Is Obama too right for Democratic primary voters?
by WonkoKevin
The pattern is familiar. Our relationship with a politician is not that different than our personal relationships. Attraction is first: how the person looks, sounds, their personality. Are we drawn to them? But it’s easy to like someone for one, or two, or ten dates. The question becomes, can I hang out with this person minute after minute, day after day? While we admit the power of attraction, we are pragmatic enough to consider more deeply what this person is really saying and doing, for it gives us clues as to what will come. While voters may become attracted to a candidate, in the end, given enough time, their policies and ideology come under careful scrutiny. It’s happened to Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney and John McCain and Ron Paul. All have enjoyed at some point in the campaign season huge Wonkosphere “buzz momentum” due to bloggers being attracted to them as a person, and then losing significant buzz share when bloggers began to scrutinize policy positions and ideology. Could the same thing happen to Barack Obama now? His buzz share has not decreased, yet, and the consequences of such would be huge as we’re now into prime time. But a perusal of the Obama buzz shows that liberal voters are questioning just how “right” Obama is, and whether he might be just a bit too right.
I think, at this point, we can forget about the biography, and the position papers, and the oratory, stop listening to the music, and start listening to the lyrics. First came Obama’s infamous dogwhistle to the Village that put Social Security in play, a right wing talking point. Then there was calling unions “special interests”, a right wing talking point. Then there was tax cuts as a panacea, a right wing talking point. Meanwhile, the Oborg consistently leverage right wing talking points like “trial lawyers” to trash Edwards, not to mention Hillary hatred, all the while explaining what Obama “really means,” and airily denying it all. Then there was the trashing of Gore. And finally we’ve got the infamous Florida brochure, where Obama encourages Republicans to become “Obamacrats” just for one day to vote for him, and then re-up as Republicans again. (Way to party build, there, guy.) Obama is a highly skilled politician and a Harvard-schooled lawyer. None of this can be accidental.
The latest tidbit to get the left riled up is Obama’s statement that he admired Ronald Reagan:
“Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not,” he said, describing Reagan as appealing to a sentiment that, “We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism nad entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
Meanwhile, adding to the narrative is the endorsement of Obama by The Las Vegas Review Journal, who has a very conservative editorial position, and this from Matt Stoller at Open Left:
I hear these kinds of anecdotes sometimes, I figured I’d pass one along.
So I’m at this Obama fundraiser with 350 rich donors. He’s horrible. He just babbles. Then, every so often, he comes up with jewels like this: “There is a nasty aspect to politics on the internet that has to be dealt with.” Does that mean his online donors should get their money back? I do not like Hillary, but who is this guy? Do we know?
This is very annoying, and yet, the context of his remark seems significant. Obama might have it in for internet politics, per se. Or he might feel that certain parts of the internet are spaces that incentivize the expression of a hateful type of politics that needs to be dealt with as a society by more dialogue. Or he might just be thin-skinned, or he may temperamentally dislike passionate disagreement.The internet is a reflection of the public’s sprawling and diverse views, which are brilliant, disgusting, mediocre, and everything in between. It’s a big country, with lots of different people who talk about stuff in different ways. Some of them are mean. This isn’t a problem, it’s just humanity. What are you going to do, cleanse the meanness and disagreement out of the public so the Village can go on starting wars and stealing and whatnot?As I said, annoying.
UPDATE: This is from a source I know very well, it’s not a rumor. Obama said this. Someone in the comments did point out Obama could be referring to the nasty emails going around about him being a Muslim. That’s quite possible, though it doesn’t really change the general issues I have with his remark. I’ll also note that this is one blog post among thousands I have written, and part of trying to figure out what kind of President Obama could be. These kinds of remarks, what he says to wealthy donors behind closed doors and how he thinks about internet politics, are part of figuring this out.
We’ll see if the Obama-Reagan meme has any legs, but it’s the reason why I think John Edwards is still not out of it.
