I think Obama’s talk about McCain’s houses will not fly. The usual implication of wealth in a political campaign is that someone is out of touch with and indifferent to the sufferings of ordinary people. But as a former military man and POW, McCain will always have “street cred” with the working classes as someone who has suffered in his life, and, better yet, suffered for his country.
These charges won’t stick. It’s part of a general odd tone of the Obama campaign, as if any attack is equal to any other. There is no narrative unity. Consider Obama’s whiney argument that McCain (and his surrogates) should not question his patriotism, and in return he won’t question McCain’s. Huh? McCain’s commitment to the country is undeniable. He might be wrong-headed and embrace a liberal version of open-borders, but his subjective intent and life experiences count for something. Obama, by contrast, spent much of his life affiliating with people highly critical of the country and its core institutions, people like Jeremiah Wright and terrorist Bill Ayers. Coupled with symbolic acts like his resistance to rituals like the national anthem, frankly his patriotism is questionable. Either way, he should stay off the topic. It is as if McCain were to say in pseudo-magnaminous fashion, “I won’t question my opponent’s commitment to civil rights.” No shit.
By contrast,the Rezko stuff and Obama’s shady housing deals are easily coupled with Obama’s prep school years and Ivy League alma maters and occasional resentment of America to show him as a guy who thinks he is so smart and so worthy that the rules do not apply to him. Instead of reflexively suggesting that McCain’s snobbery is extant and equal to his own, Obama would benefit by contrasting his native smarts with McCain’s pig-headedness and bad judgment. This character debate is a dead-end for Obama and ultimately helpful to McCain.
Obama has another challenge. He has boxed himself in by campaigning like this post-political voice of reason. Every time he strikes or strikes back, even if it’s reasonable on the merits, it hurts his main narrative and marks him as indistinguishable from every other politician. You at least knew that Clinton played hard-ball the minute he got rolling in 1992. Of course, this “post political” narrative should have been deconstructed a long time ago. This charlatan rose through the ranks of Chicago politics and has played the race cards about as frequently and obnoxiously as McCain appealed to his POW credentials. We have too power-obsessed biography candidates who avoid ever being clear about any real policy matters.
In the end, this stuff is only of mild academic interest to me. I find this campaign boring beyond belief, not least because I don’t plan on voting for either of the two front-runners, and I find them both to be slaves to political correctness, unserious in their treatment of our nation’s problems, and both represent different variations of consensus liberalism.
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So what do you think of the Biden pick?
First thoughts: sensible, reasonable, not very ideological, and probably a slight net-positive.
It’s here, Roach. The magic day. Shout it from the hills of Scranton to the plains of Iowa. Obama is the one who warm destiny has called. An he now has the imprimatur of DC on his side.
Adjust your thinking, accordingly.
The era of ideology and the politics of succession are finished; it’s no longer white dudes and special interests and the spit of the social order.
The country has spoken, for better or worse. The heat and the food and the gas and the kids and the money and the house and the future had their essence imperiled. The country’s been gutted, and its spirit, denied. Time to reconfigure.
Forget McCain. He’s yesterday’s news. Dispense with the relics that disserve tradition. Indeed, put your political templates on hold and your examined ruminations on pause. You are still intellectually sober enough to indulge change, despite the lede and the weight of reflex.
Enjoy the ride. I promise you, it will all be ok. Somewhere inside you, you know it.
I just have three random things to say, and think it best to put them both together, here;
1.) The proper spelling is Caucasus, not Caucuses, not Cauceses, as you have spelled the word in several posts.
2.) Are you no longer writing for Takimag?
3.) Good to see you are still writing somewhere!
Don’t you think we should vote for Obama to remove any basis for African-Americans’ (not blacks, but particularly African-Americans’) to whine and complain and be lazy, as was explained recently in the Wall Street Journal? In other words, as a patriot, you should vote for Obama and hope he wins to move the country forward.
Do you honestly think that would stop complaints? If anything it would only intensify demands.
