Quibbles and Bits for the 4th
By LisaB on July 4, 2008 at 11:45 AM in Barack Obama, Democrats
1) “New and Not Improved”. Today’s NYT editorial on the many Barack Obama repositionings.
We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.
Here at NoQuarter, we were shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Wait, no we weren’t.
Read the rest ->
2) For some reason, at the Politico today is a puff piece about Caroline Kennedy and her role in vetting potential VPs for Obama. It appears her greatest quality is her discretion, as that was mentioned several times.
“One of the great assets and gifts that Caroline brings to the process is confidentiality and discretion,” said Paul G. Kirk Jr., board chairman of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and a former Democratic National Committee chairman.
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With a soft voice and an unassuming demeanor, Kennedy peppered [CA rep] Baca with questions, asking for opinions on specific candidates and pulling ideas from him about who Obama should choose. “I felt connected with her,” Baca said. “You felt like you wanted to have a conversation with her.”
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Kennedy offered her phone number to Baca at the close of the meeting, he said.
I can’t snark this. This is beyond snark.
3) The Times of London published an overall look at Obama’s flops and what they may portend. It begins with this:
Change, it turns out, wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Having campaigned for the past year as the agent of transformation, the man who would lead an historic shift in America’s political direction, Barack Obama is discovering that there is quite a lot he likes about the way things are.
Since securing the Democratic nomination a few weeks ago, the only change coming from the Illinois senator has been in what he seems to stand for.
Good fun. But. But. The author, Gerard Baker, feels that this is by design.
I suspect that all this [outraged lefties like the HuffyPot] worries Mr Obama not at all. The louder the Left complains, the deeper the satisfaction at Obama headquarters.
Can you remember a time in, say the past 100 years, when the American people have rejected a presidential candidate because they thought that he was insufficiently left-wing? As for conservatives, they should be cheering Mr Obama, not complaining.
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This is another example of how smart the Obama campaign is. They understand that the biggest impediment to an Obama presidency is lingering doubt about whether their man is a straight-down-the-middle American. Despite having a couple of bestsellers to his name, he is still something of a blank page to most voters, one on which his opponents are trying to doodle all kinds of unflattering portraits of an extremist.
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A clever pragmatist, he knows that if he wins in November, he will face an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, clamouring to push the country harder to the left. It would, irony of ironies, fall to President Obama to reassure the American people that he can hold those radical enthusiasms in check.
I think the above paragraphs are particularly interesting. Obama may, indeed, be positioning himself as the centrist after having secured the enthusiastic support of the left. Baker says to watch Obama’s tax policies and position on Iraq. He seems to think both will move rightward. I think we’re seeing preliminary steps already.
Worth reading. Obama may try to confront McCain centrist to maverick. But, I still think Obama’s roots in Chicago, with Ayers and Rezko and Wright may prove difficult to move “to the center.” He is going to have to almost completely disown his past. But how do you throw your past under the bus?
4) CBSnews has a piece about Obama’s trip to ND. He made an interesting comment during his stop:
“It may have been Woody Allen who said 90 percent of success is showing up,” Obama told a small but enthusiastic crowd of donors at a fundraiser Wednesday in Colorado Springs, the conservative heart of conservative Colorado. “If I didn’t show up, I wouldn’t get many votes around here. If I did show up, I might get something going.”
Tell THAT to Kentucky and West Virginia.
5) And an interesting picture for you. At the National Black Republican Association
The NBRA is putting up billboards, reminding people MLK was a Republican.
Have a happy 4th!
by Ronald Scott
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