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A Year Later, Obama Needs to Start Campaigning Again
MADISON, WI -- One year ago today, Barack Obama had redefined American electioneering to such an extent that it was possible to believe that his transformational campaign would lead to a transformational presidency.
After all, he had already changed most of what America "knew" about politics.
The freshman senator from Illinois was not only winning an election for the presidency of the United States on November 4, 2008.
He was not just rewriting the rules that had made the upper reaches of electroal competition the domain of white men of a certain class.
He was not merely putting an end to the Bush-Cheney interregnum that had divided the nation along seemingly insurmountable chasms separating red and blue states.
He was restoring a measure of presidential legitimacy to a country that had for the better part of two decades seemed to wander in the wilderness. And with that legitimacy it seemed possible that he might make real the promise of "change."
It had been 20 years since a president was elected with a majority of the popular vote and no serious debate about his Electoral College majority. While Democrats delighted in reminding Republicans that George Bush's 2000 "victory" was imposed by a Republican-dominated U.S. Supreme Court and that his 2004 "victory" relied upon a shaky "mandate" of Ohio's disputed result, Republicans noted that (because of the interventions of Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996) Bill Clinton "victories" were attained with less than 50 percent of the vote.
Obama's victory needed no quotation marks.
He won without qualifiers or footnotes.
He won big - bigger than any presidential candidate in 20 years, bigger than any Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades.
But Obama, always a more cautious man than his campaign suggested, has not governed big.
His has been a constrained presidency that has erred too frequently on the side of compromise and the pursuit of bipartisan cooperation - even when partners have not been readily available.
The man whose election inspired talk about how he might renew the "First 100 Days" ambition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal," or the no-holds-barred legislating of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" administration, has governed far more mildly than his supporters hoped or - despite all the noise they have made - than his critics feared.
Obama White House maintained the mild approach on the anniversary of his election by "celebrating" with a remarkably low-key event in a town that backed his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination by an overwhelming margin and that backed his campaign for the presidency itself by an even more overwhelming margin. In keeping with a "playing-it-safe" presidency, Obama played it safe in marking the anniversary of one of the greatest political achievements in American history.
Considering what Obama was up to a year ago, a visit to a middle school in Madison, Wisconsin, seems an oddly circumspect celebration for a president who one year earlier became the first president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to be elected with resounding popular-vote and Electoral College majorities and huge partisan advantages in the House and Senate.
In 2008, Obama and his team sought a mandate.
They refused to settle for 50-plus-one. They wanted it all. Obama's campaign, which began to looked like a winner from the day that the economy tanked in mid-September (and Republican presidential nominee John McCain had his "fundamentally sound" moment), and which looked inevitable after Republican vice-presidential nominee sat down for an extended interview with CBS New anchor Katie Couric, ran full-on until the last vote was cast.
Schedules were shifted, resources were redirected, messages were adjusted with an eye toward winning where no Democrat had won in a generation - or generations.
On November 4, 2008, just about everything worked. Obama won the popular vote - which should matter for something in a democratic republic -- by almost 10 million votes over McCain. He took 28 states and the District of Columbia, as well as one congressional district in Nebraska (where electoral votes are assigned by district) for a 365-173 Electoral College landslide. Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Colorado and Nevada - red states in the immediately previous presidential elections had gone Republican Georg - were painted a Democratic shade of blue. Virginia, which has not backed a Democrat for president since 1964, voted for Obama. So did another state of the old Confederacy, North Carolina.
The tide of Obama votes washed over into House and Senate contests, building Democratic majorities of the sort that party strategists never dared imagine.
It was a remarkable victory; a historic, transformational win. And, then... Obama stopped campaigning. In some senses, this is what we ask of presidents. They are supposed to mount a superhuman quest for power and then, when they power is achieved, they are supposed to wear its mantle casually, with a deference to their foes, much talk of bipartisanship and a willingness to compromise proposals and even principles in the hope of seeming magnanimous.
But these are not magnanimous times.
