I listened to Barack Obama narrate his book, Dreams From My Father, on the plane today. Not only does he swear and use different voices for everyone in the book, it’s also amazingly interesting and insightful. Go figure. Way better than Audacity. And way better than the in-flight film; Seabiscuit.
3 comments May 29th, 2008
Teddy has a malignant brain tumor, and the average life expectancy for someone with that is 1 to 5 years. If anyone has the grit to last longer than that, it’s Kennedy, but who knows. Teddy was able to outgrow the shadow of his brothers — John, an American icon, and Bobby, a liberal hero — to become one of the most important political figures of the last forty plus years. No small feat. Also, his early endorsement of Obama was a classy move.
Editor’s note: I forgot about RFK Jr. when I called Teddy the last great Kennedy. They’re both good guys.
2 comments May 21st, 2008
I notice that pundits frequently point to Obama’s “white working class voter problem” as a bad omen for October, but simultaneously contend that liberal elites write off such voters as uneducated inferior beings. I have friends who are racist, friends who are sexist. I don’t agree with their views, but I don’t think disagreements should keep us from being friends or keep me from having respect for them.
However, 40 years after the Civil Rights Movement, I think a certain amount of anger and frustration at this persistent prejudice is warranted. Kentucky whites are fine people, but they are terrible voters. Mitch McConnel is an awful Senator. The political world would be a better place if he weren’t a participant. Massachusetts folk aren’t inherently better people, but they are better voters. They would never elect someone who so poorly represents his constituents. We should definitely view people through the totality of their words and actions, but the notion that criticizing people for being racist is condescending is just ridiculous. Furthermore, why do we talk about personal responsibility when we don’t want blacks to blame institutionalized racism for their lot in life, but not when whites blame niggers and immigrants for our country’s problems?
Maybe criticism isn’t the best way to bring about change, but neither is refusing to vote for candidates who aren’t old white men. I’m all for reaching out to all voters and encouraging them to vote for quality candidates like Obama, but I have no interest in deferring to the most narrow-minded voting sets when deciding who to nominate for office.
Also, working class whites do tend to vote for Obama in more Northerly states (like, say, Oregon not too long ago). I think a couple things are happening here. One, working class voters don’t trust a lot of politicians. Clinton presided over some economically robust years and earned quite a bit of good will with these voters. Some of these votes are more pro-Billary than anti-Obama. And the media is applying the “working-class white” name tag to a phenomenon that seems to be predominantly an Appalachian and Southern white thing, not so much a class issue.
3 comments May 21st, 2008
As most of you already know, Teddy Kennedy has been hospitalized for a seizure, after having surgery to unblock an artery just last year. Barack Obama called Teddy one of his favorite people, and I feel much the same way. Teddy has been the most important Democratic Senator over the last few decades and has shown a commitment to working class Americans that few, if any politicians can match. We wish him a speedy recovery.
Add comment May 19th, 2008
When FTP boldly announced our endorsement of Barack Obama on a cold, blustery day in the New England fall, we subscribed to much of the conventional wisdom floating around at the time. He’s the most charismatic candidate in a generation. He’s the most authentically religious Democrat in a generation. A lot of these assumptions were somewhat superficial, and tied to the belief that being black gifts a candidate a certain amount of authenticity, charisma and liberal bona-fides. That is to say, FTP subscribed to a specific strand of stereotyping.
As the harsh winter shattered our notions of good and evil (and comically dramatic prose), we came to the conclusion that we had thrown our lot in with the right candidate, for the wrong reasons. Here is a more studied, nuanced portrait of the Democratic nominee.
Many people have noted that Obama’s deliberate vagueness, coupled with his positive message, allows voters across a wide range of the political spectrum to project their values, hopes, dreams, etc. on to him, but leaves us without a clear idea of what he really stands for. I think there is a certain element of truth to that with respect to the specificity of some of the solutions he’s offered, but otherwise I completely disagree. His words and actions, especially when viewed in their totality, fit in with a very clear notion of right and wrong. His meta-disclosures on how politicians should approach politics and talk to voters provide a much more transparent ideology than most candidates are willing to offer.
I attribute part of these ethics to his admission of feeling like an outsider for much of his early adult life. Outsiders often develop a very personal and introspective (and stubborn) moral compass, absent some of the stronger societal pressures and peer-enforced values that many experience. This can be good or bad. You get the eye-for-an-eye lone soldier model, and you also get the Obamas; the folks just enough removed from a situation to render objective analysis, but still able to empathize with all the players involved.
So after a while, Obama made a concerted effort to become more fully integrated with a community. He joined Trinity Church, became a community organizer, applied for sainthood, etc. But he did so with an already strong set of ingrained beliefs.
Now, trusting yourself so fully can be problematic when you’re dead wrong. That’s how bad wars are waged, continued and rationalized. But self-assuredness is absolutely essential when going through an intense political campaign where the media is focusing on everything but what’s important, and a lot of people are giving you bad advice.
Obama frequently talks about his ability not to get rattled; to stay cool under pressure. I think he does get rattled, agitated sometimes. Like when Wright launched his most recent publicity tour, or Bush and McCain implied he was weak on foreign policy. But he doesn’t get scared. He doesn’t try and adopt a new message that might go over better. He responds with intensity and conviction, even if he has to struggle with the phrasing of his words. If he doesn’t like the way he said something, he’ll say it better.
Next Week: Chapter 2. In which we explore the alleged vagueness of Obama’s policy proposals. Oh what an exciting cliffhanger!
1 comment May 19th, 2008
And Bugs Bunny. And Spam, for Christ’s sake. And a few other things, as well.
Here’s just one of the benefits of having a Democratic majority.
Johnny Edwards arrived fashionably late to the Obama party. Publius has some insights that will probably be a little long for you all to read, but if you skip to the end, you’ll see that he is also wary of Edwards’ unleashable ambition, although I don’t think he uses imaginary words to prove his point.
I meant to link to this fella a long time ago. Arianna Huff deftly addresses the issue I most care about in politics. Apparently she has a new book out that does the same. Putting aside the fact that she looks like she could be MoDowd’s sister (which I almost wrote a fascinating post about), FTP has nothing but respect for Huffington.
1 comment May 16th, 2008
You know those arguments you have where at some point in the middle you realize you’re wrong but you keep arguing anyway? Because you are angry at the other person for keeping it going, or you can’t stand being wrong, or because you’d have to admit to things you don’t want to acknowledge about yourself? Good stuff.
I’ve found that as I get older, I am not much better at admitting I’m wrong; only better at realizing when I’m wrong. Some day, I’ll probably reach the point where I decide damaging a friendship, keeping up a transparent facade, or proving some ridiculous notion of intelligence through tenacity in the defense of an untruth, is just dumb. Most likely, it will occur gradually, without some catalytic event that forever corrects my warped perceptions of what is important.
If, however, I am blessed with such an epiphany, I imagine it will look an awful lot like what May 6 looked like to Hillary Clinton. Hillary has known that she is probably going to lose for a while, now. But after yesterday, she lost the ability to pretend she has a shot at winning under any sane-minded metric.
And then there were two.
2 comments May 8th, 2008
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