I wrote recently that Obama was elected by a coalition of interests who are now in line to be disappointed. There were many reasons that various groups voted for Obama, and I contend, that few of them had to do with his policy positions. The sheer variety of reasons insures that some voters will be disappointed, I said. So it shouldn’t have come to me as a surprise that an Obama voter woke up today to news that would disappoint him. What surprised me was who the first disappointed voter was: me. That’s right, I voted for Obama. To be sure, it was the primary when I did so, but my reasoning was valid. I was not voting to cynically nominate the Democrat I thought easiest to beat, although I knew others who did just that. No, I voted for the very specific intent to make Obama the nominee because I thought the Democrat pick was likely to win. And I didn’t want it to be Hillary Clinton. So imagine my thoughts when I heard that the anointed one has picked Hillary for his Secretary of State. She is truly like the movie monster that will not die.
I had been saying for days that this was all a rouse. Her name being floated for Sec. of State was nothing more than Obama paying her off by elevating her profile in the international arena. There was no way this would actually happen. Well slap my ass and call me Sally.
Well I may have been the first, but I wasn’t the only one. During the campaign I must have read a dozen columns by pundits who harped on the need for the new president to “sell” shared sacrifice to the American people. He would have to lead by being straight with them. Bush had never made it clear that sacrifices had to be made. The new guy would have to do that. It would be like the myth of FDR “leading us out of the depression” (He did nothing of the sort.) Americans would pull together and tough it out, sharing the burden, whatever that may be. But apparently letting GM go bankrupt is more pain than he is willing to face.
And make no mistake; bailing out GM is very different than saving the financial services industry. The automobile industry is not in trouble. The American automobile industry isn’t even in trouble. Plants in Alabama are humming along spitting out cars that are selling just fine. They just happen to be Hondas and Mercedes Benz. This is a case where the bad moves by GM are well documented and clearly attributable to the company itself. They do not deserve to be saved. And if they are, it will mean that the guys who run it will make even worse decisions in the future because they will know that the government will be there to save them when they do. I guess we’re just going to sacrifice elsewhere.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Original Sin, Reconciliation and Absolution
It finally came to me. I last wrote about how I didn’t think all the Obama voters were on the same page. They voted Obama for a variety of reasons, but I hadn’t been able to pinpoint the reason so many folks who considered themselves “conservative,” had voted for him. But thinking about the “feel good” atmosphere that seemed so obvious to me, helped form my hypothesis. Voting for Obama was reconciliation that removed the Original sin of slavery, and will lead to absolution for historic discrimination against blacks. A vote for Obama said “I am not a racist and America is not a racist country. Now you have proof.”
Towards the end of the campaign, the one thing that liberal pundits kept pushing, were the quotes from conservative pundits who had switched over to Obama or were at least critical of McCain. David Brook’s line that Palin was a “cancer on the GOP” got more circulation than anything else he has written since he joined the New York Times. You’d be hard pressed to find a liberal who didn’t quote it in his column. Most people didn’t even know who Christopher Buckley was before he endorsed Obama. But within days everybody knew he was the son of recently deceased conservative icon, William F. Buckley. They heard all about his voting for Obama, but I doubt they heard his response when asked if he feared Obama’s liberal agenda. I don’t have the exact quote, but he basically said he didn’t think that Obama would actually be able to implement everything he wanted because cooler heads would prevail when he started getting advice from folks who knew better. That, he felt, made it safe to vote for him. Considering the people most likely to end up in his cabinet, I take no comfort from that notion. Nationalized health care, no new drilling, a hasty exit from Iraq and redistribution of wealth are what his true believers expect for him to deliver. And something tells me he does not wish to disappoint them right off the bat.