Obama's critics, led by radio personality Rush Limbaugh, declared their desire to see him fail as a president. And Limbaugh's call was taken up by whole media networks and then by the whole of a Republican Party in which senators openly announced their hope that the commander-in-chief would meet his "Waterloo."
A year into his presidency, Obama can point to accomplishments. And, no, we're not talking here about that appropriately controversial Nobel Prize for Peace. The stimulus package that he signed has been criticized from the left and the right, yet Obama argues that it has already done much to stabilize a shaky economy - and the latest statistics, especially those suggesting an upturn in manufacturing activity, seem to support the president's case. Obama is especially proud of the fact that his administration has provided critical support for education at a tenuous time.
The president will use the anniversary of his election to highlight those economic and educational accomplishments with an appearance in a town that was a hotbed of Obamania in 2008.
But Obama is not coming to Madison to lead a celebration like the one that brought tens of thousands of cheering supporters into the streets of this city -- and so many others -- after his election was confirmed last November 4.
The choice of Madison -- a city where Obama won some precincts by 20-1 margins, in a county where he won almost 73 percent of the vote and carried every city, village and town, in a state he carried by a 56-42 margin and took 59 of 72 counties - reflects the caution that has characterized Obama's presidency.
There are few "safer" cities for the president. Indeed, if he faces criticism in Madison and surrounding Dane County, it tends to be from the left. The demonstration outside Madison's Wright Middle School was not a right-wing "Tea Party" but a "Books Not Bombs" protest organized by critics of the war in Afghanistan.
The Madison visit was planned before the results of the November 3 off-year elections were known. But at a time when Obama aides were wisely worried about contests for governorships in New Jersey and Virginia and a complicated congressional election in New York state, they weren't taking any chances.
However, the caution inherent in Obama's choice of Madison has less to do with the fact that it is a safe city than with the fact that the event he is doing is so very safe.
He's visiting a racially- and ethnically-diverse public school that is an educational success story.
It will be a tightly-controlled, essentially-closed event with a small, friendly audience and a soft, almost apolitical message. In other words, Obama is not campaigning on the anniversary of his campaign win.
He is presidenting.
And that's the problem.
Democrats just lost the governorships of two states Obama won because turnout among people of color and young people - core Obama constituencies - dropped dramatically from 2008 to 2009.
There's an enthusiasm gap. And that gap is something that should worry Obama.
There's nothing wrong with making a presidential visit to a middle school. In fact, there is a lot that's right about such a move.
But after a morning of presidenting, Obama should have done some campaigning.
In Madison, a city known for its massive turnouts for Democratic rallies, Obama could have celebrated the one-year anniversary of his election with a great big rally at the state Capitol - where tens of thousands of people have regularly shown up for events featuring Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. "I was surprised that they didn't do a Capitol rally," said state Rep. Mark Pocan, one of the state's most powerful and politically-savvy Democratic legislators. "If the president had done a noontime rally at the Capitol, the crowd would have been overwhelming - and overwhelmingly friendly. It would have brought back all those positive memories from last year, all the huge crowds cheering Obama on."
Pocan's right.
The president's team should have thrown caution to the wind and organized a great-big, rip-roaring celebration in Madison. And the president should have delivered a stem-winder speech outlining his health-care reform agenda and promising to fight harder than ever for the change his campaign promised.
Critics would have accused him of being too political.
In fact, Obama has not been political enough.
At this point in his presidency, recognizing both his challenges and his potential, Obama should borrow a page not from Democratic mentors such as Roosevelt and LBJ but from a Republican: Ronald Reagan.
Reagan never had a Republican Congress to work with - Democrats held the House throughout his two terms while control of the Senate shifted - but his was a strong presidency. Why? Because Reagan and his aides understood the power of the bully pulpit.
A visit to a middle school looks and is presidential.
A great big rally in the middle of a supportive town on the anniversary of a great big victory is campaigning.
But campaigning produces powerful images of a popular president being cheering on by supporters who want him to fight rather than compromise.
