Nobody seems to be blinking as the world economy bursts another seam, in Dubai this time, accentuating again how much Barack Obama's tenure in the White House has been like a montage of the little Dutch boy racing from dike to dike trying to hold off disasters--on Wall Street and Main Street, in Detroit, Afghanistan, the ozone layer, wherever.
Watery images are on Peggy Noonan's mind as she observes that the President is now "leaking support" in "two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment."
But Noonan may be missing the point. Obama I is looking more and more like the Year of the Flood, with a President trying to hold back rising tides on all fronts in the kind of world not ideally suited to his political style as a transformational leader on big issues rather than a first responder to one emergency after another.
But the President has been scrambling for quick fixes, and some observers are declaring partial successes, as Jacob Weisberg does in Slate, crediting him with the best first year since FDR and citing "mounting evidence that the $787 billion economic stimulus he signed in February—-combined with the bank bailout package—-prevented an economic depression."
Be that as it may, next month Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize will remind us that the fabled boy with his finger in the dike was Hans Brinker, who also competed for the Silver Skates and, through his good works, went on to become a successful healer.
Then again, for skeptics, there is another way to go, by joining the editor of Newsweek in urging Dick Cheney to run against Obama in 2012. As the waters keep rising, the former Veep could go back to doing what he did so well for eight years, shrugging and denying it all.
Showing posts with label FDR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FDR. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Supreme Demographics
As Barack Obama, who changed the face of America's executive branch, prepares to name his first Supreme Court justice, speculation focuses as much on demography as it did during his presidential campaign last year.
Does he "have to" name a woman? Will his choice be a Hispanic woman or perhaps a Lesbian? Is political correctness running amok?
Not if you look back at Supreme Court history which, before the nasty Bork confirmation fight in 1987, is widely believed to have been beyond politics in a bipartisan search for the best legal minds available.
When FDR railed at the "nine old men" who blocked New Deal initiatives and made his ill-fated attempt to expand the Court by as many as six members, the only demographic issue was the naming of Jews, to the consternation of Justice James Clark MacReynolds, a Woodrow Wilson appointee and avowed anti-Semite who refused to talk to them or acknowledge their presence.
In those halcyon days, not long after women got the right to vote, the "best legal minds" were to be found almost exclusively in a white Protestant male gene pool that reflected not the diversity that Obama stresses but a minority of Americans that constituted a ruling elite.
Now that those barriers are down, there are heated arguments about which former outsiders have the strongest claim to representation, but when voters put Obama in the White House, they were giving him the power to decide what the redefinition of "best legal minds" should be for the 21st century.
After all the sound and fury die down, he will do just that.
Does he "have to" name a woman? Will his choice be a Hispanic woman or perhaps a Lesbian? Is political correctness running amok?
Not if you look back at Supreme Court history which, before the nasty Bork confirmation fight in 1987, is widely believed to have been beyond politics in a bipartisan search for the best legal minds available.
When FDR railed at the "nine old men" who blocked New Deal initiatives and made his ill-fated attempt to expand the Court by as many as six members, the only demographic issue was the naming of Jews, to the consternation of Justice James Clark MacReynolds, a Woodrow Wilson appointee and avowed anti-Semite who refused to talk to them or acknowledge their presence.
In those halcyon days, not long after women got the right to vote, the "best legal minds" were to be found almost exclusively in a white Protestant male gene pool that reflected not the diversity that Obama stresses but a minority of Americans that constituted a ruling elite.
Now that those barriers are down, there are heated arguments about which former outsiders have the strongest claim to representation, but when voters put Obama in the White House, they were giving him the power to decide what the redefinition of "best legal minds" should be for the 21st century.
After all the sound and fury die down, he will do just that.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
The Interactive Presidency
FDR gave Americans fireside chats on radio. JFK came into living rooms through live TV news conferences. Barack Obama is connecting with worried voters by Internet--email, online videos and proliferating web sites.
