Obama '08?

The "record of ambitions" goes back to the early days of the Bill Clinton for President campaign and continued on to the White House.

Remember the brouhaha between Hillary and Barbara Bush about baking cookies?

Remember the great discussions about the "new and modern First Lady" with a career of her own while in the White House?

Remember the gasps of horror when Bill dared to give Hillary the job of crafting a health care system reform?


It really isn't anything personal about Hillary that can be pointed to. She happened to be there as the frontrunner during a time of change in the country where the role of women in the White House and politics in general was in turmoil.

The labels were applied then and she's had a heck of a time removing them. They would have died if she'd left the White House and gone back into private life like all other First Ladies of the past.

Her presidential candidacy just proves everyone's early labels as being correct. More power to her. I admire her guts. It is too bad others are continuing to use her as the scapegoat to voice their discomfort about the changing roles of women in politics.

Her campaign workers are probably right. If Obama wasn't a candidate, Hillary would be a shoe in. Obama has challenged her role as the catalyst for change and does a much better job of it.

I have no problem with Hillary's experience/knowledge/expertise or skills. I have great problems with Hillary's political philosophy.

"Hillary's sense of entitlement"? Seriously, jpb, how could you know this? What real information do you have about her which differentiates her in this respect from Biden, say?

I'll sidestep that last bit and let the people addressed answer -- everyone pretty much knows my answer anyway, I'd imagine.

but will admit to reading most of nimh's posts on a2k.

The breadth and depth of her policy knowledge and her knowledge of international affairs and history is what has carried her through the debates

blatham wrote:
The breadth and depth of her policy knowledge and her knowledge of international affairs and history is what has carried her through the debates

nimh: Ahem. Do you really think that these TV debates in any way either demonstrate or require "breadth and depth of policy knowledge and knowledge of international affairs and history"?

Bollocks. Kudos to Hillary for having been able, in all but that second last TV debate, to do all the things you need to do to get through those things. Not make any obvious gaffes, not get caught in the gotcha questions, appear strong and tough without sounding shrill or combative, appearing to rise above the fray by focusing on Bush, creating the impression of both competence and human-ness ... all those strategies, all the PR skills and performance skills and discipline and smarts that it takes to perform well in such a TV debate. But "breadth and depth of policy knowledge"? That you dont need for a debate show on television with Russert, and if you have it, the debate wont reveal it.

And if everyone keeps picking on me I swear I will get a gender reassignment. Which will also allow me to date gunga, my dream partner.

diary of a mad law professor by Patricia J. Williams

The Audacity of Oprah
[from the December 24, 2007 issue]

This Christmas, the film The Great Debaters will come to theaters nationwide. Starring Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah Winfrey, it tells the story of an award-winning team of debaters from Wiley College, a small, historically black institution founded in 1873 and located in Marshall, Texas. In the 1930s the debate team, coached by poet Melvin Tolson, surpassed nearly every other team in the country in contests against universities as far-flung as the University of Southern California and Oxford. Nonetheless, the Wiley team was never officially accorded championship status because the national debate society of that day did not formally recognize black participation. Though unrewarded then, many of the graduates of Wiley's debate team went on to become the most eloquently influential movers in the civil rights movement, most notably James Farmer Jr., who founded the Congress of Racial Equality.

Recently the New York Times ran a front-page story titled For Struggling Black College, Hopes of Big-Screen Revival; it was about the effect that the film is having, even before its release, on Wiley College today. Wiley did not fare well through the 1980s and '90s and came very close to closing. Thanks to the glow of celebrity interest, however, the school's buildings have been handsomely refurbished, Wal-Mart has promised to set up a scholarship fund and enrollment has suddenly doubled. The Times story ends with a moving description of a young woman about to graduate, of her plans to attend medical school, of the room Wiley has given her to dream.

It's a feel-good story, no doubt: a very satisfying saga of the aspiring little engine that could, then did--and still had to wait all these years to be heralded for its remarkable accomplishment. It's also a story that plugs into a deeply iconic American narrative: the battered underdog picked up, brushed off and ultimately saved by the success of the spotlight--and nary a moment too soon. The story is also iconically American in the way it loops between reality and Hollywood dream. The real Wiley College gets legitimated in its educational mission by virtue of a fictionalized representation.

The role of media, particularly the entertainment media, in allowing us to understand our civic life is not to be underestimated. Great actors, great orators and great businessmen draw upon similar thespian skills--it's what makes them likable, salable, commercial. We Americans shovel money at those who can best perform our fantasies.

