Category: Barack Obama

A pitch-perfect take. This race is shifting a little, isn’t it?

Joe Klein channels my own thoughts:

A few days before the debate, I spent a day with Obama in Iowa, and the most striking thing to me about the Senator’s performances was the scrupulous honesty of his answers, his insistence on delivering bad news when necessary. A woman asked if he believed that stay-at-home moms should be eligible for Social Security. There is a way most politicians answer such questions: a moving tribute to the virtues of child-rearing, then on to the next question without ever making the commitment. Obama did the moving tribute — with a joke about his ineptitude as a parent — but then he told the woman no. "We can’t extend those benefits without huge financial implications," he said.

The very next question was about global warming. Obama laid out his rigorous cap-and-trade plan for reducing carbon emissions, but then he said, "One of the themes of this campaign is to tell voters what they need to hear, not just what they want to hear … So I’ve got to tell you there will be a cost to this — and the utility companies will pass it along to consumers. You can expect a spike in electricity prices," although, he added, the new technology should ultimately bring those prices back down.

I don’t know if this sort of quiet, unsolicited honesty can work in our rude, noisy politics, but it certainly is far more presidential than the dodging and fudging that you get from most candidates…He assumes a maturity in his audiences, and in the press, that simply may not exist. But given the stakes in 2008, perhaps it’s time for all of us to grow up and meet the challenge of a difficult moment for our country.

That’s what some of us sense in a "transformational" candidate.

And what do they do when they panic? They ask for more money.

"After the most secretive administration in memory, an administration that consistently misled the American people, we need a president who is going to be open and forthright. I think [the Philadelphia] debate really exposed this fault line. Senator Clinton left us wondering where she stood on every single hard question from Iran to Social Security to drivers’ licenses for undocumented workers… Her big answer on whether she would release the papers from her White House years was particularly troubling because she is running on her record as first lady as much as on her record as a senator. How can people fully judge that record if the documents from those years remain locked away?" – Barack Obama, turning up the heat at last.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe my desire for knock-out punches is misreading the public mood. Maybe people want calm, clarity and decency in a candidate? This Luntz focus group must have Clinton worried. The respondents overwhelmingly backed Obama as the winner. The phrase: "grace under pressure." Yes, he has grace. And boy is his country under pressure. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time my first impressions were off-base. You live and learn:

My take on the debate last night can be found here. A reader adds:

I’m an Obama supporter, too, but like you I worry that his dispassionate presentation, what you call "high-mindedness," will hurt his chances, because it makes it hard for voters to connect with him emotionally. But part of me is also extremely impressed by his cool-headedness. Isn’t this exactly what we need to face complicated, dangerous times? Someone who does not get ruffled easily, who stays focused and calm, even with everyone inciting him from the sidelines to throw punches? I think we’ve forgotten what this kind of demeanor looks like, because we’ve been led for 8 years by an easily excitable and vain man, whom others have found easy to manipulate.

Obama is not Dukakis or Mondale. He has a good sense of humor and incredible grit, but he wears it lightly. And if he has a chip on his shoulder about anything, it doesn’t show. Isn’t that what we need, as a respite from Bush II’s Oedipal dramas and petulance, and from Clinton’s simmering frustration?

Edwards got in some good punches, and you could see a fine litigator in his combinations of attack and positive rhetoric. But I don’t think his populist take on socioeconomic issues resonates with enough voters.

On the lighter side, poor Bill Richardson, crawling up under Clinton’s skirts looking to be veep.

A reader writes:

In response to your reader who feels the reason Obama isn’t gaining traction with establishment Dems is race, I think it’s a whole lot more simple than latent racism or anything at all to do with race.

The establishment Dems are made up of baby boomers … of which I am one.  Like many other things my generation loves, power is utmost.

Obama represents youth and a consequent loss of control for my generation.  Kennedy faced the same turn the page hurdles with the added complication of being Catholic.  Obama’s complication is being black but he represents that same generational passing of the torch.

Make no mistake, this is about control and power.  My generation will likely not give up either without one whale of a fight.  Watch HRC’s dismissive demeanor when she puts him down…just as a mother might to a wayward, troublesome son.

I will thankfully be voting to rid DC of my generation.  We have so many old grudges that were never resolved, it’s time to turn the reins over to the young for some fresh thought, fresh innovation and fresh hope.  My generation burned all theirs out.