In each case, as a new medium of communication became universal, the White House wired into it to speak directly to people--one at a time.
What's different now is that voters are invited to talk back, which may in part account for the President's continuing popularity during the darkest period in generations. In this interactive presidency, Americans are not feeling abandoned.
This week, the Obama Administration unveiled another web site, on health care reform, to go with White House.gov, Recovery.gov and others sure to come, giving information and asking for feedback.
In another move on the tech front, the President appointed as the first federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra, 34, to oversee expanded use of cutting-edge technology for information sharing between agencies, greater public access to government information and questions of security and privacy.
Whatever happens in the coming months, nobody will call Obama another George W. Bush, out of touch with the American people.
In each case, as a new medium of communication became universal, the White House wired into it to speak directly to people--one at a time.
What's different now is that voters are invited to talk back, which may in part account for the President's continuing popularity during the darkest period in generations. In this interactive presidency, Americans are not feeling abandoned.
This week, the Obama Administration unveiled another web site, on health care reform, to go with White House.gov, Recovery.gov and others sure to come, giving information and asking for feedback.
In another move on the tech front, the President appointed as the first federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra, 34, to oversee expanded use of cutting-edge technology for information sharing between agencies, greater public access to government information and questions of security and privacy.
Whatever happens in the coming months, nobody will call Obama another George W. Bush, out of touch with the American people.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Obama as Confidence Man
When he signs the Recovery and Reinvestment Act today, the President will be asking Americans to take a leap of faith into a future that is darkening rapidly.
Today's bad news is that California is going broke, Kansas is following suit and even Donald Trump's casino empire is filing for bankruptcy. Yet Barack Obama will try to reassure us that the biggest financial gamble in American history is our best choice for saving the economy.
His inspirational skills are facing the supreme test. Before taking office, he told us "the very fact that this crisis is largely of our own making means that it is not beyond our ability to solve. Our problems are rooted in past mistakes, not our capacity for future greatness. It will take time, perhaps many years, but we can rebuild that lost trust and confidence."
Confidence is the key, but it is a word that cuts two ways, meaning trust and also deception, as in "confidence game." From all sides, politicians, economists and unaffiliated naysayers are attacking the stimulus bill as too large or too small, with too much spending or too many tax cuts, too slow or too scattered--too scary in every conceivable way.
We are back to a time when FDR's warning that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" is becoming a main element of our dilemma--consumer fear of spending, banks' fear of lending, politicians' fear of making mistakes.
It may help to recall what the then President-Elect said about the origins of this mess:
"We arrived at this point due to an era of profound irresponsibility that stretched from corporate boardrooms to the halls of power in Washington, DC. For years, too many Wall Street executives made imprudent and dangerous decisions, seeking profits with too little regard for risk, too little regulatory scrutiny, and too little accountability. Banks made loans without concern for whether borrowers could repay them, and some borrowers took advantage of cheap credit to take on debt they couldn’t afford. Politicians spent taxpayer money without wisdom or discipline, and too often focused on scoring political points instead of the problems they were sent here to solve. The result has been a devastating loss of trust and confidence in our economy, our financial markets, and our government."
As he signs the new bill, however imperfect, the politicians and pundits may want to take time out from their yapping and join the American people in giving the President a vote of confidence.
Today's bad news is that California is going broke, Kansas is following suit and even Donald Trump's casino empire is filing for bankruptcy. Yet Barack Obama will try to reassure us that the biggest financial gamble in American history is our best choice for saving the economy.
His inspirational skills are facing the supreme test. Before taking office, he told us "the very fact that this crisis is largely of our own making means that it is not beyond our ability to solve. Our problems are rooted in past mistakes, not our capacity for future greatness. It will take time, perhaps many years, but we can rebuild that lost trust and confidence."
Confidence is the key, but it is a word that cuts two ways, meaning trust and also deception, as in "confidence game." From all sides, politicians, economists and unaffiliated naysayers are attacking the stimulus bill as too large or too small, with too much spending or too many tax cuts, too slow or too scattered--too scary in every conceivable way.
