I was checking out the Wisconsin Voter site this morning and happened across a blog article talking about the difference between the way Obama and Clinton run their campaigns. A big part of it comes from the almost religious experience people seem to talk about when it comes to Mr. Obama. Also more people seem to be listening to what he is saying in his many speeches, and realizing he’s not really saying much of anything. While Hillary (and McCain, Huckabee, etc) speak about what they will do, Barack speaks about thoughts, hopes, feelings. Hillary has already launched an ad in Wisconsin pretty much saying he’d rather give speeches than debate. I’m really glad I’m not the only one seeing this, as the author of the article says:
Obama has taken the desire for a political savior beyond rationality and I find it - I can’t help myself here - more than a bit creepy.
While I think it is a legitimate criticism of the Obama campaign that its messaging is deliberately vague on what it is that we can do and whose time it is that has come, I find the subtext embodied in that lack of particulars even more disturbing. If the message is not that we can do these specific things, then we must be able to do anything and everything. On one level, this is an appeal to nothing in particular. It simply invokes an aesthetic. Who knows what it means, but it sounds pretty and looks good.
On another level, it immanentizes the eschaton. We can found paradise on earth through a benevolent state. The government can love you.
I certainly hope that Barack the man - as opposed to Obama the image - appreciates that this is not only false but dangerous.
Obama’s policies are not new or unique; they are old and common. Perhaps that old and common liberalism is what the country wants this year. But the fact that it is not what he puts on offer suggests otherwise.
He’s not the only one finally tuning in… here is an article from Paul Krugman of the NY Times where he speaks about the “Clinton rules”:
The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.
Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.
Why, then, is there so much venom out there?
I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.
What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.
During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.
I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.
For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact.
For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November.
For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.
Now, some of you are probably thinking “Well, that’s just the Anti-Obama crowd! They hate him and what he stands for!”… so what do you say when someone who voted for Obama says the same thing? Here is part of an article from an Obama supporter:
I’m getting increasingly weirded out by some of Obama’s supporters.
On listservs I’m on, some people who should know better – hard-bitten, not-so-young cynics, even – are gushing about Barack, raving about his “game-changing” politics, about his “power to inspire,” about how they wept while viewing the now-famous Dipdive video, and on and on.
Then there’s this unsettling article from a few weeks back about Obama’s volunteer operation. One volunteer speaks of her encounter with the man himself:
But the clincher came on March 17, when she met the Democratic contender face to face. She describes how he lit up the room with his wide smile, shook her hand and thanked her for volunteering.
” He looked at me, and the look in his eyes was worth 1,000 words,” said Mack, now a regional field organizer. Obama hugged her and whispered something in her ear – she was so thrilled she doesn’t remember what it was.
Mack wanted to drill home one of the campaign’s key strategies: telling potential voters personal stories of political conversion.
She urged volunteers to hone their own stories of how they came to Obama – something they could compress into 30 seconds on the phone.
“Work on that, refine that, say it in the mirror,” she said. “Get it down.”
She told the volunteers that potential voters would no doubt confront them with policy questions. Mack’s direction: Don’t go there. Refer them to Obama’s Web site, which includes enough material to sate any wonk.
Excuse me, but this sounds more like a cult than a political campaign. The language used here is the language of evangelical Christianity – the Obama volunteers speak of “coming to Obama” in the same way born-again Christians talk about “coming to Jesus.”
But he’s not Jesus! He’s not going to magically enable us to transcend the bitter partisanship that is tearing this country apart. And even if he is elected, in no way will that show that somehow we have “gotten beyond” race.
The Obama campaign’s instruction to their volunteers to steer clear of policy questions. How can we truly bring about real political change if the movement the Obama people are building is devoid of ideological content, content merely to mouth gauzy generalities about “coming together” and “yes we can”? Such a movement becomes a cult or personality rather than engine for social justice and political transformation. And personality cults can be a huge turnoff to those who are not already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I worry, however, that some Obama supporters have become so emotionally invested in him that they would not support Clinton if she eventually prevails. And that would be tragic.
So I say, we should all get a grip, stop all this unseemly mooning over Barack, see him and the political landscape he is a part of in a cooler, clearer, and more realistic light, and get to work.
And that is from an Obama supporter. Once again, as always, I’m just sayin’.
