As the mid-term elections approach, Obama is struggling to renew the sense of optimism and ambition of two years ago and finds himself battling to keep both centrists and radicals on board. There are areas of the country where his presence on the stump would hinder rather than help; a handful of Democratic candidates are not just running against Republicans, but him.Yes, it’s all going pear-shaped, eh, Gary? Who’s to blame, then?
Is it the Obamassiah himself?
…the question many who backed him are asking is whether he raised their hopes too high or their expectations were unrealistic? The answer is neither.Really? So who was at fault?
Ah. Of course. Those pesky voters, getting caught up in the hype:
Their mistake was to believe that transformational change was something you could impart to a higher power – the president – and then witness on CNN.Dumb, stupid rubes, eh, Gary?
The problem was not that many set their hopes too high but that rather than claim those hopes as their own they invested them in a single person – Obama – and in an utterly corrupted political culture.You see, Obama didn’t fail – the people failed Obama!
A winner-takes-all voting system where both main parties are sustained by corporate financing, the congressional districts are openly gerrymandered and 40% of the upper chamber can block anything, is never going to be a benign vehicle for radical reform.It’s all a great big conspiracy against the progressives, isn’t it, Gary? We shall just overlook the fact that Obama is tied to corporate financing just as tightly as everyone else…
Moreover, rhetorically, at least, he projected a far more dynamic, idealistic and populist campaign than the one he was actually running. As the community organiser-cum-presidential candidate, he managed to simulate the energy and vision of a movement and then super-impose it onto a tightly run, top-down presidential campaign bid.Yes, I remember you and all the other Democrat cheerleaders warning about this and…
Wait. No, I don’t…
Nowhere was this more evident than the manner in which he sought to harness the symbolic resonance of his race while simultaneously denying its political significance: at one and the same time posing as a direct legatee of the civil rights movement and little more than a distant relative.He wanted to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. And he’s now learnt that, when the hounds find out, you’re in trouble…
Maybe the problem was that he wasn’t progressive enough?
But when it came to matters of substance, far from raising expectations too high he actually set them quite low. He stood on a moderate platform in the middle of an economic crisis that demanded drastic action. And even with that tepid agenda he won only 53% of the vote against a weaker candidate, with an even weaker running mate, who conducted an incoherent campaign.Heh! Yes, that was pointed out by the right many, many times, and they were decried for it and slammed as ‘racist’.
So it’s rather amusing to see it creeping in as an excuse for the expected poor results in the mid-terms now.
All very unexpected, eh, Gary?
So, given the institutions in which Obama was embedded, it was no great feat to predict today's disappointment.And yet, strangely, no-one on the left did.
Those on the right did, however.
It is very simple. I was in the USA in Autumn 2006 and a certain Mr Obama was never off the TV. A US blooger of my aquaintance, The Whited Sepulchre calls Obama the "Teleprompter Jesus".
ReplyDeleteHe is. I had never heard of Obama in 2006 but the whole schtick was "Vote for him - he's black". That really was it. Oh, sorry. They also said his wife has nicely toned upper arms. I forgot that.
Now I dunno what you think about healthcare reform in the US but it was a big issue at the election...
Except it wasn't. McCain didn't give a toss really and Obama quite literally hadn't thought about it. Clinton had but she wasn't on the ticket. Barry was and he was going to busk it. Yup busk about 13% of the entire US GDP. Or about three times the defence budget. But that was OK because he was black.
Obama was always going to be a crushing dissapointment because he was elected because he is black and just because he is black.
Not only is it deeply patronising to black Americans who of course have never held high office in their country apart from various supreme court judges gopvernorships, Condi Rice, Colin Powell (who I recall after Desert Storm had the Republicans practically howling for him to chuck his hat in the ring*)...
But the single USP of Obama is his skin colour. It's Ali FG as prez "Isit coz I is black". It is ludicrous. The day after the election the BBC were interviewing every black person in DC (it's a majority black city so no hard task)
and everyone said the same thing. "I never expected to see this in my lifetime". Well, I did. As I said Powell and Condi were spitting distance from the White House. A black prez was just going to happen.