Reagan would tell Obama that presidents who succeed know that they can never stop campaigning. (And Roosevelt and LBJ would echo the sentiment.)
Obama needs to keep visiting schools. That's what good presidents - and even not so good presidents -- do.
But Obama, the brilliantly successful campaigner of 2008 but the not quite so brilliantly successful president of 2009, should start visiting the bully pulpit. That's where presidents who are serious about governing built the popular support and the political strength to make words like "hope" and "change" into something more than mere slogans.
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27 Comments so far
Show AllThis sounds like a funeral article apologizing for Obama. I wonder why Nichols did not mention the results of yesterday's races in VA and NJ. Too embarassing? Obama is not a progressive. He could switch to the Republican Party and look no different. Why Nichols writes like this is beyond me !
He's part of that "The Nation" company which is a party think tank than a progressive one.
"Why Nichols writes like this is beyond me !"
____________________________________
The short answer is that apparently he just can't help himself.
I (and others) have been struck by the fact that "The Nation"'s well-known gaggle of writers, and others of the progressive-moderate latte-liberal persuasion amply published at CD are fond of using certain dramatic "hooks" upon which to hang their opinions.
"Obama Approaching a Crossroads" is one of the broad themes I've identified; in this hook, there's always a looming Point of No Return, a Rubicon on the horizon, a critical line to be approached or avoided. Thus, for the purposes of the article, there's always still time for Obama to take recommended actions, or resist taking negative actions to save his presidency (and The Nation, capitalized and lower-case).
Since the First Hundred Days were nothing to write home about, the otherwise-insignificant "first anniversary" will do as a hook upon which to hang the fantasy that although Obama has been, er, less than stellar in his accomplishments, and may have somehow unfortunately made an unexpectedly large share of rookie mistakes, he's still every bit the History-Making President we Hoped he would be-- assuming he pulls himself out of this tailspin.
Speaking of "rookie mistakes", last year I had to listen to one Obama supporter in particular earnestly explain over and over that Obama was, after all, like "Jackie Robinson". When Obama voted for the FISA warrantless wiretap abominations, boosted the banksters, filled his administration with neoliberal Clintonista hawks, it was all because "Jackie Robinson" had to walk an incredibly difficult high wire. He HAD to be super-cautious and super-restrained, etc., even within his own party!
I haven't had a chance to revisit this metaphor with the Obama-maniac in question. But I have wondered what would have happened in an alternate universe if Robinson had turned out to be a major-league FLOP during his rookie season. The fact that Robinson WAS an outstanding ballplayer, and his bat, glove, arm, and legs did all the real talking he needed to do, makes his a success story-- a true "win-win" for him and the civil rights movement.
Whereas Obama's performance has not only failed to silence the critics on ALL sides of the political spectrum; he's inflamed almost everyone EXCEPT the crowd Nichols runs with.
Incidentally, "Democracy Now" did a segment yesterday on some new documentary about Obama; I found the segment too creepy to stay with. Even the first excerpts of the documentary, showing Obama and company when he was Incandescent Rock-Star Hot, were painful reminders of how he so readily Fooled the gullible and desperate "realists".
As noted, I didn't stay to watch Amy's interview with filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sams-- I felt a little embarrassed for them. Like Michael Moore, they were probably infatuated with Obama and thrilled to work with Team Obama to paint this Portrait of a Phenom. It must be a drag to come out with what appears to be a favorable, if not flattering, profile now that the rigor mortis of Anticlimax has set in!
It's only a guess, of course, but as I noted elsewhere, the self-styled "realists" and "pragmatists" must be increasingly banging their heads against the wall, thinking, "My GOD! There are three years LEFT! We can't start drawing hard lines or taking unequivocally ADVERSARIAL positions with Obama the way we could with BUSH! What the hell is PLAN B?"
