask about Obama's experience, his supporters don't go into it; they launch into the supposed sins of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
You haters on the Obama side need to remember the politics of love, or as Hubert Horatio Humphrey termed it the Politics of Joy.
All your invective hurling and derision of a woman Obama has characterized as a friend seems not only misguided, but counterproductive. It makes me wonder what will actually happen when Obama is elected. Will they start thowing up the scaffolds and nooses and rebuilding the concentration camps in Idaho?
I guess I have been, naturally, tempted to switch sides and support Obama, because as I always say, there is much to admire in the man. But then I read the malignant slanders that emanate from his supporters, and it makes me wonder. Can I really, in good conscience, join up with such a myopic, misanthropic band of haters? No.
So Jackie, completing a term in the Senate makes the case for you? Hardly much else in her resume that improves upon Obama's. Did she prosecute, exactly? Didn't she get her partnership at the white shoe law firm because Bill was serving as AG? Oh, and health care was a colossal failure due in great measure to her arrogance which given her campaign's drubbing in states that she thought wouldn't matter hasn't abated a whit. Finally, she's a good little debater and that's enough to curry favor. Again, if she can't beat a 1st term senator from IL than why should we run her for president?
ReplyDeleteI love how she how she stood up for Chelsea, I wonder how protective she would have been of Monica if the young intern hadn't preserved the smegma!
It appears that Clinton supporters believe in credentialed mediocrity.
Kev,
ReplyDeleteHillary's experience is far from "credentialed mediocrity". Hillary went to Yale Law School and was valedictorian at Wellesley. She could have had her pick of jobs, and was no doubt a prize--with or without Bill--to the law firm she joined in Arkansas. Her experience is inevitably linked to her lifelong partnership with Bill, and given the restrictions she was under as First Lady in particular, I think she has done a pretty amazing job of doing something with her life in service to the nation while raising a great daughter and dealing with a multi-faceted husband. Check out her bio--I think you may have forgotten some of it. http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/hc42.html
Keelin
My point, Anon, is that her bio is probably less impressive than Obama's even comparing their shcool resumes. He is certainly a far superior writer than she is, if she actually wrote her own books.
ReplyDeleteFact, is, her marriage to Bill Clinton gave her the muscle to sweep aside a long standing NYS Dem so that she could make a senate run in the eastern liberal media center. If she was so eager to serve why didn't she return to her home state of Arkansas where she had long ties and could have conceivably among constituents whose needs she ostensibly knows first hand?
Does anyone doubt that her announcement for a run at the US Senate in NY was her first public expression of her ultimate desire for a run at the WH?
As for her achievements, I have yet to see a real accounting of them within the 35 years experience she cites. Her own claims to support that rhetoric are feeble. During debates she has noted that she worked for the Children's Defense Fund and had a hand in starting CHIPS.
Her claims that she has already been vetted and that she has taken the Repubs on and won is a corker. She ran twice in NYS against replacement candidates. The last being a former mayor of Yonkers who was tossed in as bait because he was willing to spend his own money.
Yes, she showed willingness to play nice with her GOP colleauges but her actual senate record is largely undistinguished except for her vote to AUMF in Iraq. I know that some take her at her word that she was duped by GWB but doesn't that run counter to her arguement that she has stood up to the Repbubs and won? In any case, she lost big time on that one and seemed willing to go along again with GWB on Iran. Nevermind that she flat out misrepresented the Levin amendment that she scorned in her support of GWB.
Finally, the manner in which she has run her campaign raises the severest doubts about her competence. She burned through $120 million by Super Tuesday, deluded by loyalists and machiavellian puppet masters, convinced that the coronation would be scheduled on Feb 6 only to find that she was behind a savvy neophyte who had shrewdly designed a 50 state strategy. Her failure in this campaign, even if she goes on to win the nomination, is undeniable. The very best she can hope for is 51-49 margin in the general and a guaranteed polarized congress. Her open disregard for anything but big DEM strongholds has been an insult to the nation and her party and is the strongest arguement to support Obama's nomination.
Keelin, excuse my tone, I should have looked more closely, I would never knowingly talk to my favorite cuz with such haughtiness.
ReplyDeleteNo, because he saves the really savaging for me...!
ReplyDeletejack
Jack, everyone knows that you give a little bit better than you get, but hey sorries all around.
ReplyDelete