Obama style, Obama substance

For a liberal, Obama gets it exactly right: hard left politics, but done with a smile that disarms his critics. This was Ronald Reagan's MO, and it eventually won him 49 states.

Contrast Obama with Bill Clinton. Clinton spent A LOT of time bickering with conservatives and "firing up the base" through insults and James Carville-type hissy fits. But politically, with balanced budgets and ending welfare as we know it, Clinton was a pretty conservative democrat.

So, if you are a liberal, and you could have the choice of a president who voted far left but played nicely with conservatives, or a president who voted moderately but insulted conservatives for fun even in his spare time, who would you rather support?

Seems an easy choice to me. The tougher question is who should conservatives more forcefully oppose.

First off the speech was brilliant and may go do in American history with MLK I Have a Dream speech. I've currently got Morning Joe on MSNBC and Joe Scarborough fawning over the speech is starting to make me question some aspects of it. I think it will now be even harder to make any criticism of Obama without being called a racist or Uncle Tom. Obama's appeasing style, trying to be all things to everyone, does make me question just how strong a leader he will be on foreign policy. Faced with some despot or crisis threatening America I don't think he rings true with a lot people. In that speech he continued to speak in generalities and not how he's going to heal the racial divide in this country. Just electing him president will not solve that problem.

Hmmmm, let's not make too much of the Reagan-Obama analogies. There are some significant differences between the two, and those differences suggest that Obama will NOT "wear as well" as Reagan did.

Everyone says Obama is "genial" (which may have more to do with his youthfulness and telegenic smile). Reagan, by contrast, was avuncular and "crinkly" (comfortable like an old shoe) and that had more to do with his advanced age at the time of his election. If you look at old film footage of Reagan making political speech in the early 60s (when HE was in his early 50s) it is jarring. He was very polemical and sounded harsh, partisan. Getting old took a lot of the sting out of Reagan.

Reagan had a great sense of humor and Obama seems humorless. We respect the earnestness of this young man, but there was something more likeable about Reagan. Obama can even appear to be unkind (note his brusque comment in the NH debate about Hillary being "likable enough" and his willingness yesterday to disparage his white grandmother for her alleged racial sins).

Obama seems tethered to his teleprompter. Dependent on that thing the way a child straight out of the womb needs his mother's umbilical cord. It's true that Reagan relied heavily on his cue cards, but in a pinch Reagan was far more nimble on his feet. Has anyone heard Obama on the stump? Wooden and halting.

Finally, Obama's strengh and appeal is biographical while Reagan's was philosophical. It is Obama's mixed racial heritage that gives his candidacy value to the country as a racial healer. It is the same premise that fueled David Dinkins' candidacy for NYC Mayor in 1989. But beyond the racial symbolism, what else does Obama offer? A dreary, divisive left-wing agenda devoid of charm. Once the value of the former wears off, the country will be left with the latter -- and the country will be left feeling cold about the man.

"Once the value of the former wears off, the country will be left with the latter -- and the country will be left feeling cold about the man."

So exactly like Reagan.

I actually think Obama's style is also his substance. He seems substantive, someone who has thought through the issues. He isn't as calculated as Clinton or inconsistent as McCain (bored at one moment, unhinged at the next). You sense he's always thinking and considering, not reacting and plotting.

Style matters, but it doesn't trump substance. Consider how kindly Obama threw his grandmother under the bus, comparing her private fears with the outright public hatred of his pastor. It was all so smooth. Consider that he attributes anger to blacks, but resentment to whites. Anger can be righteous, resentment is always a character flaw.
His facade is starting to crack, and hopefully we'll be able to get a better idea of his true thought and nature. He has surrounded himself with a wife and a pastor who obviously hold America in contempt, and I don't see how that cannot have affected his world view.

Mel, every politician makes calculated decisions. There was no one as cold and calculating as Ronald Reagan. But his style didn't necessarily read "calculated." The Clintons' style reads "calculated." That's my point.

You don't become a politician and succeed if there isn't some calculation in how you lead your life. The question is how that translates into your style and whether it is a 24/7 instinct.

Daniel,

Thanks. I understand your point about all politicians being cold and calculating at some level (some more than others, though). And, indeed, the Clinton style after a fashion seemed calculating. Whether Obama's reputation ends up being closer to Clinton's or to Reagan's remains to be seen.

