Obama '08?

dyslexia wrote:

In some ways I guess I support his idealism and honesty (just as i did Goldwater) I will support any candidate I think is honest about his views even though I might not agree with them.

Many times I heard my mom say she'd rather vote for an honest man whose politics she disagreed with, than a politician promising what she'd like. It always made sense to me.

Butrflynet wrote:

Snood, you should send your post to a few national newspapers and news programs. It is well written and needs to be heard. Send it to Oprah and Charlie Rose, at the very least.

Seconded. That was/is powerful.

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Wonderful, snood, thanks.

One thing that Obama showed in Illinois and that was an element in my sitting up and taking notice is that he didn't just do well with the people in urban areas; he did really well with the southern Illinois farmers, who have a lot in common with the group of Southerners you're talking about, xingu. I think that Obama has shown again and again that he's able to address a group of people who are predisposed against him and win them over.

Opened the New Yorker last night to see this:

http://www.cartoonbank.com/assets/1/123478_m.gif

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If you've seen the commercial, you will appreciate this:

http://media2.salemwebnetwork.com/Townhall/Car/b/20061220RZ1AP-ObamaAmerica.jpg

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Haven't seen the commercial -- what is it?

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I can't remember what they're advertising but the good looking chick, a waitress, rattles off some technical jargon and then looks seductively into the camera and says "I totally don't know what that is, but I want it." In other words it sounds really good.

I think most of America doesn't know who or what Obama is yet, but as in your 'Obamamania" cartoon, they are ready to want it.

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Well, no.

I can't speak for most of America but I know a heckuva lot about him. Snood does (he's read both of his books) (which I haven't bought yet because I'm expecting I may get one or both for Christmas). I think those of us here who are most enthusiastic about him also know the most about him.

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sozobe wrote:

Well, no.

I can't speak for most of America but I know a heckuva lot about him. Snood does (he's read both of his books) (which I haven't bought yet because I'm expecting I may get one or both for Christmas). I think those of us here who are most enthusiastic about him also know the most about him.

Well those posting in this thread are not really representative of the public at large don't you think? The man on the street interviews I've seen suggest that many folks out there haven't even heard of him yet and many others are enamored with him without knowing what party he belongs to, without knowing he is in the U.S. Senate, and without being able to cite anything he is for or against.

Oh yeah now I remember. The advertisement is for DirectTV and HDTV.

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I don't know yet what people in general think. I was responding the the idea that a condition of "Obamamania" is not knowing much about him.

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sozobe wrote:

I don't know yet what people in general think. I was responding the the idea that a condition of "Obamamania" is not knowing much about him.

Well I wasn't implying that ALL people caught up in Obamamania don't know anything about him but some definitely don't know much about him yet.

Trust me Soz. The cartoon is not a negative re Obama. Most people probably have seen the ad and can relate the cartoon to it. And the fact is that except for the political junkies who frequent the editorial and political columns, most people can't tell you any position that Obama holds on much of anythng and yet we're not seeing much in the way of negative impressions of Obama, at least yet. People like him and many of them like him just because he is likable.

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Foxfyre wrote:

And the fact is that except for the political junkies who frequent the editorial and political columns, most people can't tell you any position that Obama holds on much of anythng and yet we're not seeing any negative impressions of Obama, at least yet. People like him and many of them like him just because he is likable.

That's simply not true. I've talked to a whole lot of people about Obama who are not political junkies by any stretch of the imagination, for just that reason -- curiosity about what that group thinks. And the response has been varied, but they know about a lot of his positions, politics, background, etc.

Meanwhile, Rice says the country is ready for a black president:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061222/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rice_ap_interview

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sozobe wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
And the fact is that except for the political junkies who frequent the editorial and political columns, most people can't tell you any position that Obama holds on much of anythng and yet we're not seeing any negative impressions of Obama, at least yet. People like him and many of them like him just because he is likable.

That's simply not true. I've talked to a whole lot of people about Obama who are not political junkies by any stretch of the imagination, for just that reason -- curiosity about what that group thinks. And the response has been varied, but they know about a lot of his positions, politics, background, etc.

Meanwhile, Rice says the country is ready for a black president:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061222/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rice_ap_interview

You apparently just move in different circles than I do, Soz, and apparently listen to/watch much different media than I do. But I accept that you are secure in your convictions as I am in mine.

I agree with Condoleeza that America is ready for a black president. Let's be realistic though and acknowledge that regardless of Obama's likability factor, integrity, honesty, etc. etc. etc., America may or may not not be ready for a black president or any president who is left of Hillary Clinton on virtually every issue. It would be naive to think that will not factor into the debate once he has declared his candidacy and the campaign is officially in full swing.

