Everything I would want to say, but smarter:
If Clinton was a triangulator, then Obama is a tetrahedralizer, ie, he does it in 3D. Not even Dick Morris could get Ken “cakewalk” Adelman, Scott McClellan, Colin Powell, and will.i.am on his boss’s side. Obama owes his entry into national politics to Holy Joe, the patron saint of Big Insurance, yet “that one” excites throngs of admirers on his left. Why? Is it his promise to expand the war in Afghanistan? Or his plan to increase the size of the army by 90,000? Or his coddling of terrorists (yes, I mean the health insurance lobbyists)? Or is it his pro-wiretap vote? Or his pro-death penalty stand? Or his tax cuts for all but quarter-millionaires? Or his willful neglect of the poor, a class of subhumans unworthy of even a passing mention in his campaign?
Rarely has the word ‘change’ been so devoid of content. Obama’s agenda is Republicanism minus the insanity.
True, McCain offers his rival the advantage of running against a certified lunatic, a cranky coot even nuttier than Bush. With Joe Lieberman at State, John Bolton at DoD, and John Yoo in SupremeLand, every day of a McCain-Palin administration would be Halloween in America: Trick or Shriek…….
But this miraculous story should not make us miss the forest for the trees. The reality is that racial segregation is back to the levels of the sixties and that black poverty has been on a steady increase for the past quarter-century. White Obamania is a cheap thrill, much cheaper than actually doing something about America’s blighted neighborhoods. Obama’s promise of a tax cut for everyone was code for “Fear not, white man, I won’t do a thing for the Hood.” We all got the message. Does a black president mean the problem can be solved or the problem has been solved?
While the room for skepticism is real, and should be encouraged; NO president should be given a free ride…
I think it’s still very fair and reasonable to say that Obama is no extremist and his very recent proximity to poverty stricken communities and day to day mores cannot be ignored. He is much more in touch with the problems of today than John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton, or John Edwards ever were. For better or worse Barack Obama is the people’s president, and I don’t see any reason so far why he won’t reflect that.
President-Elect Obama is starting to form a cabinet (for whatever their partisan past might be) of incredibly capable pragmatists that are looking at the world at what can actually be done versus any idealism about what should be right in the world.
I also think that most American’s in the political center think that caring for our military, putting the right effort into Afghanistan, and talking to the right people to ensure the screeching complaints of the fringe are marginalized is where everyone is in a way that was defined by his very clear victory. A clear victory by the way that Bush never had, and Clinton did. George W. Bush governed by a 51% philosophy. Obama never campaigned that way. An important point to note.
And in regards to the black ghettos. Don’t forget that Obama had to be the Sidney Fucking Poitier of politicians, and the way you get elected (as proven) is to passionately avoid the idea of an angry black politician. While Jessie Jackson was pretty sweet, and my folks voted for him in the primaries, he really did run as a black man for the black community…and while that’s 100% okay, it’s a little bit of the Ralph Nader 99% idealism and less than 1% of the popular vote in electability.
Sure, Obama could be the biggest swindle in American history, but that means he kept the secret for 2 years during the most brutal election cycle in American history. I think what is more plausible is that racism is still deep in this country and if you can frame the issue of ghettoized areas of the country in a manner that applies to everyone (no jobs, take care of your kids, stable families, better housing, reduced drug influence, better police, etc…) you not only touch on the issue, you also are inclusive of everyone to a commonality.
Okay, maybe Obama will fuck over poor black people and he just abused them to get into the White House while pretending to be liberal but he’s just another Republican in disguise…but I doubt it. Instead I think he ran the exact race that was required to put the first minority in the Oval Office, and he will indeed address the vital foreign and domestic issues of this nation.
Also, don’t forget…he may fail, and he may get it wrong, but I think he will have the courage to at least try, and that alone is far more than we ever got from George W. Bush.