We are back to a time when FDR's warning that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" is becoming a main element of our dilemma--consumer fear of spending, banks' fear of lending, politicians' fear of making mistakes.
It may help to recall what the then President-Elect said about the origins of this mess:
"We arrived at this point due to an era of profound irresponsibility that stretched from corporate boardrooms to the halls of power in Washington, DC. For years, too many Wall Street executives made imprudent and dangerous decisions, seeking profits with too little regard for risk, too little regulatory scrutiny, and too little accountability. Banks made loans without concern for whether borrowers could repay them, and some borrowers took advantage of cheap credit to take on debt they couldn’t afford. Politicians spent taxpayer money without wisdom or discipline, and too often focused on scoring political points instead of the problems they were sent here to solve. The result has been a devastating loss of trust and confidence in our economy, our financial markets, and our government."
As he signs the new bill, however imperfect, the politicians and pundits may want to take time out from their yapping and join the American people in giving the President a vote of confidence.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Obama's Task: Reversing Inertia
Yesterday notwithstanding, social change usually comes slowly in America--reflecting a double-edged inertia that can prolong an unfair status quo while promoting stability. But there are times when all bets are off.
This is one of them. "(O)ur time of standing pat," Barack Obama said yesterday, "of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions--that time has surely passed," echoing JFK (“We’ve got to get this country moving again!”) and FDR ("the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance").
Obama's mandate, as both an advocate and exemplar of change, is to renounce the caution and business-as-usual that got us into a mess.
"I hope Obama really is a closet radical," Tom Friedman writes today. "Not radical left or right, just a radical, because this is a radical moment. It is a moment for radical departures from business as usual in so many areas. We can’t thrive as a country any longer by coasting on our reputation, by postponing solutions to every big problem that might involve some pain and by telling ourselves that dramatic new initiatives--like a gasoline tax, national health care or banking reform--are too hard or 'off the table.' So my most fervent hope about President Obama is that he will be as radical as this moment--that he will put everything on the table. "
Priding himself on bringing people together, Obama will try to reverse the Bush-Cheney imperial presidency by working closely with Congress. But after eight years of White House nay-saying, the new president will have to redefine leadership as bold and active in pushing for new solutions.
No-drama is fine as demeanor but not as policy in a desperate time. If the call for drastic action is unnerving, it would be well to remember that radical is not the same as rash in reversing inertia.
This is one of them. "(O)ur time of standing pat," Barack Obama said yesterday, "of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions--that time has surely passed," echoing JFK (“We’ve got to get this country moving again!”) and FDR ("the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance").
Obama's mandate, as both an advocate and exemplar of change, is to renounce the caution and business-as-usual that got us into a mess.
"I hope Obama really is a closet radical," Tom Friedman writes today. "Not radical left or right, just a radical, because this is a radical moment. It is a moment for radical departures from business as usual in so many areas. We can’t thrive as a country any longer by coasting on our reputation, by postponing solutions to every big problem that might involve some pain and by telling ourselves that dramatic new initiatives--like a gasoline tax, national health care or banking reform--are too hard or 'off the table.' So my most fervent hope about President Obama is that he will be as radical as this moment--that he will put everything on the table. "
Priding himself on bringing people together, Obama will try to reverse the Bush-Cheney imperial presidency by working closely with Congress. But after eight years of White House nay-saying, the new president will have to redefine leadership as bold and active in pushing for new solutions.
No-drama is fine as demeanor but not as policy in a desperate time. If the call for drastic action is unnerving, it would be well to remember that radical is not the same as rash in reversing inertia.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
McCain's Last Stand
As Barack Obama was promising voters "We're not going to let George Bush pass the torch to John McCain," the GOP candidate himself was in, of all places, Waterloo (Iowa), trying to persuade Tom Brokaw and himself that, on the 41st anniversary of being shot down in Vietnam, his campaign for president was not going down in flames now.