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sozobe wrote:

[Meanwhile, Rice says the country is ready for a black president:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061222/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rice_ap_interview

As I see it, the key sentence in this article is this: "Most people tell pollsters that whether a candidate is black doesn't matter to their votes."

I hope most people tell pollsters the truth, but I would expect their responses to depend heavily on the way you ask the question. Option one: "Are you a racist bigot?" ("No, of course not") Option two: "Here are ten pictures." (The people on the pictures are some mix of men and women, blacks and whites and Asians.) "Point out the three persons you would most likely a) buy a used car from, b) have a glass of beer with, c) vote for in a presidential election."

Ever since the beginning of polling, answers to bias questions varied notoriously, depending on whether you asked the question explicitly or implicitly. I'm curious to hear how deeply ingrained America's new tolerance for minorities and women is. But judging by some psychologists I heard give talks on the issue recently, I am now less optimistic about the matter than I was two months ago. I hope I was right then and I'm wrong now.

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He's gotten a lot of exposure from the two appearances he's made on Oprah in the last couple of years. People have learned a lot about him from those two interviews.

His books are also a part of the Oprah's bookclub reading list. And, Oprah has a video interview with Obama in his home on her website, as well as photos and highlights of his two appearances there. We also got to meet his wife and children.

That's a good start for the people on the street getting to know what he's about.

It was the fan's ground swell from his last appearance with her that helped him finalize the decision to announce he was running for president.

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Tell me more about the psychologists, Thomas.

I was very happy that in the most recent elections, the polling for black candidates matched up really closely with actual vote tallies. People seemed to be telling the truth about who they would and wouldn't vote for.

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Thomas wrote:

sozobe wrote:
[Meanwhile, Rice says the country is ready for a black president:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061222/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rice_ap_interview

As I see it, the key sentence in this article is this: "Most people tell pollsters that whether a candidate is black doesn't matter to their votes."

I hope most people tell pollsters the truth, but I would expect their responses to depend heavily on the way you ask the question. Option one: "Are you a racist bigot?" ("No, of course not") Option two: "Here are ten pictures." (The people on the pictures are some mix of men and women, blacks and whites and Asians.) "Point out the three persons you would most likely a) buy a used car from, b) have a glass of beer with, c) vote for in a presidential election."

Ever since the beginning of polling, answers to bias questions varied notoriously, depending on whether you asked the question explicitly or implicitly. I'm curious to hear how deeply ingrained America's new tolerance for minorities and women is. But judging by some psychologists I heard give talks on the issue recently, I am now less optimistic about the matter than I was two months ago. I hope I was right then and I'm wrong now.

If we are 100% realistic, I think most people don't care that much whether a candidate is black, white, polka dot if they like and trust that person. Most people like Colin Powell and Condi Rice's favorability ratings are right up there and Obama's race is more a point of interest than a significant factor in his potential candidacy for most of those who support him. I don't think all people think of black candidates as black first and whatever else they are second etc. But the fact is that some do and the media is a considerable contributor to that.

It is almost a given that when the ugliness of the next campaign begins to surface in earnest--and given our track record there will be ugliness--there will be accusations of racism by some Obama supporters toward anybody who criticizes him, and there will be accusations of 'playing the race card' from some supporters of the opposing candidate(s) when they are accused of racism.

It is that aspect of residual racism in this country that I would like to get past and the media is as guilty of it as anybody. We will never get to a colorblind society re a person's qualifications, worthiness, etc. when race is constantly thrown out as a significant issue or when it factors into almost every discussion.

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sozobe wrote:

Tell me more about the psychologists, Thomas.

I was very happy that in the most recent elections, the polling for black candidates matched up really closely with actual vote tallies. People seemed to be telling the truth about who they would and wouldn't vote for.

Oh, it's not about specific black candidates. My pessimism is about general questions like voting for "a" black canditates.

The strongest influence on my new pessimism is a talk that Harvard's Mahzarin Banaji gave at the "Beyond Belief" conference, which I heard via webcast. Unfortunately her talk (Session 7 in the link) isn't captioned. But if the Deaf community operates something like a captioning service, I would bring this talk to their attention. It's very good. I originally opened the link to hear Richard Dawkins, but Banaji managed to outshine even him. And that's just about the highest compliment I can make about any conference speaker.

One way in which Banaji demonstrated biases in the audience was the following, four-step test. In the first step, she fired up PowerPoint on her laptop and made it throw male and female names at the audience. The audience was invidet to say "right" for males and "left" for females", as fast as they could. Their responses came pretty fast, say in 300 milliseconds.