One of Reagan's strenghs in appearing to be "un-calculating" was that EVERYONE underestimated him. An "amiable dunce" as one prominent columnist labeled him in 1980. No one can make THAT claim about Obama, whose natural parents both earned PhDs and who himself was president of the Harvard Law Review. This guy is as cool as a cucumber -- with about as much heart as one. Eventually the country will catch on. Let's hope before it's too late.

Rod, you asked recently about the conservative case for prefering Clinton to Obama. You just made it quite well, to wit: "Style would help President Obama disarm his conservative opposition in legislative matters."

Mel-
He allowed insurance companies help design the Illinois Health Care system (its one of things liberals hit him on), he's one of the few people to hit the African American Church on it homophobia, the guys a liberal but he's not a political coward, note I didn't say scrap Aff. Act. I said reform it-- focus it on class as much as race, which would eliminate one of the major drawbacks (though it is regrettably rare the few wealthy minorities generally have better means but still get a preference over poor whites), basically it would replace race/gender test and add means testing, which honestly makes sense.

"After Palmer lost the Congressional primary election, she decided to regain her old state senate seat. Waiting for her, of course, was her young mentee, law professor Barack Obama, who hired election law experts to keep her -- and EVERY OTHER primary election candidate -- OFF the ballot. Obama's people scoured the nominating petitions of his opponents and managed to disqualify enough signatures on the petitions of ALL his opponents to keep them ALL off the ballot, including his old mentor, Alice Palmer."

For better or for worse, that is standard practice for every halfway-serious candidate for office in Illinois. It is the procedure recommended to me back when I ran for office, but I didn't have enough foot soldiers to carry it off, which may have something to do with why I just barely didn't make it (despite managing to get 41,000 votes state-wide on a total campaign expenditure of $45.00.)

After crunching the numbers, I did briefly consider the possibility of running for president, considering how cheap it might be.

I'm going to puke. I don't think I can come back here anymore. All y'all poor whities, I wish you the best in dealing with your serious troubles in this world which hates you so.
SEE YA!

Me too, I obviously need to get back to persecuting some negroes.

I've got mixed feelings on Obama, to be sure. My sense is that he's a bit of a rorschach blot -- what you see in him is going to depend on what you bring to the table.

My guess is that this country isn't ready for an African-American president, for better or for worse. I think Obama was right about a number of things yesterday in terms of the racial stalemate that exists, but that doesn't mean that the average middle-class white voter wants to hear it. To me, anyway, it appears that the more people like Obama want to have a real conversation about race, the less the white middle-class is *ever* going to want to have the conversation, so it's a stalemate that isn't going away any time soon.

What's the solution? I don't know. "Get over it" is a really easy thing for me to say, being a middle-class white guy; I think it's probably a bit rich for me to think I can tell somebody who is African-American what that really means.

Richard

Reaganite: Disagree away -- I'd rather be wrong on this point.

Richard

You did your best to give us information that would have been useful to those who were listening.

I was listening. Every post even. She failed to be persuasive.

I'm sure that he IS breaking bread with my "enemies" right now, pyrrho. Because that's the kind of person he is. Sometimes people won't accept the bread that's offered, though. He always gives them that option. And I have imitated him at least to this extent--that nobody has to be my enemy who doesn't want to be. I'm not labeling anyone as an enemy here.

So anyone who disagrees with Rebecca is refusing bread from Jesus. I didn't know the stakes were so high!

OK, Sig, I'm sorry for the escalation in rhetoric. I agree that the discussion of the past day or two has been pathetic, but for different reasons.

Most of the white middle-class males in this discussion, it seems to me, were saying something like: "Obama wants to be the president of all of us, including guys like us whose commitment to racial reconciliation is tepid at best. If he thinks videos of his mentor of the past 20 years spewing this kind of invective about people like us is going to endear people like us to him, he's got a lot of explaining to do, because frankly we're appalled."

The other side then counters: "But you have to understand where the anger comes from. You're appalled, but consider what this nation has done to African-Americans. You're being so insensitive not to understand where this anger and frustration comes from."

But I think our reply has essentially been: "Stop devaluing our feelings simply because black people have suffered more in America than people who look like me. I have feelings too about what kind of person I want to be president, and these feelings are just as legitimate as any other American's."