Plan B may very well be writing crap like this for as long as one can get away with it. Not much better than "because he just can't help himself", but that may be about the size of it.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Nichols needs to quit the revisionist history drill and shorten this flabby article to the following sentences:
OBAMA WON THE 2008 ELECTION BECAUSE THE ECONOMIC MELTDOWN OCCURRED IN SEPT. 2008 AND OBAMA WAS NOT A MEMBER OF THE PARTY IN POWER. BRILLIANT CAMPIAGN STRATEGY WOULD NOT HAVE WORKED IF THE MELTDOWN HAD OCCURRED AFTER THE ELECTION.
Is this the documentary running on HBO? I can't bring myself to watch it. The advertisements were jarring enough in light of the day-to-day reality of this Presidency.
On the other hand, another documentary on HBO is definitely worth a watch: Schematta: From Rags to Riches to Rags. That's reality and it's tragic, and in watching it I just can't see what Obama and Co. is going to do to reverse the bleeding in this industry or in any others. The destruction of the fashion industry, a/k/a 7th Avenue in NYC -- the heart -- is another Wall Street tragedy -- and we know who supports Wall Street.
John,
Obama doesn't need to campaign. He needs to start being president.
He doesn't need to talk. Geez, it's gotten so that everytime I hear him give a speech, I find myself saying, "Oh please. Put a cork in it Barack!"
What the guy needs to do is ACT! He needs to lead. He needs to do something big for all the Americans who are out of jobs, out of money and out of luck. He needs to chuck to piece of crap health "reform" coming out of the Congressional meatgrinder and just expand Medicare to all, eliminating Medicaid and the VA and all the other programs that pick up the pieces of the horror that we call America's healthcare "system". He needs to order the AG to begin a criminal investigation into the Wall Street conspiracy to rob the American people and government blind. He needs to end the war in Afghanistan and to get every last soldier and Marine out of Iraq, not in four years or one year, but tomorrow (Okay, I'll give him 60 days). He needs to go on national TV and tell everyone in no uncertain terms that life on earth is at risk, and we are starting a national crash program to develop alternative energy. It can be a jobs program, a university aid program, and an export boosting program all in one.
Campaigning is that last thing we need.
We need a real president. Not somebody who plays one.
Cheers!
Dave Lindorff
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
You nailed it thoroughly ! I don't know where people get the notion that being president means being in campaign mode all the time. Obama isn't up for election until 2012 so it's too early to campaign. People want substance and not just sizzle. Obama can make all the speeches he wants but he needs to get his governing in gear and stop playing the puppet.
He needs to clean house of conservatives and Zionists, the opposite of what Bush did, and get money out of politics.
Frankly, I've heard a lot of comment that he should stop campaigning, and then I come in here and I read this piece that he should be campaigning. Yes, we need the leadership. I have the same response regarding Barack's speeches, but since I know he won't put a cork in it I simply flip the switch and turn him off.
A Year Later, Obama Needs to Start Campaigning Again
Too late. Way too late. Most people who read this and other politically similar sites won't vote for him again. The blatant highway robbery goes on, as does American inspired violence elsewhere in the world. If the Republicans win in '012, the difference will be barely noticeable.
One of the themes I'm always ON about is how serious and significant changes for the worse take place before our eyes, and are simply not much noticed or emphasized despite an unstinting geyser of public political commentary and analysis.
For instance, in Amerika "politician" was not always so neatly interchangeable with "businessperson". There were politicians, and there were businessmen. Oh, they weren't exactly STRANGERS to one another. And one could certainly argue that politicians have ALWAYS been political businesspersons, even if they haven't been called that.
But that's really my point. We may have seen political and business elites as partners, even partners in crime-- but it was at least POSSIBLE that politicians had responsibilities and duties to citizens that required them to act outside the sphere of commerce, and take up political matters incompatible with standard business values, e.g. efficiency, profit, risk avoidance, flexibility.
At least on special occasions, politicians honored a different "bottom line" of political responsibility, in accordance with their solemn oaths of office, and this bottom line took precedence over the mundane bottom line that is the banksters' sanctum sanctorum-- the altar rail in the Church of Greed.
On an everyday level, one could at least occasionally glimpse daylight between these distinct elite groups despite their predilection for making common cause.