In the second step, PowerPoint delivered "carreer" words (such as "salary", "promotion", "boss") and "housekeeping words" ("kitchen", "children", "garden"). Same test, about the same response time.

The third step made things more complicated by combining the first two. Now the audience should say "right" for "carreer or male name" "left for "house or female name", or stay silent if it was neither. Although the question was more complicated the response time was about the same, say 300 milliseconds.

The fourth step delivered the punch line. Now the audience was made to say "right" for "carreer or female", "left" for "household or male", or stay silent if the word belonged in neither category. Now, suddenly, the response time increased drastically -- say a second -- and the end of the test almost disappeared in increadulous laughter by the audience, which couldn't believe what a hard time they had putting "men's name" in the same category with housekeeping and "woman's name" in the same category as "carreer". Most people in the audience were middle-aged, liberal scientists who believed in equality. In polls, the would have answered the question "do you think it's it normal for women to make carreers these days?" with an resounding "yes!". But on a gut level, as the test demonstrated, they still found it difficult to actually, instinctively think this way.

Near the end of the talk, Banaji invited the audience to go to her website, http://implicit.harvard.edu , where more implicit tests for bias await the curious surfers. I took a few of these tests myself, and to my frustration found out that I myself seem to be a lot more prejudiced than I'd like to think. I can warmly recommend visiting the site; it's an enlightening, if somewhat sobering experience. (I'd thought of starting a thread about it, but somehow didn't get to it.)

So that's why I have become more pessimistic about people's biases, and about the power of polls to fully bring them to light.

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Oh, I've taken that one! It came up here before. I forget the terminology, but my result was "leans black" or something (I tended to favor the black faces/ whatever very slightly).

I'm not sure how significant those kinds of things are vs. non-split-second, rational decision-making. Even if you were surprised at your responses there, you favor the idea of Obama as a candidate, right?

I think the polls re: specific black candidates might be more pertinent here. Especially as we get more polls re: Obama (he's only started appearing on them reccently).

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Foxfyre wrote:

The man on the street interviews I've seen suggest that many folks out there haven't even heard of him yet and many others are enamored with him without knowing what party he belongs to, without knowing he is in the U.S. Senate, and without being able to cite anything he is for or against.

Out of 35 US papers from this week, the Washington Times used eight times in various reports a term similar to "unknown Obama" (Like on December 18 and 19: "With a relatively unknown candidate like Mr. Obama ... ..."

I remember having read in one conservative paper about a poll, showing that only about 1/3 knew who Obama was .... but later they reported that those polled didn't know of other facts much as well. (Trying to re-find the original source now.)

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
The man on the street interviews I've seen suggest that many folks out there haven't even heard of him yet and many others are enamored with him without knowing what party he belongs to, without knowing he is in the U.S. Senate, and without being able to cite anything he is for or against.

Out of 35 US papers from this week, the Washington Times used eight times in various reports a term similar to "unknown Obama" (Like on December 18 and 19: "With a relatively unknown candidate like Mr. Obama ... ..."

I remember having read in one conservative paper about a poll, showing that only about 1/3 knew who Obama was .... but later they reported that those polled didn't know of other facts much as well. (Trying to re-find the original source now.)

Thanks Walter. That's pretty much what I was saying I think. When people DO know who Obama is and what he stands for, it may or may not affect his popularity. Only time will tell.

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sozobe wrote:

Oh, I've taken that one! It came up here before. I forget the terminology, but my result was "leans black" or something (I tended to favor the black faces/ whatever very slightly).

I guess that goes with the territory when you hang out with blues musicians in your early college years. Razz

sozobe wrote:

I'm not sure how significant those kinds of things are vs. non-split-second, rational decision-making. Even if you were surprised at your responses there, you favor the idea of Obama as a candidate, right?

I agree with him about more things than I disagree, the points of disagreement being the usual liberal-libertarian tensions like the minimum wage, free trade, and the like. I think most of my sympathy for him as a candidate is personal. He is intelligent, thoughtful, communicates well with people who disagree with him, and so forth. Most other politicians with views like his -- which are really just the plain vanilla Democratic platform -- I feel a lot less enthusiasm for.

As to the significance of the test, I have a prejudice that deciding on your politics is in most cases much closer to instinctive knee-jerk reactions than to rational decision making. I'd compare it to ones decision to be a Cubs fan rather than a White Sox fan; how rational is that? If the decision was more rational than this, Moveon and Rush Limbaugh wouldn't be so effective compared to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Sozobe wrote:

I think the polls re: specific black candidates might be more pertinent here. Especially as we get more polls re: Obama (he's only started appearing on them reccently).

Well, as I said, I hope you're right and I'm wrong.

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