As Brokaw fired off poll numbers, quotes about Sarah Palin's shortcomings and McCain's own words about Bush that evoked the answer, "So do we share a common philosophy of the Republican Party? Of course," the old warrior resolutely insisted on his own version of reality, often using air quotes to denote sarcasm about those who say otherwise and consider Obama preferable.
In this hermetically sealed world, the polls are all wrong except for Zogby (which insists on using a model that forces equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats into an outdated mold) and voters will wake up on November 4th and elect the maverick McCain of 2000.
In this Rip Van Winkle universe, McCain on the economy is FDR in the Great Depression and Harry Truman upsetting Tom Dewey in 1948.
Listening to all this must have been an out-of-body experience for Brokaw, who ended the ordeal with valedictory-like "hope this has been a better Sunday than it was 41 years ago," to which McCain responded, "I appreciate your many years of informing the American people. You've come a long way from South Dakota, but you never forgot where you came from."
So today's Meet the Press ended with an exchange of good wishes by two elderly gentlemen, one of whom will ease back into retirement from TV next year and the other into being the titular head of a minority opposition party from his seat in the US Senate.
As Brokaw fired off poll numbers, quotes about Sarah Palin's shortcomings and McCain's own words about Bush that evoked the answer, "So do we share a common philosophy of the Republican Party? Of course," the old warrior resolutely insisted on his own version of reality, often using air quotes to denote sarcasm about those who say otherwise and consider Obama preferable.
In this hermetically sealed world, the polls are all wrong except for Zogby (which insists on using a model that forces equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats into an outdated mold) and voters will wake up on November 4th and elect the maverick McCain of 2000.
In this Rip Van Winkle universe, McCain on the economy is FDR in the Great Depression and Harry Truman upsetting Tom Dewey in 1948.
Listening to all this must have been an out-of-body experience for Brokaw, who ended the ordeal with valedictory-like "hope this has been a better Sunday than it was 41 years ago," to which McCain responded, "I appreciate your many years of informing the American people. You've come a long way from South Dakota, but you never forgot where you came from."
So today's Meet the Press ended with an exchange of good wishes by two elderly gentlemen, one of whom will ease back into retirement from TV next year and the other into being the titular head of a minority opposition party from his seat in the US Senate.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Lessons From the Great Depression
We have been here before, and we should learn from the past.
On March 4, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office and told Americans, "(T)he only thing we have to fear is fear itself...nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance...
"Values have shrunken to fantastic levels, taxes have risen, our ability to pay has fallen, government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income, the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade, the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side...the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone."
But FDR came to the White House ready to take action, and he did. When the next president moves into the White House in January, it may be too late to start.
What made the Great Depression a catastrophe, a leading economist points out, was "that some of the worst shocks occurred right before the 1932 presidential election. There then followed an extended interregnum between the election and inauguration of the new president when no one was in charge."
As Barack Obama and John McCain spend these next weeks trolling for votes, it would be comforting to see each of them set up a council of economic advisors to work on a set of specific measures that the winner would announce on November 5th to start putting a 21st century New Deal into motion.
As Hillary Clinton used to say in another context, the new President has to be ready to move on Day One.
On March 4, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office and told Americans, "(T)he only thing we have to fear is fear itself...nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance...
"Values have shrunken to fantastic levels, taxes have risen, our ability to pay has fallen, government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income, the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade, the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side...the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone."
But FDR came to the White House ready to take action, and he did. When the next president moves into the White House in January, it may be too late to start.
What made the Great Depression a catastrophe, a leading economist points out, was "that some of the worst shocks occurred right before the 1932 presidential election. There then followed an extended interregnum between the election and inauguration of the new president when no one was in charge."
As Barack Obama and John McCain spend these next weeks trolling for votes, it would be comforting to see each of them set up a council of economic advisors to work on a set of specific measures that the winner would announce on November 5th to start putting a 21st century New Deal into motion.