Now, it's a given that the pols are virtually each a CEO of an independent franchise-- Me, Inc.-- in a para-corporate service delivery system called Congress, or the White House. The incumbents form alliances, working partnerships, with "tidal zone" lobbyists representing corporations and banksters, invariably AGAINST the interests of the common citizen.
You know-- the common citizen collectively referred to as We the People, from which the above-cited Elected Misrepresentatives ostensibly derive their consensual authority.
Forget "it was ever thus" for the moment; my point is that by now it's become a common perception, and either stupidly accepted or rationalized in accordance with the lame, cynical "realism" that it's a crooked game and always will be. And the only game in town.
Just to pick one egregious example: Barney Frank used to be a politician; now he's become a powerful Borg businessman and sharp-tongued scold increasingly apt to recommend to his former consituency that they volunteer to be assimilated. Certainly, they should stop wasting his and their time by clumsily screeching for utopian achievements that are utterly Unrealistic.
"The only thing those GLBT activists are going to 'pressure' is the grass!" he characteristically quipped in response to news of a planned gay rights demonstration in DC. What a knee-slapper! What a guy! Ol' Barn sure knows how to play the Fool Killer! Woo- HOO!
Later, confronted with the comment, Frank tartly explained in his peremptory, imperious manner that first of all, the legislation was well in hand (tucked into the abominable Defense Appropriations Act), so there wasn't even any windmill to tilt against! (I paraphrase, in the spirit of Frank's own game.)
And even if there WAS something to protest ABOUT, milling around on the Mall wasn't accomplishing a damned thing. The ONLY way to make political change is to Work Within the System-- find or create sympathetic candidates and join their campaigns, etc.
Frank probably really believes that he was just givin' his peeps a little Tough Love. Given the Borg-like Establishment Collective, or Combine, social activism is irrelevant. It Doesn't Work because Things Don't Work That Way. Why can't these clowns SEE that?
This is a disagreeable personal change in Frank, but also an expression of structural, institutional change. I mean, it's POSSIBLE that ol' Barn just woke up one morning to find Satan standing by his bed to make a deal; but I'm willing to believe that his mutation was more of a gradual creep into becoming a total creep.
But I digress again. Another thing that's changed before our eyes-- and is even extensively commented upon but insanely persists anyway-- is that presidents never STOP campaigning.
Nichols makes distinctions between being "presidential" and "campaigning" in the piece. But I think that on a more fundamental level, presidents, like all professional politicians, especially on the federal level, are permanently in Campaign Mode.
Mounting a "project" like a presidential campaign means a two-term strategy from the inception, such that the first term IS the campaign for the second term. Kibitzers, wonks, well-intended analysts, and corporate media infotainwhores alike obsess on inside politics and horse-race minutiae crap because they can. But all that isn't as meaningful as they make it out to be.
The robust zeitgeist of Pragmatism has a honking Achilles' heel: pragmatists invariably fall in love with Process and worship it as an end in an of itself. Here again, Barney Frank exemplifies the hubristic and self-serving extreme of elevating dealmaking above dealing.
I'm convinced that re-election is seamlessly integrated into the amoral political calculus that governs Team Obama's behavior. The chances of Obama ever leaping up under ANY circumstances and barking, "Dammit! We've got to do the RIGHT thing here, and to hell with whether it'll cost me a second term" are exactly zero.
Thus, one might do better by encouraging Obama to STOP campaigning-- although such input Would Not Compute.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Barak Obama surely didnt win the biggest victory for president in 20 years for the Democrats as long we count the nominally Democratic president elected in 1992 and 1996. That president won by eight points in 1996..
Democraitc candidates for the US House of Representatives won bigger than Obama by about two points. We really had a reverse coattail effect of the bottom of the ticket propelling Obama to victory. It was strictly a bottom up vote, which many progressives should be proud of. Obama got the credit, but people really voting for him mainly because he was the Democrat in the presidential contest. Obama did much like John F Kennedy did in 1960, he ran behind, not ahead of those down the ticket especially with regard to the party's US House candidates.