Considering the circumstances; Biden was probably a good pick for Obama.
Anon E. Muss, nothing will stop the complaining…on either side. Why? both sides like the victimology.
I would like to see affirmative action (in it’s present form) repealed. For college admissions; quotas, etc., should be based on financial need…not race.
Regarding the above, fyi. Many colleges have support groups that help poor students with the extras…such as bus fare for holidays. (Many of these kids don’t have parents who can afford; or in some cases, are aware; that their child needs such things.)
If you want to help; please contact the college(s) of your choice.
Roach, I disagree that Biden is a net-positive. If anything, he’s a wash. The problems Biden brings are many because he is the antithesis of many of the things Obama has stood for. For one thing, he’s a long-time Washington insider. Obama can say whatever he wants about Biden never living in DC, but it does not matter. McCain still had reservations at the Hanoi Hilton when Biden first got elected in 1972. Biden is an insider.
Biden also voted for the war in Iraq. He can say he repudiated the vote later, but no matter – he helped get the ball rolling. That vote can’t be erased.
Biden is the old guy to Obama’s young guy. If the argument is that McCain is old and doesn’t get it, so is Biden.
If Obama has no experience in foreign policy, but Biden does, that makes Biden the same guy Cheney is to Bush, right? So all this talk about McSame, the guy who is copying the Bush/Cheney method is Obama, not McCain.
Obama will tout that Biden is well respected and has headed several Senate committees. First, you lead those committees based on tenure, not merit. Second, once we review video of Biden serving on these committees, it will be an embarrassment. Try to find video of Biden chairing the hearing to confirm Sam Alito. Biden talks for 22 minutes and never actually asks a question while talking about his kids, college, and a host of other topics.
The list goes on and on.
McCain has a real shot here, and Obama is doing everything he can to blow this election. I hope he keeps it up.
I agree with Mr. Roach that the Campaign is a big nothing, a bore. Actually though, I will say that, the more I come across stuff about it, the more I become convinced that it’s all a hoax. That the winner has been chosen and the whole thing has nothing at all to do with Democracy.
It’s obvious also that Big Business has dropped the old Laissez-faire notion that Economic Profit = Social Benefit, because they know it doesn’t. Their answer? “So much for Social Benefit. And why don’t you all just shut up and let us make our profits?”
It’s also clear that the Multi-Cultural Critque of the West, which was designed, in advance, for the purpose of showing the world and convincing the West, that the West is a Pathology, it itself a Pathology.
It’s answer?
Eliminate Free Speech to avoid exposure.
After having spent years living in Latin America I can say from experience what most of the well-informed at MANSIZEDTARGET and other such sites know from their reading, if not from their own personal experience,ie; That Mexicans and other Latin Illegals did not organize themselves, they were organized. Organized by those in the Power Elite.
If they can organize a group of people famous for its lack of organization, then they can organize the election results of a Political Campaign, no problem.
To me, Obama is merely a representative of the collective interests of a cartel who together make up the above mentioned Power Elite (as neutral a term as I can think of).
Or, the Liberal/Left/Neocon Leviathan responsible for our Politically Correct, Multi-Cultural Police State.
He is the face of their Domestic Policy (it’s Multi-Culti Crusade against Whites that you would have to be blind not to see, as well as the Grand Poobah of the Holy Order of Foolhardiness to stand up to alone) second thing he did when he clinched the nomination was go to La Raza and Pledge Allegiance(what a quaint word, “clinched”)).
He is the face of their Foriegn Policy.
The first thing he did was go to AIPAC and Pledge Allegiance.
For myself, it is all to unbelievable to take seriously, and yet, it carries on taking itself so seriously. Maybe that’s why it’s so boring. But, if there is any justice to this point of view, we won’t be able to dismiss the damage this Leviathan is capable of with words like “boring.”
Please try to pay attention. I did not say they would stop whining. I said it would remove any basis for whining, and the few good leaders in their community would start to push for the Cosby/Obama over the Sharpton/Wright, and that would not be a bad thing.