More on Obama

[barking_iguana]

If I had to vote today, I'd vote for Edwards. But a lot of people I know are selling Obama short, so I find it falls upon me to push back.

Here's a real accomplishment, done while the republicans still had a majority in Congress:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/15/54158/397/946/422120

Here's stuff on his history that gives me confidence he's who he says he is. A lot more than Edwards having grown up poor does in Edwards. Stalin grew up poor, too.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/15/113124/87/613/422461
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/14/21433/589/757/422317

Comments

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Forming an alliance with a blood-sucking ‘Republican’ to get a good bill passed is quite different from letting the city of Cleveland go into default rather than give in to economic blackmail, and being willing to lose re-election, and then being returned to office and finally going to spend some time in Congress. But it does demonstrate that Obama hasn’t totally ignored the job he was elected to do, which is a plus. Now he should go do more of that for 8, 10, 12 years, ideally, and then re-consider running for president.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Of course, I haven’t talked about what’s wrong with Hillary Clinton, which is mainly that she is going to be the candidate of corporate power.

Which brings us to Edwards, whose job it was to oppose corporate power in court. Guess who the corporate types really, really, really don’t want to win the Presidency. :) His main problem is that he is weaselly about Iraq, but the other two likely nominees are at least as weaselly, probably more.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Yes. Both Edwards and Obama have missions that must be accomplished. I think it's an open question who is more able to accomplish theirs now. Partly because Obama's is merely to set back to normal something which has traditionally been more or less OK. Which is American's attitude toward their government. Edwards' is much harder, less of an emergency, but also of heartbreaking importance. And it's something that was at all right only for a short time under one Roosevelt and for a longer time started by the other.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

No one can restore American’s attitudes towards government by means of rhetoric. Furthermore, the core of good attitude towards government is Democratic liberals, and many of these are actually disheartened by Obama’s uniter-not-a-divider rhetoric and his seeming willingness to show ‘good will’ towards non-liberals by throwing liberals under a bus, rhetorically at least. It’s not just me; I see it in the blogosphere. You can’t restore American trust in government by throwing under a bus the people who never stopped putting trust in government.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

BTW I’m not sure what is the relevance of Stalin growing up poor. Hitler was a Catholic vegetarian, yet knowing that Dennis Kucinich is a Catholic vegetarian is useful for understanding him, for instance why he so mistakenly supported anti-abortionism until relatively recently. Hitler’s Catholic vegetarianism is simply irrelevant when judging the meaning of Dennis Kucinich’s Catholic vegetarianism. So also with Stalin and Edwards, because it is not as if we have no context in which to judge the meaning of Edwards’s childhood poverty; for instance we have his Senate record, which in no way resembles Stalin’s political record. So Stalin is irrelevant.

[avram]

The Stalin bit was a way of saying Just because Edwards grew up poor, doesn't mean he'll be a good president.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Armando/BTD is back from vacation, apparently: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/12/15/15273/389. BTW with Chris Dodd going nowhere, Armando is weakly supportive of Obama (whereas I guess I go back to being supportive of John Edwards, relatively strongly).

He points to some recent Obama rhetoric:

Obama cites 'over a decade' of experience
“And I’ve been involved in government for over a decade,” replied Obama. The Illinois senator said he had the right kind of experience to “bring people together.”

Is the state legislature in Illinois even a full-time job? In any case, Hillary Clinton has served more than a complete term in the Senate, after eight full-time years as the consort of the head of state, and some federal government work as well (on a failed health-care project, but that’s still experience). As Armando points out, Obama ought not to be going there, because claiming experience makes him look like a smart kid. He may be older than Jack Kennedy but his PT boat never got rammed and he has served fewer than two years in the Senate.

What’s more, claiming state government experience at ‘bringing people together’ sets off alarm bells in liberals these days, understandably, because it most recently was Bush-Rovian rhetoric. It makes many of them fear they are going to be steamrolled.

More:

. . . He added, “I understand there’s a history of politics being all about slash and burn…. I recall what the Clintons themselves called the ‘politics of personal destruction’ -- which they decried. My suspicion is that that’s just not where the country is at right now. They are not interested in politics as a blood sport; they’re interested in governance and solving problems” such as job creation and product safety.

As Armando points out, liberal Democratic voters remember the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy; this sort of rhetoric puts a chill down the spines of many of these Democratic voters, who foresee Obama being eaten alive.

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

Who gets eaten alive depends in part on which Republican candidate is chosen at their convention. Still I hope whoever is the Democratic nominee isn't reluctant to pull out bits of history like Huckabee's agitation to free a rapist and murderer while he was governor.