I say all this because I'm intrigued by the brouhaha attending Oprah Winfrey's decision to endorse Barack Obama's candidacy. The Internet is positively foaming at her decision to campaign for him. Celebrities--from Toby Keith to Sammy Davis Jr., from Barbra Streisand to Jon Bon Jovi--have always stumped for candidates, but a lot of people seem to feel that Oprah is different. She's not a background singer; she is no mere decorative backdrop. Oprah can turn a book into a bestseller!, fume the blogs. When she lends her magic touch, it's somehow complicated or even unfair. I suspect that some of the controversy comes from those who like Obama and don't relate to Oprah's television persona, or vice versa. But it's interesting to contemplate: what does it mean that some people are so concerned about whether this particular celebrity ought to express herself in the political realm?

In a very straightforward sense, it's no wonder that the Double O's are such an arresting team: one of the world's most influential black men links arms with the world's most powerful black woman, and together they sell out an 18,000-seat arena in Columbia, South Carolina, so fast that the computers crash. It's an unprecedented performance of black power in the heart of the old Confederacy. For someone who lived through the most hateful moments of the civil rights era, it's exhilarating and hopeful--and vaguely scary in the vertigo it induces.

From another perspective, to many people Oprah embodies a comforting sort of motherly everywoman, whose embrace has been perhaps too comfortably nonpartisan. If some part of her audience felt betrayed when she lost more weight than the average soccer mom, it stands to reason that they'll feel betrayed when she takes an overt stand in the political realm.

Beyond that, however, Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama are indeed remarkable for how unstilted they are in the public arena. Like the Wiley College debate team of old, they defy the sideshow of the exceptionally "articulate" colored person. The two of them are our most fluent contemporary orators. They are brilliant speakers, easy with large audiences, and both have a talent for translating hard topics into lucid argument. There's good reason both Obama and Winfrey are so often described as trustworthy.

In addition, their particular form of raced celebrity enshrines the notion of American mobility at a moment when it is--in reality--sorely vexed. As I observed in an earlier column, Obama radiates a kind of hope that crosses the immigrant epic with a romantic desire for rainbow diversity. Similarly, Oprah is the black, female, Horatio Alger, rags-to-riches story of our day. From her humble beginnings as a traumatized little girl, albeit pluckier even than Orphan Annie (we Americans do love "pluck"), Oprah reinvented herself by sheer will and rose against all odds to the very top of the phantasmagorical bubble machine we call the entertainment industry. There's a general fear of, as well as attraction to, that bubble. Is the celebrity a platform or a dog-and-pony show? Is it serious debate or entertainment? How easy the purchase of cynicism.

But if we're lucky, maybe something enduring comes of artfully imagining our ideals. Maybe, as with Wiley College, that's how we escort them into renewed life. Maybe indeed it is not too much to hope that the redemptive power of an intelligent dream might reinvigorate the exhaustion of our embattled political landscape.

Butrflynet, I get a different sense from the Hillary speeches and campaign. The feeling I get is that "she earned" running for president based on her a) experience in the white house, and b) as a senator from NY.

I just ain't buying that crxp.

, it was just a horrible sense of bewilderment, confusion, outrage, frustration, anger, everything at the same time," Clinton said.

She also said she was "angry" about it.
The President cannot afford to get angry, when that happens people die.
She is not qualified, IMHO,to be President.

Also she's the one running on "experience." Obama is running on "change" and "hope." (He has enough experience, but that's not a centerpiece of his campaign.)

Obama adviser Steve Hildebrand said two-thirds of those in South Carolina who snapped up the first batch of tickets were voters who had never been identified by the campaign before.

She was the first lady, thats all.
She was a governors wife then a Presidents wife,nothing more.
She was the wife of the President, nothing more.

mysteryman wrote:

She was the first lady, thats all.
She was a governors wife then a Presidents wife,nothing more.
She was the wife of the President, nothing more.

Well, she's also been a Senator in her own right for, what, seven years now? Which is more than either Obama or Edwards ever were.

And exactly what has she done in that time?
What major legislation has she passed, what bills has she gotten passed into law, what exactly are her accomplishments as a senator?


Not that I think that this kind of thing is a decisive factor - if it were, we'd have to elect Biden, of all people.

But yeah, considering she reached as high as Obama and Edwards did, for longer, the "She was a governors wife then a Presidents wife,nothing more" argument doesn't hold up, especially in comparison. She was a US Senator and a First Lady. Obama was a US Senator and an Illinois state senator. Edwards was a US Senator and a trial lawyer. Meh.