Another Landslide

There were many reasons to believe that the Clintons would do better in Maine. I posted some of them here:

Maine’s white Democrats are disproportionately ethnic and working-class—demographic groups critical to Clinton’s triumphs in New Jersey and Massachusetts. They’ve tended to dominate Democratic primaries, as well.

But something happened today – the same thing that happened in Washington and Nebraska. In not-so-great weather, a huge turnout delivered a another huge margin of victory to Obama. The message is clear and its volume is increasing. The more Democrats look closely at their two candidates, the more the insurgent begins to look like the inevitable.

I wonder if McCain’s emergence as the alternative hasn’t tilted things further in Obama’s favor. The Democrats are now up against a candidate who can appeal to the independent center. To go back to polarizing base politics is to go back to the era of Rove. The rank and file are telling the superdelegates something. They’d better adjust their hearing soon.

The View From Yemen

I wonder how typical this is of the impact Obama is already having around the globe:

My wife and I are serving overseas in Yemen and I wanted to share a quick anecdote with you about Obama-buzz here in Sanaa. While getting my haircut several weeks ago, I was surprised when my barber Mohammed drifted from his usual aspersions about George Bush to suddenly inquire about Barack Obama.  My Arabic is fairly limited, so it took me some time to understand that Mohammed and the other Yemeni patrons had seen Obama during an appearance with Oprah on Al-Jazeera.  All of them agreed that of the people seeking to become President, Obama offered the only redemptive option for America. 

After my haircut was nearing an end – a nearly 60 minute process – Mohammed said that "if a black man can become President, then maybe the story of America isn’t a lie after all."

A few weeks later I was surprised at the end of a meeting with Yemeni government officials, when my hosts broke out into spontaneous praise for Obama and simultaneous incredulity that a man of color could win the American presidency. These two stories are just blips on the Yemeni consciousness, but it’s worth noting that the advent of satellite television enables even the poorest families in the Middle East’s poorest country to follow the US election.  Those two stories stand out as the most dramatic to me, but they’re not the only ones.  Obama’s mere candidacy has restored a fraction of the prestige and credibility we’ve lost – at least in Sanaa.

My own belief is a simple enough one – not enough for real progress, but a start:

It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.

A Republican For Obama

A commenter on Ben Smith’s blog tells it like it is:

Boo! Im a Republican. Yes, you have found yourself in the company of a man who wears button down Oxfords, who flies his flag every holiday and prides himself in a neatly mowed lawn. But something happened in the last few years that has brought me here to this campaign… my party changed. Where once was a belief in the power of the individual, came a heavy, overbearing government that dared to challenge how people should live their lives. And then came the war. Where once I viewed the party as one who ended wars and focused on balanced budgets and living the American dream, there was now one that started one and leveraged our dreams with debt. And then came the loss of privacy. Where once there was the beiief in live and let live, there was now a strange curiosity on the part of the government, to peer into the most private parts of our lives. Where once was a party with a rather sunny disposition came one that was dark, glowering and saw the future as a threat … a place to be fortified … where dreams had to be put aside to allow in, the harsh realities of our times. I wanted to dream again. I wanted to crawl out of the cave that that day in September drove us to. I want to fly my flag not for our fallen soldiers but for our ideals again, I want to befriend my neighbors, be they black or white, gay or straight, Catholic, Muslim, Christian, or Jew.

I want to think that tomorrow can be better than today. I want to live free. I want to walk down a street anywhere in the world knowing that I come from a country that is admired and is a force for good. I heard the words of Barack Obama on one cold day in January, broadcast from the frozen fields of Iowa. And it was like the wind – a chinook wind that seemed to melt away the dark and cold that was offered up by candidates from both parties. And it was like the sun – with warming words that spoke of not taking it to the Republicans with anger or revenge, but getting them to join up in something bigger than a political party … a political force. It dared to look at things differently like having the audacity to talk to everyone… even those we do not like be they Republicans or Iranians.

It came with an easy smile and words that made you believe it was all possible. It made me feel proud to be American again. So here I am. Boo! And there are other Republicans in the room too. Yes, we are a bit out of our sorts. But like you and the millions of other Democrats and Independents, we too want to believe in something again that is not weighted down by special interests and questionable ethics and certainly not a step back to any past. For we have only achieved the great things when our mind has been on the future. I look forward to marching with you.

A Sam’s Club Independent

And she’s voting Democrat this fall:

I wonder if I’m typical.  Forty-seven years old, employed in manufacturing throughout my working life.  Voted for Ronald Reagan the first time I could.  Became a true believer in the ideal of small government, low taxes, and a free-market economy. Faithfully kept my nose to the grindstone for years on end.  Watched my 401K climb to seventy-thousand dollars at the end of the Clinton years, only to see it decimated once the republicans took over. I have never asked anything of my country except for a fair chance.

The opportunity to have prospered through hard work and discipline has been destroyed by the party who claims to be the standard bearer for those very attributes.  My American dream was sold to the lowest bidder (China), given to the cheapest available laborers (Latinos), and used to run-up corporate profits at the expense of hundreds of thousands just like me. And George tells us how "strong" the U.S. economy is. Well George, not out here in the wasteland of American manufacturing.

Out here it takes two adults in a house to maintain any semblance of a decent living.  We can’t afford three dollar-a-gallon gas, we can’t afford a two-thousand dollar a month house payment, we can’t afford health insurance, and we can’t afford to keep you people in power any longer.  I’m sick to death of hearing how a "terrorist" is just waiting to kick my door in, how only true "patriots" are those who turn a blind eye to shameful acts of human degredation, how the only way to "support" the troops is to continue unaccountably awarding the Pentagon billions of taxpayer dollars, and how if we want to succeed in this country we need to embrace the new "global economy", GODDAMMIT ENOUGH!!

Is it any wonder that so many of us could latch onto a message that resonates with authenticity, a message that speaks to a better America, a message of hope?  Is it any wonder that Obama shines like a beacon in the face of so much darkness?  We have been eight long years in a cesspool of waste, fear-mongering, lies, and criminal profiteering from ill-concieved economic and fiscal policy.  This republican administration cannot end soon enough, and this is one independent white middle-class working American who will pull the lever for Obama and the democrats so hard this November that glass will break in that shining city on the hill.

The Difference

A reader writes:

I have been fairly resistant to the idea of an Obama candidacy for multiple reasons and one of which was your vitriol towards Senator Clinton. You are usually rational and so I thought you just had a bad case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome and would come to your senses once she got the nomination.  Each time you tore down Clinton, it just made me want to vote for her even more.

Then I went to hear them both in Richmond last night. It was unbelievable. The crowd was chanting for him throughout the night (including right before and shortly after Clinton’s speech) and even though he showed up late, about 2 hours after Clinton, the crowd went nuts.  Where Clinton was uninspiring and the response more polite than fervent, Obama was presidential and his charisma filled the room. I started out the evening wearing a Hillary sticker and by the end I had thrown it away.

So as much as I hate to say it Andrew, I am now an Obama supporter. But please, try to be a little kinder to Clinton.  Senator Obama was kind when speaking about McCain last night and it showed class. Try to learn something from that.

Well, I’m not running. So I don’t have to be nice all the time. And my dismay at the Clintons is long-standing. It’s reality-based. And I don’t think this campaign has revealed it as irrational, however spirited I’ve been at times.