But what did happen was awful. What did happen was the sort of thing to have Martin Luther King Jr revolve in his grave. They got a crap black prez just because he was black. They then went wuppity do! over it because he was black without thinking a goddamn about things like he's also a Marxist which is more important in the grand scheme.
The reason I mention Dr King is very simple. He is remembered for many things but more than anything for his "I have a dream" speech which specifically calls on people to judge on character and not colour. I don't think Dr King could have made that any more explicit yet 40-odd years on we have a black prez who is prez just because he is black. I really don't think that is what Dr King wanted.
Barack Obama has put the position of black folks in US politics back 20 years. He is a quota man. That is sad. It's worse. It's pathetic. About 10% of the US population are black and that's 30 million and that's what they came up with!
Can we please reboot from Dr King. Can we please see that having someone elected because of the colour of their skin (and Oprah) is urinating from a great altitude on the grave of a great man. I mean I'm sure King believed there would be a black guy (or gal) in the White House but I suspect he expected someone of considerable ability who'd do two terms and have a Nimitz-class carrier named for him or her.
*Imagine him with Stormin' Norman as running mate back in the nineties.
'only 53% of the vote
ReplyDeleteWhat Gary fails to mention - or probably doesn't realise - is that 53% of the popular vote is more than Clinton got either time, more the JFK got, indeed is more than any Democratic candidate with the exceptions of Andrew Jackson, FDR and Lyndon B. Johnson has ever got.
All told, for the Democrats, Nov '08 was a bloody good result once you consider that they ended up with a super majority in Congress as well.
But, as the last two years have shown, Obama is seemingly a one-trick pony who is rapidly running out of steam.
It soon became obvious with Obama that while he wanted the job, he had no great experience of anything much and frankly, soon got bored with it all. His speeches we are told are inspired (though I always though the Teleprompter of the United States ought to do a bit better than he did, and at times the speeches showed a hysterically inaccurate grasp of international relations and history) so no doubt he can talk some votes back round in the next few days.
ReplyDeleteBut the point was made that he actually isn't that interested in the affairs of state and anyway running the country is tedious. Once the speeches weren't required and the crowds dispersed he seemed even more out of his depth.
The media did its best to shovel praise in the messiah's direction, but then the media are a bit like whores so it doesn't count much.
Someone said recently that Kenya's favourite son only gets excited when talking about sports, and sadly the leaders of Iran and the Norks don't get excited by chat of baseball and basketball. Or golf.
No doubt he will survive, but I really think that if a half-decent opponent comes along he may be that relative modern rarity of a one-term prez.
"Both main parties are sustained by corporate financing"
ReplyDeleteThat didn't seem so bad when Democrats were winning, did it, Gary?
"A US blooger of my aquaintance, The Whited Sepulchre calls Obama the "Teleprompter Jesus". "
ReplyDeleteHeh! Yes, I've seen references to that in US blogs. Very appropriate.
"The reason I mention Dr King is very simple. He is remembered for many things but more than anything for his "I have a dream" speech which specifically calls on people to judge on character and not colour."
And oh, how that political hope and vision has been traduced ever since..
"What Gary fails to mention - or probably doesn't realise - is that 53% of the popular vote is more than Clinton got either time, more the JFK got, indeed is more than any Democratic candidate with the exceptions of Andrew Jackson, FDR and Lyndon B. Johnson has ever got."
Indeed. And yet, they threw it all away almost as soon as they got themselves seated at the table...
"It soon became obvious with Obama that while he wanted the job, he had no great experience of anything much and frankly, soon got bored with it all. "
A glance at his record would have shown that - he basically abstained (voted 'present') for almost every important decision.
"That didn't seem so bad when Democrats were winning, did it, Gary?"
Indeed not! The recent fuss Obama made over his (perceived) opponent being financed by 'foreign money' backfired on him but good...