Quibbles and Bits – August 23
By LisaB on August 23, 2008 at 8:51 PM in Current Affairs
There is so much out there right now about how Sen. Biden will or will not help Obama in the coming election that I’m going to wait until the dust settles. However, there is still some interesting stuff out there.
1) Realclearpolitics has a short piece simply noting the broad strokes of this VP selection. Obama has chosen experience over change. Basically, that’s the only two options he had anyway. But don’t forget, his entire candidacy was built on the change theme. It will be interesting to see how this “experience” gets packaged.
Read the rest ->
So much for change. That is, I think, how people will react to news that Obama picked Joe Biden to be his running mate. Biden has been in the United States Senate for 36 years – he was elected in 1972, the year Barack Obama turned eleven – making him, for better or worse, a quintessential Washington insider.
Whether or not Biden turns out to be a good choice really isn’t as interesting to me as how the Obama campaign pivots on its central reason for being.
2) Politico has an article from the Hillary – supporter point of view. Nothing new, but a fair description of the situation as far as Clinton supporters go.
After learning that Obama aides sent the text message announcing Biden’s selection just after 3 a.m., some Clinton aides wondered openly if the Obama campaign was mocking Clinton’s famous 3 a.m. ad.
Hillary supporter Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) predicted the move would further anger many of the New York senator’s most hardcore supporters.
“I never thought he would pick Hillary,” she said. “I know politics. Things just don’t happen that way. Hillary knew that. Anyone who thought he would put her on the ticket is just clueless.”
Sanchez said that she had a friend, a staunch Democrat, who is voting for John McCain because “he is so unhappy about what’s happened,” adding that Clinton supporters have encountered a “disconnect” with the Obama campaign.
“They’re not hearing what people have to say,” Sanchez said. “They have no communication with us.”
Asked why Clinton was never seriously considered, one Clinton aide responded with a single word: “Ego.”
Ego is only the half of it. Arrogance is the other.
3) Also at realclearpolitics is a piece about how Obama’s story will be packaged for the convention. Of course, that’s the sales pitch of the whole event. The candidate is packaged in some way to make you vote for him. What’s interesting is the packaging – how it’s done and why.
The narrative of this year’s Democratic National Convention can be forecast with some assurance. It will emphasize Barack Obama’s roots in Kansas more than Kenya or even Hawaii; it will portray him as a leader from a new generation eager to cast off the partisanship of the last decade; it will hail him as a symbol that America has risen above past prejudices and can once again stand proud in the world. His acceptance speech in Invesco Field will invite comparison with the other two Democratic nominees who spoke in stadiums, Franklin Roosevelt in Philadelphia’s Franklin Field in 1936 and John Kennedy in the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960.
An interesting question is whether mainstream media have any appetite for undermining this undeniably attractive narrative. Of “the whole Obama narrative,” one reporter told The New Republic’s Gabriel Sherman, “like all stories, it’s not entirely true.”
The author notes that MSM have shown little interest in actually probing Obama’s background and accomplishments (hence blogs like NQ!), then reminds us that any critical look at that background is likely to be labeled racist.
Obama backers dismiss attempts to undermine his narrative as distractions or as racism, beyond the bounds of reasonable discourse. Most of the mainstream media tend to agree. Ayers is no more likely to appear at the convention than the disgraced John Edwards. But other media have a voice. Obama will probably get a nice bounce out of his convention. But it’s not clear whether his narrative can be sustained in the weeks and months ahead.
4) Of course, Slate immediately starts carrying water for the “it’s racism, stupid” line.
The author adds a nice extra, though. Not electing Obama signals the end of America.
You may or may not agree with Obama’s policy prescriptions, but they are, by and large, serious attempts to deal with the biggest issues we face: a failing health care system, oil dependency, income stagnation, and climate change. To the rest of the world, a rejection of the promise he represents wouldn’t just be an odd choice by the United States. It would be taken for what it would be: sign and symptom of a nation’s historical decline.
Of course, hiring a political novice to run the US isn’t a risky move at all.
5) In a Chicago Tribune interview, Obama was asked about strength and courage.
Asked whether his personal strength and potential courage in a crisis have been tested in the same way that his opponent’s were in a North Vietnamese prison camp, Obama replied that he has shown strength in his life in less dramatic ways.
“Enduring torture is a fairly unique experience that no president — or very few presidents — have undergone,” he said. “What I would point to is the journey I’ve traveled throughout my entire life. … I had to scratch and claw my way to the point I am now, and I think I’ve done so without cutting corners or compromising my integrity. And maybe it looks easier than it is.”
I’d like to know more about that “scratch and claw” part. Just exactly when did he feel he had to do this? I’m not doubting he felt this way at all, but I am interested in knowing which events in his life were that hard for him. Curious.
6) USNews is picking up on the Obama / Ayers story. Mentioning Steve Diamond, this article calls on Obama to explain his connection to William Ayers.
In my U.S. News column this week, I make a brief reference to the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist bomber William Ayers and his connections to Barack Obama. They were closer than Obama implied when George Stephanopoulos asked him about Ayers in the April 16 debate—the last debate Obama allowed during the primary season. To get an idea of how close they were, check out Tom Maguire’s Just One Minute blog and Steve Diamond’s Global Labor and Politics. The Obama-Ayers relationship is also mentioned in David Freddoso’s The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate.
The writer goes on to describe Chicago politics and William Ayers’ family and social ties. He finishes with this:
For Obama, the outsider who gained the trust of the insiders, the position is different. He was willing to use Ayers and ally with him despite his terrorist past and lack of repentance. An unrepentant terrorist, who bragged of bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, was a fit associate. Ayers evidently helped Obama gain insider status in Chicago civic life and politics—how much, we can’t be sure unless the Richard J. Daley Library opens the CAC archive. But most American politicians would not have chosen to associate with a man with Ayers’s past or of Ayers’s beliefs. It’s something voters might reasonably want to take into account.
Just maybe this story will pick up steam. . .
7) Over at opensecrets.org is a first look at the financing of Joe Biden.
The industries that have given the most to Biden during his career include lawyers/law firms ($6.6 million), real estate ($1.3 million) and retirees ($1 million). Biden is among the top 10 members of Congress to receive money from lawyers and law firms since the 1990 election cycle and among the top 20 to collect contributions from the real estate industry. His largest contributor over time has been credit card giant MBNA Corp.
However, Biden’s personal finances aren’t likely to cause conflict-of-interest problems; he isn’t a particularly wealthy man by Washington standards.
Opensecrets does think Biden might help Obama with donors though.
Although Delaware has voted Democratic in recent elections (and so Obama wouldn’t increase his chances to pick up a purple or red state with Biden at his side), Biden could help Obama win over Delaware donors.
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