Category: The Dish

As a further response to Bainbridge’s questions, a reader reminds me of this passage in Larissa MacFarquhar’s excellent profile of the guy earlier last year:

In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative. There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It’s not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good.

And such a man, when he pushes for felt change, has more credibility and more of a chance to succeed. His candidacy is, to put it in Oakeshottian terms, an intimation to be pursued.

A reader writes:

The Iowa caucus reminded me of America Idol.  Just like in the TV show, regardless of what the judges say, it’s the public who gets to decide. Who knows: maybe over the past six years or so Simon Cowell, Ryan Seacrest and company have been spreading democratic impulses into the national psyche, which have now come to fruition.

Or maybe when voters look at the pundit class, they see Simon, Randy and Paula. And when they look to a represtentative for America, they find a young, racially ambiguous super-talent. I’m surprised we haven’t yet seen a column on the Jordin Sparks-Barack Obama parallels.

A reader writes:

In Reference to this question:

What specific changes in law, society, or polity, if any, that Obama supports do you also support?

Spending and borrow is also something that you have brought up in the past. Obama is the man who created this web site, with the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, so we the people can know where our tax money is going. Its not perfect but its a step towards transparency that no one else in the race has even begun to match.

I hate the government, as a good Ron Paul supporting classical liberal should, but if we must have one I at least want to keep a close eye on it, and this helps me do just that.

PS: Obama worked with Tom Coburn, far from an ideological equal, and pushed it over the ‘secret hold’ placed by Stevens and Byrd.

A reader writes:

Bass players everywhere finally find their candidate, and you’re going to deny us this?  We knew Sid Vicious and Sting were foreign-born, and that Dee Dee Ramone was unelectable; Geddy Lee was terrible on the stump and Krist Novoselic was a one-issue pony on Bosnia. 

But with Huckabee, finally an electable bass player. You and the MSM are conspiring to get this wrong and rob us of our time.

A helpful analysis from Michael Medved:

According to the exit polls used by major news networks, a majority of voters who described themselves as “evangelical” or “born again” Christians actually voted against Huckabee –with 54% splitting their support among Romney, McCain, Thompson and Ron Paul. Yes, Huckabee’s 46% of Evangelicals was a strong showing, but it was directly comparable to his commanding 40% of women, or 40% of all voters under the age of 30, or 41% of those earning less than $30,000 a year. His powerful appeal to females, the young and the poor make him a different kind of Republican, who connects with voting blocs the GOP needs to win back. He’s hardly the one-dimensional religious candidate of media caricature.

Well, I’m interested anyway:

In general, we noticed the Doctor is more likely to overthrow the government on alien planets, or in the distant future. When he visits present-day Earth or our history, he’s an arch-conservative. (He ousts Harriet Jones as prime minister of England in "The Christmas Invasion," but that’s not the same as destroying the whole government.) Also, the Doctor acted out way more during the Thatcher era than any other period. During the Blair/Gordon Brown eras, he’s been quite well-behaved.

They simply misjudged the mood. By focusing on the Penn-trees, they missed the Obama-forest:

Another adviser said Mr. Penn and Mr. Clinton were consumed with polling data for so long, they did not fully grasp the personality deficit that Mrs. Clinton had with voters.

Obama’s victory over Clinton in Iowa reminds me ever-so-slightly of how Bill Clinton once beat George H. W. Bush. And that’s got to hurt.

She has a very perilous path ahead. A reader writes:

I have been having some email exchanges with friends of mine about what happens next after Obama’s win in Iowa.  We are all 30-something, educated, professional, black men and the consensus seems to be that Obama is going to be smeared big time via surrogates and whisper campaigns in order to put Hillary Clinton back on top. I am not so sure, but everyone else believes it to be a forgone conclusion. But here is the kicker, if that does happen and it works, we have all said that Hillary can forget getting our vote in November. None of us are going to vote Republican.  We’ll all vote in our local, state, and congressional races,  But the vote for president will either be left blank, third party, or better yet, we are talking about writing in Obama

Hillary smears Obama at her peril come November.

Believe it. Even before Iowa had sunk in with voters, her lead was down to two percent.

(Photo: January 4, 2008, New Hampshire. By Emmanuel Dumond/AFP/Getty.)

The turn-around among white voters is particularly spectacular.