Intrepid reader and gracious friend of SDP, Mondak (also identified as GG), sends us this:
Senator Barack Obama's support has rebounded in the most recent polls in June and he is ahead of McCain by 13 points! This is great news. I couldn't be more happy for a man who has, what I and many in my generation believe, the vision to continue to propel a political movement that will take us beyond the old baby boomer politics. People in this nation appear to be sick and tired of the old politics and want politicians to offer and advance real solutions to the crisises we face today. Obama has admitted on several occasions that he is not perfect and does not have all the answers and why should he? We all have a stake in this election and our country and the world. It's all of our responsibilities to work toward a better USA and world. I have no doubt that with McCain, Obama, and the growing Democratic majority in Congress, we are finally witnessing a "coming together" to represent the common interests of human kind. It won't be easy, it's always a long journey, but, we can not succeed if we do not try. I think JFK and Reagan said something similar along those lines.
I understand Mondak's desire for a new kind of politician and a new kind of politics. The trouble is we still have the same old kind of voters living on the same old planet Earth. Mondak wants Oz the Great and Powerful to offer "real solutions" to our problems. But just recently we have gotten a pretty good glimpse of the man behind the curtain. Here is Evan Thomas from Newsweek:
The fund-raiser was unremarkable, by L.A. standards. Under enormous chandeliers at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, wealthy donors mingled with showbiz types (Dennis Quaid, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Beals) and ate endive spears stuffed with brie. Couples willing to donate $28,500 got to dine beforehand with the candidate, Barack Obama, who gave his usual stump speech and mocked his opponent, John McCain, for believing "that a bunch of oil rigs along the California coast was a good idea." (McCain had just recommended that states be allowed to opt out of the federal ban on offshore drilling.) This last zinger got a roar from the crowd, not a few of whom own shorefront properties in places like Malibu and Santa Barbara.
Raise some big bucks, ridicule your opponent, pander to the locals. Nothing unusual about that for a politician. But wait—wasn't this the candidate who was going to change politics as usual? Obama's decision to abandon the public financing system for the general election is a kind of change, but not what most voters had in mind when they voted for him in the primaries. By forgoing federal funding (and abandoning a pledge to first discuss the matter with his opponent), Obama will likely be able to outspend McCain, who is staying within the limits, by about four to one. Obama called the campaign-finance system "broken" and insists that he relies on small donors. But small donations to the Obama campaign have slackened, and in Los Angeles, Obama was able to take advantage of a loophole that allows him to circumvent the maximum individual donation ($2,300) by raising money for the Democratic Party. (McCain, who is staying in the system partly because he can't raise as much money as Obama, is exploiting the same loophole.)
Since he clinched the nomination, Obama has become a fairly traditional presidential candidate, shoring up the party base by telling interest groups what they want to hear.
Barack Obama is obviously a very talented politician, and more importantly, a man who seen his opportunities and took 'em. Such is the stuff of which greatness is usually made. He has indeed built a vision, a Mondak puts it, of something new and glorious. Well, that's the market.
But the job of a presidential candidate is to build coalitions behind his candidacy, just as the job of a President is to build coalitions behind his policies. Doing that means promising a lot of people a lot of things, and it is rare in a politician for all those promises to be mutually consistent or meaningful. I don't think it is a terrible thing that Obama has torn a gaping hole in the public financing system for campaigns, in violation of his party's principles and his own solemn pledge. I didn't like the system to begin with. But I don't see how this is consistent with a "vision."
I don't believe for a moment that Obama really believes in a constitutional right to own firearms. When it comes to choosing Supreme Court nominees, people who agree with Scalia, or people who agree with Justice Stevens? Obama is triangulating, as the Clintons put it, announcing positions he doesn't really hold to make it harder to attack him from the right.
Again, I don't have any real problem with any of this. Obama is a politician, and that is what they do. Bill Clinton did it with flair. Evan Thomas thinks that both Obama and McCain are uncomfortable doing it. Maybe Obama is the better choice for voters, but it is silly to think that either he or McCain represents something new. As the campaign goes on, it becomes harder and harder to say exactly what Obama's vision is. Is he for immediate withdrawal from Iraq? Well, yes and no. What are his solutions to the current energy price problem? He has no real solutions because there are no real solutions, or at least none that aren't unpleasant to mention.
If Obama came out and said: "look, we are just going to have to settle for a lot less in life to solve our energy and environmental problems," that might or might not be right. But at least it would be new. If he said: I am going to appoint judges who will establish gay marriage by legislative fiat, as the California Supreme Court has in that state, that would honest, and would give us a vision to believe in or reject. Don't hold your breath.
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