Obama '08?

I also especially liked the way he answered Russert's questions this weekend with actual answers - how many politicians can say, simply and clearly - "the situation changed, so I changed my mind" - without a lot of smarmy, mealymouthed equivocating?

I'm getting a little too enthusiastic

Ain't it refreshing?

And yet I cheer his announcement that he might announce he is going to announce -- something like that. I say this not just because I have been following his career out of the corner of my eye -- my, my, ain't he a natural! -- but because I've actually been reading his speeches. The one he gave on the role of religion in politics was as smart a speech as I've ever read. It's the sort of thing John F. Kennedy could have given, only his would have been written by someone else, probably Ted Sorensen.

I cheer also because Obama is an African American -- an African father, an American mother. For someone like him to be a presidential candidate -- maybe even president -- says oodles about this country. After eight years of George W. Bush and his narcissistic foreign policy -- me, me, us, us -- it would be great to have a president who presents a different message just by his complexion and who compensates, if anything can, for how Iraq has tarnished America's reputation, particularly in the Third World.

But mostly I want Obama to run because he would come into the race with no baggage on Iraq. Not from him would we hear excuses about how he was misled by the Bush administration into thinking there were weapons of mass destruction there. Obama not only was against the war when he ran for the Senate but he can claim -- as could the 21 Democratic senators who voted against the war resolution -- that it was possible to accept the "facts" at the time and still see that the war was unnecessary, if not downright stupid. It just makes me wince every time I hear John Kerry or John Edwards or Joe Biden or Chris Dodd or Hillary Clinton say they were misled, fooled, lied to or some other version of seduced and abandoned -- otherwise they would have voted the right way. This is disingenuous.

Obamafest! Opening Nov. 8!


Published October 24, 2006


On the eve of an election in which Illinois voters will pick a governor, members of Congress and a whole batch of other folks, there is but one "issue," based on a sophisticated analysis of media content.

Is Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) ready to be president or should we just all sit back and wait until Oprah and the media gaggle anoint him?

He says he will consider it after the Nov. 7 election. That's news. Times have changed, because now he's a media red hot, even earlier than Howard Dean was a media red hot the last time around.

Well ... Dang!

I am miffed that the engaging Obama, with a new book in the market, has swept in to gobble up so much attention. We should really be following the governor's race and other local stuff.

I just can't.

The presidency is (thank you, Ambrose Bierce) "the greased pig in the field game of American politics."

Watching its capture is about the most fun you can have in journalism.

I don't know how I feel about presidential candidates who are blessed by the media long before they actually have to go slogging through the New Hampshire slush and the corny Americana of Iowa and, now, the hookers and gambling dens and sinful behaviors of Nevada and the blessings of South Carolina on their way to nailing down enough electoral votes to get a presidential nomination.

I like to watch them slog.

I want to be in Nevada to ask the candidate this question, "Don't you think there should be legal hookers all over the United States, just like in 11 counties here, and if your answer is `No,' when did you stop thinking there should be legal hookers all over the United States?"

I want to be in Iowa so I can ask the candidate, "You know, those folks down in South America can grow corn so cheaply we could cut the price of a corn dog by two-thirds at least. So why should we still be growing corn here instead of outsourcing it like all the other jobs?"

I want to be in New Hampshire to ask the candidate this delicate question.

"Hardly anybody who lives here is actually from New Hampshire. They are mainly a load of exiles from Taxachusetts who don't want to pay their fair share. Wouldn't you rather really lose here because the place doesn't represent anyone but itself? Don't you find these chowder-slurping rustics a tad strange?"

"And, I have a follow-up.

"Don't you think all states should have liquor stores at the rest stops on the superhighways, just like here?"

All of these represent the important questions journalists often present during the presidential primaries. We love these foolish state contests because of the opportunities they present.

Pennsylvania, for example.

"So this state has a collection of folks who are pink-shaded liberals on either end and a bunch of Bible-thumping big-game hunters and cow farmers everywhere else, so don't you think highly subsidized milk should actually be free to all the children of America and shouldn't cows be banned everywhere but Florida and California, where production is more efficient?"

And down South?

"Well, here we are in South Carolina. I saw a man today with a confederate flag sticker on the window of his pickup truck and a bumper sticker that says, `If you like affirmative action, move to Taxachusetts with the rest of the Communists.' Perhaps you will wreck your campaign here by saying something inflammatory, so here is your big chance! Are you for or against this sentiment?"

Or in California.

"A beefy Austrian as governor? Don't you think all Austrians should just go home? Should there be a fence around California to keep all the Austrian actors out? Or should that just be for people from Mexico?"

Or in Florida.

"Yo, loveable, retired AARP-y, learn to vote yet?"

There's so much great stuff ahead of us if only we allow the process to pick a candidate instead of the media. Maybe we could mix them together. Maybe we could just question the senator as though he were already president and see what he thinks about this election.

"Mr. Presidential Anointee Obama, Gov. Rod Blagojevich seems to be plagued by the same kind of corruption that afflicts just about all modern Illinois governors, and challenger Judy Baar Topinka has actually been in photographs [!] with convicted former Illinois Gov. George Ryan and plays accordion so wouldn't it really be prudent for most of us to just move to Indiana? [But not the dingy parts!]"

"Shouldn't we have liquor stores on the tollways too?"

So, Phoenix - last I saw, you said you didn't know enough about Obama yet to have an educated opinion. Have ya found out enough stuff yet?