The Problems with Obama
Under pressure to produce some facts and specifics, the Obama team is beginning to release a little on the economy, taxes, and new entitlements. But the problem is that Obama himself seems not familiar with the details, and still prefers talking only about hope and change. Wonks releasing details doesn't solve the problem. And it won't, until he, the candidate, can talk in serious fashion ex tempore about the specifics he wants to achieve.
The other problem could well be racial. His coalition initially was based on the notion that he would capture 60 percent of the black vote in a tough competition against the wife of our first honorific black president, and go on from there to cobble together a coalition with other minorities and elite whites. But his success seems to have been achieved with a slightly different calculus ?- 80-90 percent of the African-American vote, elite yuppie whites, and students and Moveon.org progressives.
The problem with that is illustrated by Hillary's last-ditch appeal to win Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania with working-class whites and Hispanics. Since the agendas and past voting records of Obama and Clinton are nearly identical, and since he is the far more inspirational candidate, she hopes to tap into a growing resentment that his appeal is boutique for whites, and based on racial solidarity among African-Americans; the former turns off the working classes and the latter other minorities as well as poor whites. I think squaring that circle is every bit as problematic as McCain pacifying the conservative base. And the Democrats would worry about a candidate coming into the convention and beyond that lost the popular primary vote in the key November states of California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.
With Hillary, Obama looks youthful and invigorating. But beside the scarred old veteran McCain, he will appear inexperienced and wet behind the ears. Putin's comment that Hillary didn't have a head reminds us that the problems in the world are not, pace Obama, due to misunderstanding or miscommunication, but because thugs like Ahmadinejihad, the Chinese apparatchiks, Assad, Putin, Chavez, etc. profoundly dislike the impediments the United States poses to their respective carnivorous agendas. McCain gets it, the others don't (cf. his Putin KGB quip compared to Hillary's 'duh' redundant remark that Putin didn't have a soul.)
These creepy leaders are more like beady-eyed wolves that wish to break into the global hen-house and prey on the European, African, Asian, and Latin American chickens inside ?- and so pace back and forth, eyeing the trigger finger of the farmer with the shotgun at the door. They know exactly what they want, and how to get it, and can't wait for the guardian to sit down, discuss their hunger, and invite inside them for discussions ?- and some lunch.
02/15 02:44 PM
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