Obama '08?

The stuck part is my point. Gore was the obvious nominee, he was the vice president, etc. But he had real, actual weaknesses that were vulnerable to those marketing fabrications. Bush had real, actual strengths (folksiness, likability) that were summarized with those marketing fabrications. They stuck for a reason.

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Thomas wrote:

-- but they weren't anything real enough to pick a president by.

Let me try to illustrate it with an example: Suppose the Republican slime machine has another success by getting through with their rumors about Obama being quasi-Muslim, his Indonesian upbringing, and so forth. Suppose they successfully manufacture the image that Obama is somehow not American enough to be president. Would you consider this a good argument for withdrawing your support for Obama? Would you in fact withdraw it? I sure hope not.

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sozobe wrote:

They stuck for a reason.

That would be another point of disagreement. I think campaigners will always find something that makes their slime sticky, regardless of other strengths the candidate might have. But I admit I can't back this up with compelling arguments.

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I remember being really frustrated by Gore in 2000 -- just not doing everything he could to connect with voters. I do think there are things he could have done -- as separate from what the marketing-types created -- to have been successful in his bid to become president.

Thomas wrote:

Let me try to illustrate it with an example: Suppose the Republican slime machine has another success by getting through with their rumors about Obama being quasi-Muslim, his Indonesian upbringing, and so forth. Suppose they successfully manufacture the image that Obama is somehow not American enough to be president. Would you consider this a good argument for withdrawing your support for Obama? Would you in fact withdraw it? I sure hope not.

I'm already fully committed I'm afraid. Unless he does something actually wrong, himself -- if something comes out that changes my fundamental understanding of who he is as a candidate -- I'll just fight against any of that kind of smear campaign. (And I'll fight against any actual smears of any candidate that I see.)

Of course, the complicated thing (in terms of answering your question) is that my support is many-pronged. It's about policies, it's about his experience, it's about his way of thinking, and, yes, it's about my perception of his electability.

But whomever wins the Democratic nomination is going to get my support.

I totally agree that one should not pick a president based only on this gut-reaction stuff I'm talking about. My main point is just -- there are going to be attacks, a lot of them, and I think Hillary is likely to be especially sticky, for many reasons. Could well be that, even if I'm right, this element is outweighed by the juggernaut she's built (invincibility et al) and the weakness of the Republican candidate.

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Actually, let me amend the "fully committed" part. I like Obama a lot. (Did you know that? ;-)) If there was some untrue smear campaign launched against him, that wouldn't shift my own support for him, and I'd be extremely upset if such a thing actually torpedoed his campaign. But I do keep an open mind about other candidates, and Hillary has made some inroads with me since I started this thread for example. There is a lot I like about Edwards. It's still possible that I will decide that one or the other of them is a better idea than Obama -- not extremely likely, but possible.

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Quote:

They stuck for a reason.

Yes, but that 'reason' does not have to be some fact about the object person. Suggestion and manufactured association (particularly on a matter which has become hyper-sensitized) can be enough. Consider the McCarthy era. Even simple repetition of a claim or an inference will convince some percentage of an audience that it's likely or that it is factual, eg 'blondes have more fun' or 'blondes are stupider'. More to the point, consider how many here came to believe that Kerry was a military coward and Bush courageous.

Cultural mythologies (like 'America is the greatest country ever' or 'women are too hysterical to be effective leaders over men') seem to function as a big, fat pipeline for delivery of and consensus on notions which might have no factual basis at all. Related to this is all the 'us' vs 'them' thinking we see so evident in the 'it's proper to hate muslims' or 'it's proper to hate mexicans' stuff going on now.

In other words, the 'reason' can very often sit in the observer rather than the object. And it can be fully a false contruct.

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Of course, they can be done to create a notion or consensus which is positive as well as negative. As I tried to point out in the Rove piece, that's precisely what he is doing when he pretends to advise potential repub candidates...it's all positives but they attach to no one at all, they just float as if they were something like eternal truths.

Look at this from media matters...

