The International House of Bacon

I swear - barring any newsworthy notes or major policy hits, I don’t see myself posting anything major about Obama again until closer to convention time. With Super Tuesday tomorrow, however, one more major post to tie up some loose ends seems appropriate. This may get a little scatterbrained, but bear with me.

1) First, it was noted in the comments of the last entry, as well as from an unrelated friend who I don’t believe reads this, that there’s a pretty decent comparison between the Obama campaign for President and Deval Patrick’s campaign for governor in Massachusetts last year. It goes beyond the race issue - although the media, of course, isn’t lax in pointing that out - but rather a similarity in message and inspiration over substance. The most glaring one, of course, is the simple slogans - Patrick’s campaign materials ran with a “Together We Can” message (can do what, exactly? Can destroy the budget? Can make an end-around the legislature? Never mind, I’m getting off topic), while Obama’s is a more, uh, “inspiring” “Change we can believe in.” If Patrick’s record so far is representative of the “change” that this nation can ultimately “believe in,” I’ll pass.

It’s worth noting that 17 lawmakers who supported Patrick in his gubernatorial race are looking at Hillary Clinton for tomorrow’s primary. Why is that? Says one anonymous lawmaker, “We’ve now seen firsthand what happens when you put someone in office who lacks experience, but has extraordinarily inspiring rhetoric,” said one lawmaker who asked for anonymity. “The inspiring rhetoric is compelling and appealing, but what has that gotten us?” Sound familiar?

This is why I find it curious that people are so willing to defend inspirational politics like this. It’s by design, people - keep the electorate focused on the shiny while making them jump through hoops to find some meat. On a message board I participate in, one person made the link between the Obama campaign and the more policy-wonkish Kerry and Gore campaigns of the previous elections. The problem, though, wasn’t the wonkishness, it was the candidate - Gore was dull and Kerry allowed himself to be “electable” and left the door open for Bush and his campaign to define him. Obama can be inspirational and charismatic while presenting real ideas in a campaign stop setting. He can make the changes that he feels we need specific AND interesting, and make them the centerpiece. There’s a clear reason why he doesn’t do it, though, and the question Obama supporters have to be asking themselves at this point, nearly a year(!) into his campaign.

Oh, and what’s the most ironic part of Obama’s campaign thus far? He’s actually come out and attacked Hillary Clinton for not being specific enough. The gall, seriously.

2) I got a good deal of flack about my assertion that a good deal of Obama supporters are either a) not supporting Obama based on positions, or b) are actively not interested/ignorant of his positions. The unfortunate part is that the data to back this assertion up is not readily forthcoming, but I can try to demonstrate as best I can as to how wide this net is cast:

a) I did an informal, poorly constructed poll at the LiveJournal Liberal community. I’m not going to try and do the math here, so just bear with me: of the 57% of respondents who are planning to vote for Obama, fewer people cited agreeability with his platform than electability, “hope,” or “change.” 52% of total respondents (pro- and anti-Obama) claim to have firm knowledge of his platform, with roughly 42% claiming to have some knowledge or very little outside of Iraq. Unscientific, but this is out of a community of people who pay close attention to politics and the political process - if Obama’s policy messages are only getting through to about half of potential voters (not even HIS potential voters, but ALL potential voters), what does that say about the rest?

b) Here’s a Hispanic Nashville posting explaining why this author is supporting Barack Obama: “Martin Luther King, Jr., in his acceptance speech for the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, called for “an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men.” That kind of love is the value that will inform my vote on Tuesday, and it is why I support Barack Obama.” Values, specifically “love.” Okay…

c) A lot was said about Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement under the headline “A President Like My Father.” Never mind that JFK has benefited from the same misdirection that Obama benefits from now, but what’s the theme? Let’s look at the first paragraph:

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

Oh, he’s inspiring and hopeful. I get it. She does mention policy off-handedly (”They have all laid out detailed plans on everything from strengthening our middle class to investing in early childhood education. So qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual.”), but the policy stuff isn’t why she likes Obama in this case. And, again, if the plans are detailed, why aren’t we highlighting them? Why isn’t he highlighting them? I’ll come back to this point in a moment.

d) Two politicians from Hawaii map out why Obama should be the candidate. Why, you ask? “From the standpoint of the Hawai’i steering committee, Senator Obama represents the best in all of us. He wants to replace the fear that has overwhelmed this nation’s political discourse with hope.” Oh. Hope. But it’s okay, because Obama has some great ideas to change things, right? His strength comes from somewhere that isn’t nebulous, correct? “Because Senator Obama’s strength isn’t just his personal biography or his ability to deliver powerful speeches — it is in his desire and capacity to change the way we talk to each other, to improve the way we go about solving the nation’s greatest challenges.” Oh…

And those two people wrote this in 2006. That this still rings true today is incredibly damning.

e) The Vermont Cynic appears to be a University of Vermont publication that posted an endorsement of Obama recently. According to them, Obama “is more liberal, more straightforward, and far more electable” than Hillary Clinton. His Senate activity hasn’t been all that exciting to this college crowd, but that’s okay! Why? “There is something to his message. It resonates differently and in a more positive light than competing voices in politics and outside of the realm, but also in a way that is daring and refreshing. His whole candidacy captures something that Clinton’s fails to. It has a soul.”

f) A letter to the editor in Fresno lends support to Obama, as he’s “Obama is the only candidate who has the character, the courage and the passion to change Washington politics.”

g) Ted Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama. Leaving behind the question as to whether that would create an extra liability, Kennedy is able to cite two or three policy initiatives from work in the Senate within a few paragraphs (nothing terribly specific, mind you), but what’s the overriding theme of the endorsement? Using Kennedy’s words himself, Obama is “the candidate who can best inspire all of us, who can lift our vision, summon our hopes and dreams to meet the great challenges of our time, and make us all believe again that America’s best days are still to comes”

I lifted all of these from Google searches for “why i support obama” over the last few days. These are the top results. Are people supporting Obama based on policy reasons? I’m sure those people exist, but that’s not the centerpiece of the campaign or the main reason for support. This should be something people are concerned about.

The root of the problem with Obama ultimately isn’t his policy initiatives - those are problematic, but probably not for a Democratic voter - but that people do not know them. We see what happens when this occurs, we know that educated, informed people don’t care to highlight them, and we know that Obama’s made great gains amongst those who are not typically involved with the process. What happens when those people actually learn his positions? Will they be okay with it, or will he already be in office and be too late to fix? In an election that could very well yield a modern Jimmy Carter (from either side), is this where we’re heading?

I don’t know for sure, but I do know that I’m not crazy. I don’t see the appeal, especially when his entire campaign is designed to keep you from discussing the very issues we allegedly need “change” from.