Bits and Pieces – 6/24
By LisaB on June 25, 2008 at 8:30 AM in Barack Obama, Democrats, Hillary Clinton
1) At Rezkowatch, an interesting article about Obama’s personnel choices is available. If the notion that “personnel is policy” is correct, one need only look a the influential people surrounding a candidate or whom the candidate is pushing as key advisors. Those people give clues to the candidate’s ultimate position in a variety of areas.
Rezkowatch has this to say:
Since it is evident that for Obama personnel is policy, we are doomed:
David Cutler, Obama health adviser, believes that rising health care prices are good for the economy.
Jeffrey Liebman, one of Obama’s economic advisers, wants to privatize social security.
Jason Furman, another Obama economic adviser, is a former director of the Hamilton Project, “an organization formed by Citygroup chair Robert Rubin and other Wall Street Democrats to fight back against growing populist outrage within the party”.
Zbigniew Brzezinski—do we need to say anything about this foreign policy adviser? Just Google his name.
Is Obama running to the middle or just running to the right? Who can tell? Shouldn’t we know details by now?
2) In Tuesday’s Boston Herald was a humorous piece about the coming Age of Obama.
I’m not one of the people complaining that having your own presidential seal at this point is a bit arrogant. It’s that traitor to the new regime, Mickey Kaus over at Slate.com:
“If you wanted to emphasize to voters that the Democrats’ nominee is a bit stuck up, it would be hard to do better. I suppose he could start requiring reporters to stand when he enters the room.”
3) In a mash note to Obama, Eugene Robinson at WaPo, does an interesting job of framing the “race issue.” He remarks about Obama’s statements in FL, where he pre-emptively accused his opponents of practicing racism. But in Robinson’s world, Obama is merely clearing the air about race and making everyone acknowledge it.
The Republican Party has a problematic history on race, beginning with Nixon’s “Southern strategy.” The era when the likes of the late Lee Atwater could overtly use race as a wedge issue are long gone. Today, any appeal to latent racial prejudice would have to be made more subtly — the suggestion that there’s something of the “other” about Obama, that he might not share traditional American values, that there’s some question about his love of country. . .
Since Obama has given his opponents little ammunition, they have focused on those who are close to him, beginning with his former pastor. Now some critics have turned to Obama’s “feisty” wife, whose image as a tall, strong, confident black woman can perhaps be made to seem threatening to some people.
If there are voters who absolutely won’t support Obama because of his race, there’s not much he can do about it. But at least he can blow away all the smoke. He has served notice that he doesn’t intend to be Swift-boated on race the way John Kerry was on his war record — and that he will hit back even when attacks are more atmospheric than concrete.
Where some might call this race-baiting, Robinson apparently thinks it as taking a noble stance and “blow[ing] away all the smoke.” Maybe Obama’s really just blowing smoke to cover his deficiencies in, you know, experience, issues and keeping promises.
Oh, and if you don’t vote for Obama, don’t forget to pick up your pointy white hat as you leave the voting booth.
5) Over at CNN, Leslie Sanchez takes a look at the GE. Her article focuses attention on what are likely tactics of the Obama campaign going forward to the fall.
The post-Watergate campaign rules, one national consultant reminded me, tried to keep both candidates in the general election to the same general level of spending. These rules, written largely by Democrats, were supposed to keep the playing field level by keeping the competition about ideas and issues, not who had the most money.
Is Obama trying to buy the election? He threatens to outspend McCain by six — perhaps eight — to one. Now, rather than engage in a “Great Debate” about America’s future, Obama is trying to win through tactics.
Sanchez then outlines possible uses for all that money and its intended targets:
AA, Hispanic communities, “traditional Democrats”, evangelicals. She also notes that the last time a candidate had a war chest like this was in 1972. The candidate: Richard Nixon.
Oh, goody.
6) Also at CNN, Rebecca Walker has a new spin on the disappointed female Hillary supporters. And where other statements merely offend from the point of calling Hillary supporters bitter, old, racist, low-information, etc., this person implies that women don’t need to “get over it.” They need to “get over themselves.”
But with a Democratic house divided, now is the time for healing, and this can only happen if Hillary’s staunch female supporters let go of the reverse-sexist ideology that women are inherently better, wiser, and more compassionate leaders.
They will have to acknowledge that sometimes the best woman for the job is actually a man — if it’s the right man. Obama’s vote against the war, marriage to his female mentor, outstanding record on reproductive choice and a host of other progressive issues, and his uncanny ability to inspire people all over the world suggest he’s just that.
It is time to turn the page on myopic gender-based Feminism and concede that while patriarchy is real, so is female greed, dishonesty and corruptibility. It’s time to empower the feminisms embodied by millions of women and men who care about everyone, including, but not limited to, women.
Well, hmmmm. Let’s see. Hillary supporters are bitter, racist, old and dead-enders. Now we are also (well, the women anyway) anti-men who think only women can bring character and caring to a job.
But I truly object to her assertion that feminists do not think women are corruptible. Give me a break. Anyone who has passed through middle school knows better.
Instead, Walker advocates we “empower the feminisms embodied by millions of women and men who care about everyone, including, but not limited to, women.” That means we don’t really need a woman at all in a position of power – we just need a feminine affect. Women need to get over ourselves.
As we saw earlier this campaign, people do not appreciate even the PERCEPTION that someone is SUGGESTING that a stand-in (LBJ) for another, different person, (MLK) can achieve the same things. To suggest that BO can do exactly what Hillary would have been able to do and we should be happy a woman got “so far” is simply offensive.
by Ronald Scott
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