I finally got around today to watching the Obama Iowa victory speech. When was the last time a crowd of Democrats has chanted “USA! USA!”? The funny thing is, while I usually can’t bear to take part in that kind of chanting, I was caught up in his speech and probably would have been chanting right along had I been there. I think Obama’s “we are one nation” theme is what pulls this kind of (I hope) healthy, only slightly jingoistic patriotism from the crowd.
I admit it–I’m excited about Obama. Forget the details of his health care proposal or his timetable for leaving Iraq. He’s got “the vision thing” down pat. His “we are one nation” theme is a powerful idea, that should stick in the craw of old-school identity politics Democrats as much as it sticks in the craw of know-nothing, wedge issue Republicans. I think he is just what the doctor ordered.
TedF
Because it is a very good summation of the Obama effect.
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p>Personally, I remember a time when it was a good thing to belong to “the reality-based community”. Now it’s forget the policies and scream the chants. If the Democratic Party thinks that this is a good change/hope then they deserve him as a nominee.
… is what’s known as the sabutai effect: No matter how soaring the speech, no matter how persuasive the rhetoric, no matter how people actually feel and therefore vote … we really should be voting for some dull technocrat instead, although we haven’t figured out whom that is yet — and we have no idea or proof if such candidate would actually govern more effectively.
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p>Dude … we know what you don’t like. What do you like?
…talk is cheap.
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p>Or is it “cheep”?
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p>/sarcasm
Very simple: a record of competent achievement from the people who want to run the government.
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p>A candidate doesn’t have to be dull — Robert Kennedy and Howard Dean weren’t dull and they were accomplished. But how about we all suck it up and admit that inspiring, achieved people are rare. The process of making something happen often involves compromise and a loss of naivete. It’s tough to preserve one’s outlook through the ugliness of making policy, and preserving it requires true optimism and inspiration, which is far rarer than naive ignorance of the system.
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p>With an Al Gore candidacy, we could have had a shot at inspired accomplishment, but that didn’t happen. So we were left with competence (Dodd, Biden, Richardson, Hillary) versus inspiration (Edwards, Obama). I’m honest enough that I don’t pretend that those four are particularly inspiring…maybe I should lie about it but I won’t.
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p>It’s funny how hesitant people are to pretend that inspiration exists when it doesn’t, but how universal is the tendency to claim achievement when there is little, to justify a desire for another hit of that “inspiration.” I salute TedF for being the rare honest man on that score. Wouldn’t it be swell to hear more excitement about good policy, instead of nebulous “movements”? Such “dullness” is nothing but a desire to see good policy coming from our policymakers, which admittedly doesn’t make anyone’s heart palpitate, but it leads to peace and prosperity.
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p>I’m sick of movements…I want good government. Maybe then we could give that “dull technocrat” a shot and actually see what happens — letting someone really familiar with government govern might turn out to be a good idea.
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p>What I like Charley, what I will always like, is somebody who has a future as an excellent policymaker, not a present as an excellent politician. I’m tired of the Dubyas and Devals being elected on inspiration and governing on incompetence.
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p>If I want to be inspired, I’ll rent Rocky.
At the risk of sounding somewhat old-fashioned, there were some real “messiahs” that kids in the 1960’s looked up to, who not only had charisma and expression and great ideas, but had a way of really uniting people together. They were not phony like many, if not most of today’s politicians/leaders are. They were sincere in their beliefs, and they came off that way. It was a far cry from what it is like today, imo.
…Robert F. Kennedy (Sr.) As far as I’m concerned, he was nothing more than a thug. He worked for Joe McCarthy as well as for J. Edgar Hoover.
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p>While it’s true that RFK Sr. did work for Joe McCarthy and for J. Edgar Hoover for awhile, I wouldn’t call him a thug. Here’s why: Unlike many of the Rightwing politicians in his time, and today, especially, RFK Sr. definitely did redeem himself, becoming a big advocate of uniting blue-collar white ethnics around the country and blacks to form a coalition, and he expressed a true interest and made a true effort to get us out of Viet Nam. Had RFK Sr. lived, I believe that he would’ve helped prevent the country from going as far to the Right as it did, and things would’ve been very, very different, especially now.