As Hillary Clinton used to say in another context, the new President has to be ready to move on Day One.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
A President for a Time of Panic
Barack Obama and John McCain will be debating tonight as the inertia that has always given American society stability, albeit at the price of slow social change, is endangered by a sudden plunge into economic turmoil and uncertainty. Ironically, neither of the voters' possible choices is designed to calm them.
Not since 1932 has the electorate been so roiled by fear of the future and so hungry for change. Yet, in Obama, they face someone relatively new and unfamiliar and, in McCain, an all-too-familiar connection to policies that have failed and, to compound their worries, a volatile temperament.
In the Depression, Republicans tried to tar Franklin D. Roosevelt as a radical who would raise taxes, as they are picturing Obama now but with the added edge of distorting his positions on issues such as health care and questioning his patriotism.
The rougher attacks are coming from the gee-whiz he-pals-around-with-terrorists lies of Sarah Palin, but McCain is hitting similar notes with such innuendo as today's "What does he plan for America? In short: Who is the real Barack Obama?"
Obama himself is pointing out the desperation of these personal attacks yet sadly but understandably responding with an on-line reprise of McCain's Keating Five lapses.
But public panic requires something more and better than that. Obama should be visibly and vocally rallying the best minds--the most respected economists and the real-world experts such as Warren Buffet, Mike Bloomberg et al--to start working on a long-range plan with measures to implement in January that would start lifting America out of its fiscal abyss.
He doesn't have to give it a name like the New Deal, but he should be telling voters in as clear and strong a voice as FDR did that he is ready to use nation's best brains to ease their pain and get the country working again. That's what they want to hear.
Not since 1932 has the electorate been so roiled by fear of the future and so hungry for change. Yet, in Obama, they face someone relatively new and unfamiliar and, in McCain, an all-too-familiar connection to policies that have failed and, to compound their worries, a volatile temperament.
In the Depression, Republicans tried to tar Franklin D. Roosevelt as a radical who would raise taxes, as they are picturing Obama now but with the added edge of distorting his positions on issues such as health care and questioning his patriotism.
The rougher attacks are coming from the gee-whiz he-pals-around-with-terrorists lies of Sarah Palin, but McCain is hitting similar notes with such innuendo as today's "What does he plan for America? In short: Who is the real Barack Obama?"
Obama himself is pointing out the desperation of these personal attacks yet sadly but understandably responding with an on-line reprise of McCain's Keating Five lapses.
But public panic requires something more and better than that. Obama should be visibly and vocally rallying the best minds--the most respected economists and the real-world experts such as Warren Buffet, Mike Bloomberg et al--to start working on a long-range plan with measures to implement in January that would start lifting America out of its fiscal abyss.
He doesn't have to give it a name like the New Deal, but he should be telling voters in as clear and strong a voice as FDR did that he is ready to use nation's best brains to ease their pain and get the country working again. That's what they want to hear.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Fear-Mongering to the Finish
George W. Bush's political epitaph will read: "From first to last, he scared the hell out of the American people."
Starting with fabricated forebodings about Saddam Hussein's imminent plans to nuke us into oblivion, his Administration played the fear card all the way to this week's deadpan televised alarm about financial panic. At the White House meeting the next day, he warned Congressional leaders and the presidential candidates in his usual elegant phrasing, “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down.”
In 2002, we had a president who made us want hide under our beds and, six years later, he was inspiring us to hide our money under the mattress.
Franklin D. Roosevelt started his tenure by telling Americans, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." In a new century, when the new president came to office, political prophets should have told us, "The only thing we have to fear is Bush himself."
Even the most diehard horror-movie lovers will find eight years of being terrified too much. For the next White House movie, they will be looking for a new theme. Hope, perhaps.
Starting with fabricated forebodings about Saddam Hussein's imminent plans to nuke us into oblivion, his Administration played the fear card all the way to this week's deadpan televised alarm about financial panic. At the White House meeting the next day, he warned Congressional leaders and the presidential candidates in his usual elegant phrasing, “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down.”