Quote:

Wash. Post article called Giuliani "America's mayor," referred to his "triumphal leadership on Sept. 11"
The Washington Post referred to Rudy Giuliani as "America's mayor" and suggested that after his "triumphal leadership on Sept. 11" Giuliani "transcended the life that was," including controversies involving his friend and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik as well as controversies in his personal life.

"Triumphal"?! "transcended"?!

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It can, yes. I know what you're saying there. I don't think that's always the case, though -- I think these days, in politics, the stuff that sticks is the stuff that resonates with voters in some way. Something they already were concerned about in a general way before they found something to hang that concern on. I really think that happened with Kerry, and I see some parallels with Hillary.

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More unhappiness by Paul Krugman about Obama, this time in his blog. It's about yet another anti-Clinton smear, similar to the "D-Punjab" one. Disturbingly, Obama doesn't just have his campaign staff under control, he's making their message his own. (Or, worse, they're really delivering what he wants.) Here is Krugman's take on it.

Paul Krugman wrote:

Obama and the activists

OK, I try not to write horserace, how-well-is-the-campaign-being-run stuff. But thislooks to me like part of a pattern, following Obama's invocation of a Social Security "crisis":
Barack Obama has unveiled a new line of criticism against Hillary: In speeches he's started to point to the allegation made in Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta's Hillary book that the Clintons secretly formulated a 20-year-plan to deliver the presidency first to Bill, and then to Hillary. It's hard to see how the use of Gerth's allegations could possibly play well among Dem activists. Many of them dislike Gerth for his role in "breaking" the Whitewater story and see Gerth's book as an anti-Hillary hatchet job.
What does this have to do with Social Security? Like the attempt to scare America into privatizing Social Security, the attempt to turn Whitewater, an inconsequential failed land deal, into a major scandal was one of the seminal stories helping to rally progressives around the idea that American politics has to change. Playing into the false story lines in each case is like a red flag. Is it really possible that Obama and his advisers are this out of touch?

Source

Admittedly, just because Paul Krugman says something doesn't mean it's right. But for one thing, he has a pretty darn good batting average at judging candidates by their records. That makes his compounded unhappiness with Obama something to take seriously. In addition to that, Krugman's observations are consistent with my own impressions of the way Obama frames and thinks about political issues. He primarily thinks about them in moral terms, and doesn't much care about nuts, bolts, and facts once he's made his moral judgment. I imagine that in this case, the moral judgment is that he needs to "bring America together", and the facts being ignored are that Social Security is not in crisis, and that there is much less substance than meets the eye in the Clinton scandals of the nineties.

For me, personally, this is now one gaffe too many. Earlier I said I favor Obama, with Edwards a close runner up. Now I favor Edwards, with Obama a close runner-up.

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sozobe wrote:

Actually, let me amend the "fully committed" part.

Please don't! It's sweet to see you in love like that.

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I do think he thinks about nuts, bolts and facts plenty... (Will you be able to vote in the primaries? I know you're arriving in the U.S. very soon, but not sure of the process to become eligible to vote.)

Saw this when I turned on the computer, interesting given my ideas yesterday, doesn't support all of them though:

http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-11202007

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What would you say has changed you from "fully committed", Soz? Would you say it's been more that Obama has shown some flaws, or that the others have shown some assets?

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That's not really what I meant. I am currently supporting Obama wholeheartedly.

I thought "fully committed" was a bit too unconditional, though... if for some reason he proves to NOT be worthy of such support, or if another candidate proves to be more worthy (IMO), I'll change my allegiance accordingly. I didn't like the connotation that I was going to support Obama no matter what. I want the best president for the job, and I currently think Obama is the best candidate; but I acknowledge that I might change my opinion for a variety of reasons.

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gotcha. That clears it up for me. thanx.

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Cool.

What's your current thinking, on Obama and the Democratic field in general?

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Well, I noticed in a recent interview that Obama seems to think differently than I do about Hillary's true innards. He said something about her 'being in this for the right reasons". I've always had the opinion, and still do, that she and Bill were at least as much driven by ego as any desire to serve anyone.