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p>Jules Witcover’s book The Year the Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 here in America, which, imo, is an excellent book, that very succinctly and articulately points that out. Hopefully, it’s still in print. Although the above-mentioned book came out ten years ago, it’s still relevent, imo.
I’ll admit I had just the tip of my tongue in my cheek–I really can’t abide the “USA! USA!” chant, and I probably would have grumbled under my breath instead of chanting along had I been there.
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p>But really, Sabutai, why so dour? There are no dramatic differences between the leading Democratic contenders on matters of policy that I know of. Why is it so obviously wrong to say that a leader’s ability to inspire is worth as much as or more than some other non-platform metric such as time in government? Senator Clinton has been effective in the Senate. Senator Edwards was a fierce and disciplined trial lawyer. Senator Obama has strengths I’ve already mentioned. How do any of these relate, really, to the day-to-day work of the presidency?
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p>And I’m surprised by your comparison of Bush and Obama. Bush was a dilettante who owed whatever achievements he had to his family, who purported to inspire, and who apparently did inspire his base. Obama is a thoughtful and accomplished man who seems to inspire across party lines. No comparison.
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p>TedF
RFK, the guy who owed everything he did to the nepotism of his brother, who appointed him as AG; and who then carpetbagged his way to NY to showboat his way into a Senate seat? Was he a great, accomplished policymaker?
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p>See, I’m actually an RFK fan, big time. In the 1960s, you would have been one of the folks saying RFK was a shallow, entitled punk. Actually, he was a young but persuasive guy who could have moved public opinion to a more progressive place. Words are a politician’s stock-in-trade; you not only don’t give that sufficient weight, you downright view it as a drawback. That is just totally perverse.
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p>Your cynicism, your “principled negativity” make you no more sophisticated or “reality-based” than the more starry-eyed of our posters. You obviously view charisma as mutually exclusive to good policy, which is why you support candidates that lose.
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p>And we’ve got to win elections to make policy.
Was Bobby Kennedy a great policymaker? I don’t know, ask anyone who’s familiar with either the history of organized crime.
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p>And I’m disappointed at your ongoing construction of a strawman here that largely ignores what I wrote. I’m not going to repeat myself, except to say that charisma and achievement aren’t always exclusive; they’re just exclusive among the Democratic choices this year. This is not true on the other side, as Huckaee has a good capacity to whip people up along with a record of achievement. Unfortunately, he’s achieved things that I don’t want to see happen.
And that, I think, proves Charley’s point, sadly, rather well.
You always end up in the same place: “All these people are bums.” That was the point.
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p>No one’s perfect. Not even Presidential candidates. Let’s just get over it.
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p>BTW, I love Gore, too. But I find it especially amusing that you think he’s got “charisma”. My goodness, the guy was 31 flavors of dreadful in 2000 — with the exception of that terrific (populist!) acceptance speech.
I’ve said that Tom Reilly’s a bum? That Ed O’Reilly is a bum? As are Howard Dean, Brian Schweitzer, and Sheldon Whitehouse? I’ve been slagged here for defending Stephanie Herseth as the best we can expect from South Dakota!
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p>I defend and promote many figures (RFK?) whom I admire. My problem is just that I don’t like the top-line candidates who are beloved on this website by the most vocal posters, and I get pummeled for it (most spectacularly Obama and Deval, sometimes Edwards). Simply put, the appeals that work on most folks here don’t work so well on me.
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p>As for Gore, I agree that in 2000 he was a two-legged Sominex. On the other hand, millions of people paid good money to watch a movie wherein he gives a PowerPoint presentation. The potential was there, and we’ll never know if he would realize it.
It is about hope for America. Please see my diary about the speech over at Bluehampshire.
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p>http://www.bluehampshire.com/s…
I did see and hear Barack Obama’s speech on the internet. While I agree that Obama’s speech talked about unity, hope, and the uplifting of the United States, and what needed to be done, I admittedly also liked Edwards’ speech as well. As somebody who lived through the 1960’s (I was a teenager back then), while I believe that Obama’s speech was about hope, unity and uplifting of America, I also think that he, along with the other two, definitely lacked the “fire in the belly” quality that many politicians of the 1960’s had.