The Democrats had support up and down the ticket, as they had such a strong grass roots
organization. This was the significance of the victory. Franklin D Roosevelt won by as big a margin in his fourth race for the presidency in 1944 and did have a coattail effect even then. Obama is not even close to being an FDR. Maybe if he tries hard he might make an improved Jimmy Carter, but I wouldn't bet on it. Though that victory in that upstate New York congressional district was something else and is a sign that Obama could make more headway if he'd start kicking right wing booty.
AD
Barak Obama surely didnt win the biggest victory for president in 20 years for the Democrats as long we count the nominally Democratic president elected in 1992 and 1996. That president won by eight points in 1996..
Democraitc candidates for the US House of Representatives won bigger than Obama by about two points. We really had a reverse coattail effect of the bottom of the ticket propelling Obama to victory. It was strictly a bottom up vote, which many progressives should be proud of. Obama got the credit, but people really voting for him mainly because he was the Democrat in the presidential contest. Obama did much like John F Kennedy did in 1960, he ran behind, not ahead of those down the ticket especially with regard to the party's US House candidates.
The Democrats had support up and down the ticket, as they had such a strong grass roots
organization. This was the significance of the victory. Franklin D Roosevelt won by as big a margin in his fourth race for the presidency in 1944 and did have a coattail effect even then. Obama is not even close to being an FDR. Maybe if he tries hard he might make an improved Jimmy Carter, but I wouldn't bet on it. Though that victory in that upstate New York congressional district was something else and is a sign that Obama could make more headway if he'd start kicking right wing booty.
AD
Gee here we have another preview.
Barak Obama surely didnt win the biggest victory for president in 20 years for the Democrats as long we count the nominally Democratic president elected in 1992 and 1996. That president won by eight points in 1996..
Democraitc candidates for the US House of Representatives won bigger than Obama by about two points. We really had a reverse coattail effect of the bottom of the ticket propelling Obama to victory. It was strictly a bottom up vote, which many progressives should be proud of. Obama got the credit, but people really voting for him mainly because he was the Democrat in the presidential contest. Obama did much like John F Kennedy did in 1960, he ran behind, not ahead of those down the ticket especially with regard to the party's US House candidates.
The Democrats had support up and down the ticket, as they had such a strong grass roots
organization. This was the significance of the victory. Franklin D Roosevelt won by as big a margin in his fourth race for the presidency in 1944 and did have a coattail effect even then. Obama is not even close to being an FDR. Maybe if he tries hard he might make an improved Jimmy Carter, but I wouldn't bet on it. Though that victory in that upstate New York congressional district was something else and is a sign that Obama could make more headway if he'd start kicking right wing booty.
AD
Preview, preview, and preview some more.
Barak Obama surely didnt win the biggest victory for president in 20 years for the Democrats as long we count the nominally Democratic president elected in 1992 and 1996. That president won by eight points in 1996..
Democraitc candidates for the US House of Representatives won bigger than Obama by about two points. We really had a reverse coattail effect of the bottom of the ticket propelling Obama to victory. It was strictly a bottom up vote, which many progressives should be proud of. Obama got the credit, but people really voting for him mainly because he was the Democrat in the presidential contest. Obama did much like John F Kennedy did in 1960, he ran behind, not ahead of those down the ticket especially with regard to the party's US House candidates.
The Democrats had support up and down the ticket, as they had such a strong grass roots
organization. This was the significance of the victory. Franklin D Roosevelt won by as big a margin in his fourth race for the presidency in 1944 and did have a coattail effect even then. Obama is not even close to being an FDR. Maybe if he tries hard he might make an improved Jimmy Carter, but I wouldn't bet on it. Though that victory in that upstate New York congressional district was something else and is a sign that Obama could make more headway if he'd start kicking right wing booty.
AD
The question really is: why does anybody think Barack Obama will ever entertain any of the admittedly bright ideas here, in Nichols's piece, in Lindorff's response, etc?
