Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Feeling good about Barack

"Right now, he's a national Rorschach test, with voters reading into him their fondest hopes for what America can do and be."
Mort Kondracke - Roll Call
David Seaton's News Links
The problem with Obama is that we are not talking about Obama himself very much at all.

The fact is that instead of talking about Barack Obama, we are talking about how good Obama makes us feel about ourselves. We also are talking about how good it would make us look, if he were the next president

We are probably talking more about ourselves than about Obama,
because he hasn't really been around that long or done that much and except for what he tells us about himself we know next to nothing about him... so there isn't that much to talk about.

Obama, who has been in the US Senate for barely two years certainly has the thinnest presidential CV I can ever remember, even Dubya had been the governor of one of America's most important states. If Obama were a successful two term governor of Illinois, which is a very complex state with a huge budget, this would be a much more serious conversation. If Obama had ever done anything outstanding in "private life", like most of the other candidates (Hillary excepted) have done, it would give us something solid to hang on to. As far as I can see, he has written a book about his search for who he "is" and given a couple of good speeches and that is about it.

The campaign(s) are going to be long and brutal and the question is going to be: will our own self-flattery finally be enough to carry the entire country behind it? DS

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Point taken on Bush. However, please keep in mind that 1) For historical reasons, the Texas Governor is a very weak executive. 2) In Bush's first term, the Lt. Governor, Texas legend Bob Bullock tended to the state.