Category: Barack Obama

David Brooks on Obama:

Obama does not ratchet up hostilities; he restrains them. He does not lash out at perceived enemies, but is aloof from them. In the course of this struggle to discover who he is, Obama clearly learned from the strain of pessimistic optimism that stretches back from Martin Luther King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln. This is a worldview that detests anger as a motivating force, that distrusts easy dichotomies between the parties of good and evil, believing instead that the crucial dichotomy runs between the good and bad within each individual.

Because he’s above an easy hit at Romney. You know: you can mock him for being too goody-two-shoes, but I’ve come to believe he really is the real thing. I keep looking for evidence he isn’t, and spent some time this year looking for reasons to doubt him. But I couldn’t. Don’t dismiss it. Don’t buy the Clinton crapola. Don’t give in to the tired Beltway baloney from Penn. Sometimes, it’s worth supporting someone for the right reasons. Obama and Paul give me hope. And, boy, do we need some.

One blogger suspects so. Hillary may be wounding Bill’s long-standing rapport with African-Americans. I guess it beats Republicans trying to "Osama" him.

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"The Republicans will have a very hard time attacking Obama on racial grounds without seeming to be overtly racist. So they will smear him as treasonous and use the religion card, however fallaciously. This meme is out there – disgracefully abetted by those now in power. The only way past it is through it. And the only mistake is fearing it. Don’t under-estimate it, but don’t fear it. And defeat it. Clinton simply cannot do that. But Obama has a chance."

Hammer. Nail. Head.

This country has been torn apart by fear, sectarianism, and prejudice for a long time. It started before the 2000 election, but it got kicked into overdrive after September 11th. It has been abetted by a feckless media and a frightened and ignorant public who has seen so much change in the last generation that they need scapegoats, any scapegoats, to blame these uncomfortable changes on.

It’s been promoted by those who want to turn back the clock to some mythical  ‘way when things used to be’ that never existed. Huckabee’s ignorant dismissal of science is indicative that there are powerful forces in this country that are still upset with these changes and unhappy with what modernity has wrought. We may disagree on policy and certain points of policy – I am liberal and you are conservative. But the difference between you and I are nothing compared to us and what has taken over the Republican Party.

At the height of McCarthyism the great thug from Wisconsin was brought low when, on television for all the nation to see, a man stood up to him and said, "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" Andrew, there is a vast, silent majority out here yearning for someone to say exactly that to the forces that have given us the Bush administration. No retreat. No surrender. No appeasement. We want someone to stand up and shout ‘Have you no decency?!’

Hillary can’t do this because she’s been part of it. She part of it because she was cowed and made fearful by the forces that attempted to destroy her and her husband in the 1990s. This is why Obama is so appealing. His generation is simply not compromised by the accumulated cultural baggage that allowed those despicable attacks to wound her and democrats of that era. Let these smears continue – my generation, in their millions and millions, will only be incensed more and more by them. We’re pissed. All someone has to do is show up and lead, because we’re damn ready to follow.

A reader writes:

I live in a conservative county just north of Atlanta and just wanted to let you know I am beginning to hear the rough sketches of the smears that will be used against Obama in this region. Most of them revolve around Obama being a Muslim and not just a Muslim but a terrorist sympathizer. This is not just an aberration. I have now heard this from a handful of family members and friends. I got into a shouting match with my mother last night due to her accusing Obama of being a Muslim. I have also received a few emails from right wing lunatics in my extended family.

The scary part is these are smart people. They are college educated and make six figure incomes. The anti-intellectualism in this area is off the charts and is truly terrifying. How can you argue with someone that accuses Barack Obama of sympathizing with terrorists? If the election comes down to Huckabee vs. Obama I am afraid we will enter into a new dimension of Christianist based politics. A more dangerous and potentially catastrophically divisive dimension.

I’m sure this will come. I’m not sure it will have much of an impact outside those places which would never vote for Obama anyway. But it may also be something we just have to go through. What Bush has created has a logic of its own.

It is a politics based on religious identity and the usual McCarthyite tactics that equate all criticism of the Decider with support for a lethal enemy. At some point, this beast has to be fought, not merely appeased or run from. That doesn’t mean it should be fought on its own terms. And what Obama has so far shown – and I simply do not know whether he has the fortitude to keep it up – is a cool under fire, a refusal to take the bait of his opponents, and a determination to keep appealing to as many Americans as he can on unifying themes. It is beating Clinton. And if it can beat her, it can surely beat Huckabee.

The Republicans will have a very hard time attacking Obama on racial grounds without seeming to be overtly racist. So they will smear him as treasonous and use the religion card, however fallaciously. This meme is out there – disgracefully abetted by those now in power. The only way past it is through it. And the only mistake is fearing it. Don’t under-estimate it, but don’t fear it. And defeat it. Clinton simply cannot do that. But Obama has a chance.

The latest Sioux City Journal poll gives Obama and Huckabee nine point leads each. Obama had 1,000 house parties in the state last night.

This focus group suggests Obama won the debate today. Finally, people are sick of fear and the politics of parsing. If you are sick of Bush and all he represents, why would you vote for Clinton? She’s too afraid to turn the page.

I’m not convinced it’s that big a deal, but Dick Morris is:

Oprah sends a message to all American women that it is OK not to vote for Hillary and one to African-Americans that they need to vote for Obama. Were Oprah seen primarily as a black leader, her endorsement of a candidate of her own race running against one of her own gender wouldn’t mean that much. If her reputation were one for putting her race constantly ahead of her gender, her endorsement of Obama would seem automatic. But that is not who Oprah is.

She is iconic to women of all races; to them she’s a woman who is black, not a black who is female. So her refusal to endorse a fellow female seeking the presidency is tremendously significant to women voters. She sends a message by her unusual intervention in a political contest in which a woman is running. It reads: A woman, yes. This woman, no.

This February 2007 column from the Chicago Sun-Times looks very prescient today:

You "experts" assume that just because viable, credible black candidates end up winning overwhelming majorities of black votes that polls currently showing Hillary Clinton leading Obama among African Americans are somehow important.

Wrong again.

In Illinois, at least, large numbers of black voters tend to take their time making up their minds. In political parlance, they ”break late.”

Ten months before the March 2004 U.S. Senate primary (about where we are now before the Iowa caucuses), Obama’s own polls showed him winning just 34 percent of the black vote. About a month before the primary, African-American voters began ”breaking” in large numbers to his candidacy. As they began focusing on the campaign, black voters saw he was viable, liked his message and a significant percentage finally realized he was African American. He ended up winning just about all their votes.

Rich Miller blogs Illinois politics here.