I guess when we are finally done with the shallow and self-serving ritual of patting ourselves on the back for electing a black man, we can go back to the real world or whatever is left of it.
Condi Rice was right - Obama is running things pretty much as Cheney/Bush did...
John Nichols acts as if the Obama campaign was a high point in U.S. history. I guess if the march of progress toward the selling of nothing through better and slicker branding is the sine qua non of national life, he is correct.
I don't see how Nichols can possibly label Obama's victory as a "transformational win". What does it mean? What is a win without results? Isn't it nonsensical? Or is he speaking of presidential campaigns as "transformed" by sublime levels of marketing?
Surely, Nichols knows the difference between leadership and marketing. Maybe not, as the conflation of the two is general throughout the nation.
It would be much better to learn something, however disconcerting, about the state of U.S. politics from Obama's campaign and presidency.
"I don't see how Nichols can possibly label Obama's victory as a "transformational win". What does it mean?"
It means NOTHING!
"It would be much better to learn something, however disconcerting, about the state of U.S. politics from Obama's campaign and presidency."
Au contraire. We have learned something, we have learned PLENTY of things and they are highly disconcerting. There can be ZERO doubt that this is a FASCIST government, that there is only THE party , and that the title "President" means NOTHING; Obama and even george "wanker" bush are and were NEVER really in charge of what is going on.
And now for something completely different; I have always loved Madison, Wisconsin. It is the only city north of the Ohio River that I could ever consider living in!
Not au contraire. I was speaking of John Nichols in that sentence. It was not clear, I realize.
;) no worries- we are on the same side!
I'll stick by Chris Hedges' original pieces a few months ago "Buying Brand Obama." The whole thing was a marketing campaign, complete with Obama's own logo. If that is transformational then I will reject the transformation. The whole thing was well-packaged and very slick, and they duped a lot of people to work their hearts out on behalf of Obama. I feel for these people, some of whom didn't have a lot but believed in this man, and gave a lot from what little they have, only to slapped down time and time again this past year.
Thanks to Obama's performance this may be the beginning and the end of the Advertising-Age award campaign. You know, fool me once ... I'm reading more and more comments from the people who were "in the trenches" for this guy and they are not happy, but they get attacked by Obama-bots whenever they criticize this guy for being whiners who "want it all now."
I hope more people start taking off the rose-colored glasses about Obama and learn from this campaign however, as you say, disconcerting it is.
Barack Obama won the election because after 8 years of Bush & Co. slapping us silly and feeding us manure, the "Controllers" decided it would be more fun to feed us lies while they sodomized us.
At least they have condoms like John Nichols to use.
Obama "needs to," Obama "should," Obama "oughta," etc., etc.
Simple retort to this bankrupt school of pseudoprogressive cud-chewing commentary:
Obama won't. Never has, never will.
The Democrats should study the Virginia election: change-motivated Democrats who voted for Obama sat out this one in droves.
They stayed home because they are angered by the Democrats' betrayal of their trust: Obama's appointment of the very finance officials who were responsible for the conditions leading to the meltdown, and his tepid approach to a robust public option.
Unless Obama undo some of the stuff the base is angry about, watch for more democratic voters to melt away next year.
Exactly ! Thank you !
More campaigning; more hot air? Spare me please.
0 already campaigned, and he may have trouble getting people to forget it.
0 needs to do at least appear to at least attempt to do at least some one thing of all the acts he managed to convince so many Democrats he would do.
OK, that is obvious, and it has been aired over and over, wherever Nichols was when that happened (peculiar oversight for a fine commentator).
What interests me in this is that 0 has to know he has lost a great part of his constituency. Either he does not care, or he has some idea that he can make a cheap gesture some time in 2012 and everyone will climb back on board -- or worse, and let's not rule that out.
This looks way past normal Demoplican-Republicrat lying. The greedsters have to have some fairly concrete plan in place for 2010 and 2012, presumably after another couple years of employment downspirals, but I don't see the details.