And I hope you're right about his having laid back, as far as going for the jugular in his public pronouncements, and that he is going to shed some some of his inhibition as the campaign gets deeper into the primary season. I think Edwards was spot-on when he said that Hillary's protests about "mud-slinging" were ludicrous, because what's transpired thus far is "milquetoast", compared to what is still to come in the general election.

I am heartened in general that a black man with talents as obvious as Obama's is getting as much apparent consideration as he has, and simultaneously p-oed that it seems he has to project some perfect persona or wage some perfect campaign to be considered by some.

those are some thoughts that came to mind when you asked...

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Sozobe wrote:

I do think he thinks about nuts, bolts and facts plenty...

Right. He does mention them a lot in Audacity of Hope. I'm struggling a bit to express exactly what's the pattern I'm complaining about, and what's wrong with it. But while I do, let me ask you how you explain why he's talking about a Social Security crisis when there is none. And why do you think he's picking up on unproven allegations about the Clinton's "secret 20 year plan", peddled by a well known anti-Clinton slimethrower?

sozobe wrote:

(Will you be able to vote in the primaries? I know you're arriving in the U.S. very soon, but not sure of the process to become eligible to vote.)

I can donate to campaigns because I'm a permanent resident, but won't be able to vote, in primaries or anywhere else, because I'm not a US citizen. It'll take about 2.5 more years before I'm eligible for US citizenship, and I'm not yet sure if I'll be ready to give up my German citizenship when that happens. (I haven't yet decided which Democratic candidate to donate to, but expect to do so within a month or two.)

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Thanks, snood!

Yeah, in the big article in the New York Times (the one that I hoped for about 30 seconds was inspired by what I said to him when I met him :-)) he talked about purposely holding back up until that point, avoiding the whole "angry black man" trap. I don't remember the exact quote, can find it.

Thomas, I'm still confused about the social security thing, will look into it further. I generally trust Krugman on economic issues, but not implicitly. I put a lot of stock into what he was saying about the housing market in the spring and summer of 2004 (when we were looking for and purchasing a house) and while a lot of the general stuff he said was true, a lot of it wasn't. (I paid a fairly hefty chunk of change to get a lock on a rate because he promised the rates would go way up in the time interval we were talking about, and they didn't -- in fact, my locked rate ended up being HIGHER than if I'd just waited and not locked anything. That kind of thing.)

My extremely inexpert opinion at this point is that a) people are concerned about whether there will be any money for them when they retire, and b) it's a way to differentiate himself from Hillary. They (all three) really are very similar on many issues and points of differentiation are important.

I think Obama's been trying hard to get through the idea that hey, is Hillary really as experienced as she says she is? I've seen him say it (in full texts of speeches or in long articles for example) fairly often, but it doesn't seem to be breaking through as a trope/ soundbite. This might be another take on it, I don't know.

OK, followed your second link:

Quote:

"I'm not in this race to fulfill some long-held plan or because it was owed to me," Obama told a gathering of Nevada Democrats after Thursday night's Las Vegas debate.

That was a veiled reference to an account by biographers Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta that the Clintons sealed a "secret pact of ambition" to both win the presidency - which has been vehemently denied by Clinton advisers.

Asked if Obama was referring to the pact, a spokeswoman replied, "Barack Obama has not been mapping out his run for president from Washington for the last 20 years like some of his opponents."

Hmm, don't like it much.

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sozobe wrote:

I generally trust Krugman on economic issues, but not implicitly. I put a lot of stock into what he was saying about the housing market in the spring and summer of 2004 (when we were looking for and purchasing a house) and while a lot of the general stuff he said was true, a lot of it wasn't. (I paid a fairly hefty chunk of change to get a lock on a rate because he promised the rates would go way up in the time interval we were talking about, and they didn't -- in fact, my locked rate ended up being HIGHER than if I'd just waited and not locked anything. That kind of thing.)

Not to debate the point, which is reasonable anyway, just for my own orientation -- how long was the time interval of this mortage again?

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We decided we wanted to buy the house in I think April of 2004, but for a variety of reasons (E.G.'s job, the homeowner's preferences), didn't close until July of 2004. We did the lock in April or May I think, right when Krugman's columns were full of doom and gloom.

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