In 2002, we had a president who made us want hide under our beds and, six years later, he was inspiring us to hide our money under the mattress.
Franklin D. Roosevelt started his tenure by telling Americans, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." In a new century, when the new president came to office, political prophets should have told us, "The only thing we have to fear is Bush himself."
Even the most diehard horror-movie lovers will find eight years of being terrified too much. For the next White House movie, they will be looking for a new theme. Hope, perhaps.
Friday, September 19, 2008
A 21st Century "New Deal"
George W. Bush is going out as Herbert Hoover with last-minute efforts to save the financial system, but who will voters ask to play FDR and offer them a New Deal?
The Administration is asking Congress to enact what, according to the Wall Street Journal, may look "like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a Depression-era relief program formed in 1932 by President Hoover that tried to inject liquidity into the market by giving loans to banks and other businesses."
It didn't work back then until after Democrats won in a landslide and took more drastic government action. In that crisis, politicians stopped worrying about socialization and stepped in to save the economy.
The ideologues now will be howling, but John McCain and Barack Obama have to stop talking about tinkering with the "fundamentals" and start offering reality to the people they are asking to vote them into the White House.
The first worldwide reaction to today's news is encouraging as stock markets in Europe and Asia are posting "huge gains" in response.
But the devil will be in the details, as Paul Krugman observes: "Today’s U.S. political system isn’t going to follow Andrew Mellon’s infamous advice to Herbert Hoover: 'Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.' The big buyout is coming; the only question is whether it will be done right."
The Administration is asking Congress to enact what, according to the Wall Street Journal, may look "like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a Depression-era relief program formed in 1932 by President Hoover that tried to inject liquidity into the market by giving loans to banks and other businesses."
It didn't work back then until after Democrats won in a landslide and took more drastic government action. In that crisis, politicians stopped worrying about socialization and stepped in to save the economy.
The ideologues now will be howling, but John McCain and Barack Obama have to stop talking about tinkering with the "fundamentals" and start offering reality to the people they are asking to vote them into the White House.
The first worldwide reaction to today's news is encouraging as stock markets in Europe and Asia are posting "huge gains" in response.
But the devil will be in the details, as Paul Krugman observes: "Today’s U.S. political system isn’t going to follow Andrew Mellon’s infamous advice to Herbert Hoover: 'Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.' The big buyout is coming; the only question is whether it will be done right."
Monday, August 04, 2008
The Inertia Issue
As much as Americans want something new in Washington, Barack Obama's promise of change is colliding with doubts, not all of them raised by attack ads, across the political spectrum.
A new poll reported by the Washington Post shows Obama with a 2 to 1 edge over John McCain among low-wage workers, but "many are unconvinced that either presidential candidate would be better than the other at fixing the ailing economy or improving the health-care system."
At the other end of the political spectrum, George Will in his Post column chides Obama for overblown rhetoric, while conceding that his hero Ronald Reagan was also "incorrigibly fond of perhaps the least conservative, and therefore the most absurd, proposition ever penned by a political philosopher, Thomas Paine's 'we have it in our power to begin the world over again.' No. We. Don't."
In classic conservative mode, Will claims "sweeping changes are almost always calamitous consequences of calamities...Wise voters...hanker for candidates whose principal promise is that they will do their best to muddle through without breaking too much crockery."
But after eight years that produced an unwise war and a damaged economy, both Will and his doubting low-income counterparts may want to look back to the time when Americans put their trust in a president who overhauled a failing financial system with the FDIC and SEC, saved farmers from the Dust Bowl and created Social Security for the destitute old, among other "changes."
Obama may turn out to be no FDR as McCain certainly wouldn't be, but this year is more like 1932 than Reagan's 1980, and "muddle through" won't quite cut it. Inertia is tempting, but it works better in a time such as Eisenhower's with a booming economy after winning a worldwide war. Now there is broken crockery to be swept up.