Then the response from the other side has been: "I can't believe you don't understand where this anger comes from and won't give him a pass on it."

At this point in the conversation, we've become RACISTS.

Is it any wonder people like us want to get as far away from "conversations on race" as we possible can?

heh--and you have outdone in me in peaceableness and offered a conciliatory comment while I was still snarking. Me hat's off to you, sir.

I'd like to think that if someone here were accusing you of being a bigoted racist, I would stick up for you, as well. I don't see you that way. I think your analysis of how the discussion has gone is pretty accurate. I think that the internet is, in some ways, not the best way to talk about these issues. In my experience, everyone wants to be heard and to feel certain that they've been understood. Honoring their experience is the first step toward productive discussion, even when you disagree with their evaluation of that experience and can hardly stand to keep listening to them because you feel so certain they are just so WRONG. And believe me, this is an experience I have ALL the time! ; ) If I'm trying to understand people, it helps to be face to face with them so I can read all the cues I'm getting and continue the interaction until I'm sure that we both have had our say. That doesn't happen on the internet.

I think people are more willing to speak up in a limited way on the internet, though, for the very reasons you say--there's a lot of anxiety and unpleasantness associated with volatile subjects like race. So being online is a good way to vent, to hit and run, to trounce someone with a really satisfying riposte and then walk away, safely anonymous. And believe me, this is another temptation that I personally fall prey to all the time. Lots of unfair and erroneous assumptions are made, on all sides. People like me don't have a really great time in these discussions, either.

IMHO, something that's sadly missing here is any kind of productive talk about what kind of action would be helpful to heal the racial divide in America. People on your side (if I may over-simplify to that extent) have a point when they say, "look, the social programs we have don't seem to be working." People on my side (if I have one--it may be just me over here) wonder though, what's the alternative? Benign neglect? There's some doubt as to whether that can produce a viable national community, either.

But it's not surprising that we aren't talking about solutions. When I first arrived in blog-world, I naively assumed people wanted to talk about solutions. I'm not sure that's true, overall. Often, provoking controversy to solidify what you might call gang affiliations is more the point. Everyone shows their colors, throws signs and postures a bit, then we all go home. This being the internet, the drive-bys are in cyberspace only. Lucky us. : (

Pyrrho,

I think it would be good to take the generation gap into account, too. Younger black people don't have the same scars as their elders, and few espouse the same views. The same applies to younger white people versus their white, often racist, elders. I certainly have had people in my life that I loved and learned from, even if I cringed at their views on race. I don't think this is such an uncommon experience.

I hear you, Z. Though, as I'm sure you've heard, people tend to grow more conservative as they get older.

What really frightens me, as I mentioned above, is that I believe a healthy vibrant economy with expanding opportunities for all is the essential foundation for a liberal political regime, and we quite frankly have been letting our economy go to pot for more than twenty years. Neither Rev. Wright nor I are going to like the chickens that come home to roost because of this. And I must insist that I'm a mainstream economist. I feel as though I'm forced into this pessimistic stance by the facts.

Z, I've already learned a thing or two (or three) from younger people and I ain't all that old. I look forward to watching my little boys put together their unique perspectives on the world as they grow up.

Steve,

I lived on the Southside of Chicago for years. OK, I lived in Hyde Park (University of Chicago), but I did get out and about. I used to like going past Louis Farrakhan's place in Kenwood during the "changing of the guard" (a really cool ritual, actually), volunteered and did research in Woodlawn, regularly hung out in the local bar (about 95% black) regularly when the Bulls were in the playoffs -- for all six rings, went to an integrated parish church, talked up Nation of Islam guys at Starbucks (mostly about the Bulls). I'm no hero and have (mildly) conflicted, contradictory views and feelings about race and my experiences at the time. And I hung out with people "just like me" most of the time. But, believe me, I know just what a sh*thole South Chicago is and just what black folks have gone through there. I have seen crap that you just would not believe (especially in Woodlawn). But Hyde Park is a really decent middle-class black neighborhood, too, so it ain't all bleak.

The funny thing is I have *never* condemned Rev. Wright or even Louis Farrakhan for feeling the way they do. I'm just disappointed in Obama, who aspires to be the leader of all of us. But even that disappointment may be wearing off. This story is geting tired!

Pyrrho,

Kids do teach adults as much (although inadvertantly) as they learn from them. :)