Month: January 2008

The World Reacts

Even a Brit is moved:

The cynicism of Europeans (and yes, Brits, this means you!) is sad and underwhelming. Compare and contrast Obama’s speech (and even Huckabee’s) with any one of Clinton’s (HRC), Blair’s or Merkel’s or Chirac’s or Brown’s or Cameron’s. Try to spot the difference.

Lebanon’s Daily Star:

The very moment [Obama] appears on the world’s television screens, victorious and smiling, America’s image and soft power would experience something like a Copernican revolution.

A German is skeptical:

The Iowa snow king has scant hope of reaching the White House. He’s too young, too inexperienced, too vague, and for many Americans, too black.

One Global Response

From South Africa:

Damn, I love Americans. Just when you’ve written them off as hopeless, as a nation in decline, they turn around and do something extraordinary, which tells you why the United States of America is still the greatest nation on earth.

I think the international response to Obama will shock many Americans. Because it will be so massive. A round-up coming … stay tuned.

Paulites For Obama?

How can I write "The Conservative Soul" and find myself rooting for Obama? How can my core beliefs resonate with the libertarianism of Ron Paul and yet allow for support of an urban liberal like Obama? Good questions. One short answer: because conservatism faces a deeper threat from corrupt Republicans than from honest liberals. Because, after eight years of big government Christianism, a unifying liberalism is something I can live with. Because I want to win the long war against the Jihadists – and we need to unite the country again to do it. Because grow-ups know that any democratic society needs at least two parties and that the alternation of right and left – without tipping into extremism – is a healthy thing. And then – what this reader wrote:

I have a fondness for Ron Paul because he’s the first candidate for president whose views actually mirror my own in most respects, but Barak Obama is the first to actually inspire me. And if anecdotal evidence compiled from my like-minded friends is worth anything, I’m not alone.

We disagree with his political philosophy and very nearly all his positions, and yet are drawn to him and universally agree that we’d be proud to have him as our president. And maybe that pride is enough. We were too young at the time to really understand Reagan, and since we’ve had nothing but a litany of poor choices with unsurprising results. If we can’t realize our vision for America, at least, maybe in Obama we can truly admire our leader for the first time.

Don’t be surprised if many of the young people enthusiastically supporting Paul today wind up crossing the line in a general election and using some of that enthusiasm in support of Obama. I’m sure there are many who gravitate to Paul because of individual issues or out of anger against the establishment. Those followers will drift to third-parties or sit out the election altogether. But there are more, like me, who gravitate to him because of his faith in personal freedom and in the fundamental belief in the human spirit such conviction implies. Obama may not satisfy our thirst for liberty, but he certainly appeals to the human spirit.

There are a lot of us.

“A Beautiful Thing”

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A reader, among many, writes:

I am a white man, straight, Midwestern suburban kid who went to public high school and on to the Ivy Leagues and top-end grad schooling. I was born in 1971, three years after the deaths of MLK and RFK, but I used to listen to recordings of their speeches as early as 5 years old.  My mother taught me that fairness and equality among all people was the most American of values.  So it should come as no surprise that in the already Southern Strategy Republican Party-era I have been a lifelong Democrat.

And I have been scouring the internet and news stations for little reactions like the one you began with this morning.  And I am just sitting here weeping at that report of the shrieks of joy that you posted. What this moment and day means cannot be overstated to this country.

As an American, I have been full of rage and hatred at Republicans these past 7 years for how they have cynically and deliberately and sneeringly fouled every notion of decency this country stands for – my rage was come by honestly.  I feel all of the things the bombthrower feels.  Edwards would seem to be my guy. And I like John Edwards personally.  I want that guy on my side.

But Obama brings me to tears, over and over, and over again.  And I find that the correctness of vitriol and the satisfaction in its venting is trumped by the value of being drawn toward empathy and forgiveness for your sworn enemies.  And reading about the raw elation of African-Americans who see this as the first true real deal for the first moment in all American history, it makes it that much sweeter.

I have a lot of connections to the NH field staff for Obama and I have no doubt whatsoever Obama will win NH from what I hear daily.  And then he will win South Carolina.  And then the machine-chit system Clinton is using for the Feb 5 states will fall like a house of cards.  Obama is already up and running in those states on the ground with his own organization, not proxies.

And on November 4, 2008, you will see a landslide and a national mandate, no matter the Republican opponent. Not even McCain can withstand this.  A 72-year old man cannot stand up to the under 45 generational wave. There was a 30% increase in Republican turnout… over 2000 (remember no caucus in 2004 for them).  Dem increase since 2000?  290%.  290-30.  That is an eloquent statement about the devastation the Bush years have unleashed on their own party, in addition to the nation and the world.  And Huckabee is their cynically created frankenstein, a golem they can no longer control.

This morning is such a beautiful one.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty.)

Yglesias Award Nominee

"Many bloggers (including me) have a knee-jerk reaction to the mainstream media. We "just know" they have a liberal bias and that they can’t be trusted to report accurately on Republicans and conservatives. If my experience is any indication, then most of what we know is "just wrong."

My job wasn’t to spin the press but to present the facts for the Huckabee campaign’s side of the story. I expected that I’d have the toughest time with the professional journalists but most of the reporters that I dealt with (especially Michael Luo of the New York Times and Jonathan Martin of Politico) were quite fair and always professional. Even when their coverage was cringe-inducing I rarely could fault them for being inaccurate or putting their own biases ahead of the facts.

Unfortunately, the same can not be said of the conservative media," – Joe Carter, Evangelical Outpost.