He's in!
Now, if only you'd stop falling into mushy Lieberman-speak and resurrect the progressive spirit and policies you were espousing before you entered the US Senate. Your party's in power and the American people gave you all a vote of confidence; you weren't asked to do the soft-shoe and wait for your kick in the pants. We already have several "moderates" planning to run on the Democratic ticket, Mr. Senator, and the major one still hasn't unequivocally made up her mind about Iraq.
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Obama's likely run is very exciting. He might also have the potential to attract previously disillusioned voters with his charisma and vitality. Though I wonder if he and Edwards will cancel each other out, as they both have pretty impressive credentials as "progressive candidates." Edwards has already coined the "McCaine Doctrine," which reveals his talent for sound-bite and ability to strap the pro-war/stay-the-course strand of the Senate to what could be an even greater disaster.
ReplyDeleteEven though Obama is being positioned in the media, as being Hillary’s greatest foe, I really think it will be he and Edwards battling out to prove who can take her on in the primaries. I also find it interesting that the right-wing hasn't had nearly as much of a field day with Obama as they have had with the Clintons. I wonder what they have on him. They are playing their hand very close.
-Charles S.
Charles, I agree with you. It's extremely exciting. If he articulates a different worldview from the mainstream Democratic moderates and more progressive economic policies, he really could draw in more voters, especially single women (whose numbers are increasing) and younger voters. The other day I read that John Kerry won among single women by a 25% margin, and that in this most recently (2006) midterm, as in the last presidential election (2004), younger voters broke overwhelmingly for the Democratic candidates. Obama has the potential, with his many gifts, to reach these voters, while also pulling in some voters who might not otherwise vote for an African-American candidate but would find economic populist views a welcome change from our current situation.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so convinced about Edwards, who still bears the millstone of his pro-Iraq War vote, but he and Obama could be a potentially winning team, as could Obama and Gore, or Obama and Wesley Clark. Edwards really had to come up with something snappy to counter this white mark, and also to distinguish himself as more than what the GOP and media have designated him as, a mere "pretty" face. This is so utterly shallow, but given the way our mainstream media operate, Edwards (like Obama and any other Democratic candidate, except the clueless John Kerry) realizes they cannot such silliness for granted.
Obama and Edwards probably will battle it out for the *left* portion of the Democratic spectrum (with Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel on the far left), but the media really are still fixated on Hillary Clinton, since she's still the presumptive frontrunner. The media have, BTW, been going after Obama with all kinds of really bizarre "errors" (including the recent one in which a Minneapolis TV station, while describing the arrest of a child rapist, ran video of someone waving a cutout of Obama's face--this is not even Semiotics and Subliminal Messaging 101!), and they're going to increase, I can assure you. Even "liberals" like Jonathan Alter cannot stop themselves from harping on Obama's middle name; it's like a tic that they refuse to deal with, because of course a Black president is their greatest (racist) fear, no matter what they say publicly.