A new poll reported by the Washington Post shows Obama with a 2 to 1 edge over John McCain among low-wage workers, but "many are unconvinced that either presidential candidate would be better than the other at fixing the ailing economy or improving the health-care system."
At the other end of the political spectrum, George Will in his Post column chides Obama for overblown rhetoric, while conceding that his hero Ronald Reagan was also "incorrigibly fond of perhaps the least conservative, and therefore the most absurd, proposition ever penned by a political philosopher, Thomas Paine's 'we have it in our power to begin the world over again.' No. We. Don't."
In classic conservative mode, Will claims "sweeping changes are almost always calamitous consequences of calamities...Wise voters...hanker for candidates whose principal promise is that they will do their best to muddle through without breaking too much crockery."
But after eight years that produced an unwise war and a damaged economy, both Will and his doubting low-income counterparts may want to look back to the time when Americans put their trust in a president who overhauled a failing financial system with the FDIC and SEC, saved farmers from the Dust Bowl and created Social Security for the destitute old, among other "changes."
Obama may turn out to be no FDR as McCain certainly wouldn't be, but this year is more like 1932 than Reagan's 1980, and "muddle through" won't quite cut it. Inertia is tempting, but it works better in a time such as Eisenhower's with a booming economy after winning a worldwide war. Now there is broken crockery to be swept up.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Deciding Demographic: The Inattentive
Give or take Florida and Michigan, some 35 million American voters have determined that Barack Obama will contest John McCain to become the next president. Now comes the harder part.
Of all the demographic divisions--gender, race, age, economic status, education--Obama faces the most crucial of all, between those who have been paying attention and those who haven't.
With all the new registrations, this year's total of voters is sure to exceed the 122 million of 2004, and the Democratic candidate's challenge will be to make himself known to those like the woman in West Virginia who rejected him saying, "No More Hussein," and millions more who don't know even that much about him.
Presidential campaigns, for better or worse, come down to the perceived character of the candidates, and Obama has come a long way but is still relatively unknown to many, if not most, voters.
In Iowa last night, he asserted that the hard-fought battle for the nomination was good for his party, saying, "Now, some may see the millions upon millions of votes cast for each of us as evidence that our party is divided. But I see it as proof that we have never been more energized and united in our desire to take this country in a new direction."
For the next six months, the Obama campaign will be all about going beyond the energized and united to reach the apathetic, the uninformed and the fearful to persuade them that they and their families will be better off with him in the Oval Office than John McCain.
John F. Kennedy had the same problem in 1960, a young Senator running against a better-known, more experienced political figure, and he overcame it. Eleanor Roosevelt, late in life, compared him to her husband being energized by the campaign crowds of 1932.
In the era of TV and the Internet, Obama is capable of outdoing them both.
Of all the demographic divisions--gender, race, age, economic status, education--Obama faces the most crucial of all, between those who have been paying attention and those who haven't.
With all the new registrations, this year's total of voters is sure to exceed the 122 million of 2004, and the Democratic candidate's challenge will be to make himself known to those like the woman in West Virginia who rejected him saying, "No More Hussein," and millions more who don't know even that much about him.
Presidential campaigns, for better or worse, come down to the perceived character of the candidates, and Obama has come a long way but is still relatively unknown to many, if not most, voters.
In Iowa last night, he asserted that the hard-fought battle for the nomination was good for his party, saying, "Now, some may see the millions upon millions of votes cast for each of us as evidence that our party is divided. But I see it as proof that we have never been more energized and united in our desire to take this country in a new direction."
For the next six months, the Obama campaign will be all about going beyond the energized and united to reach the apathetic, the uninformed and the fearful to persuade them that they and their families will be better off with him in the Oval Office than John McCain.
John F. Kennedy had the same problem in 1960, a young Senator running against a better-known, more experienced political figure, and he overcame it. Eleanor Roosevelt, late in life, compared him to her husband being energized by the campaign crowds of 1932.
In the era of TV and the Internet, Obama is capable of outdoing them both.
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