I heard this morning that Obama plans to start his administration by immediately reversing many of the executive orders that Bush had signed. Not surprisingly, one of them was to expand the stem cell lines that are eligible for federal research dollars. That won’t strike any chords. Nobody will come crashing to Earth on that one. But the next one listed was to kill any expanded off shore drilling. You may recall that during the campaign, even Obama had to say he supported that. More than two thirds of Americans did and he wasn’t about to hand an issue like that to McCain. Even the Democrat congress lifted their ban because of voter support. So would this reversal be called “lying,” or will some softer sounding term be put forth? At the very least sentences will be parsed. (“I only said I was for SOME expanded drilling.”)
It’s going to be a while before reality steps in for the “conservatives” who opted for absolution on slavery. They are currently enjoying that renewed feeling one gets from going to confession.
Towards the end of the campaign, the one thing that liberal pundits kept pushing, were the quotes from conservative pundits who had switched over to Obama or were at least critical of McCain. David Brook’s line that Palin was a “cancer on the GOP” got more circulation than anything else he has written since he joined the New York Times. You’d be hard pressed to find a liberal who didn’t quote it in his column. Most people didn’t even know who Christopher Buckley was before he endorsed Obama. But within days everybody knew he was the son of recently deceased conservative icon, William F. Buckley. They heard all about his voting for Obama, but I doubt they heard his response when asked if he feared Obama’s liberal agenda. I don’t have the exact quote, but he basically said he didn’t think that Obama would actually be able to implement everything he wanted because cooler heads would prevail when he started getting advice from folks who knew better. That, he felt, made it safe to vote for him. Considering the people most likely to end up in his cabinet, I take no comfort from that notion. Nationalized health care, no new drilling, a hasty exit from Iraq and redistribution of wealth are what his true believers expect for him to deliver. And something tells me he does not wish to disappoint them right off the bat.
I heard this morning that Obama plans to start his administration by immediately reversing many of the executive orders that Bush had signed. Not surprisingly, one of them was to expand the stem cell lines that are eligible for federal research dollars. That won’t strike any chords. Nobody will come crashing to Earth on that one. But the next one listed was to kill any expanded off shore drilling. You may recall that during the campaign, even Obama had to say he supported that. More than two thirds of Americans did and he wasn’t about to hand an issue like that to McCain. Even the Democrat congress lifted their ban because of voter support. So would this reversal be called “lying,” or will some softer sounding term be put forth? At the very least sentences will be parsed. (“I only said I was for SOME expanded drilling.”)
It’s going to be a while before reality steps in for the “conservatives” who opted for absolution on slavery. They are currently enjoying that renewed feeling one gets from going to confession.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Feelin' All Right
OK, I went zero for 3 on my political predictions. I think I'll refrain from that in the future. I'm not very good at prognosticating, I think I do better at seeing what has happened. Which brings me to this writing.
It dawned on me today what it was that I had witnessed in the elections just ended. But I believe that what it really came down to was that voting for Obama was the feel-good vote of the season. By that, I mean that the act of voting itself, made many people feel really good about themselves. The reasons for feeling good were many and varied. There were the true believers of liberalism, of course. But there are just too many stories out there about certain demographic groups level of support to think that they were all in agreement about motives. For instance, while both black and gay voters went overwhelmingly for Obama, it seems that the huge black turnout, in California, also helped push the gay marriage ban over the top, much to the consternation of gays, their presumed ally. My guess is that when they cast their Obama votes, each group left the polls feeling pretty good about what they had just done, but for different reasons. There also was a 1968 feeling coming from the young people. Among students, I think one would have to have been a brave, true believer to have shown support for McCain to their peers. There was a sense that Iraq was their Viet Nam and they were going to make the revolution succeed, this time. Hispanics backed Obama 2 to 1, although McCain had been been on their side during the immigration bill debates.
I don't want this to sound like sour grapes. And I'm certainly not going to say what liberals did in 2000 and 2004 (That the American people are basically stupid), but I refuse to believe that this was about liberal policy. A very embarrassing audio tape was circulated around the Internet a few weeks before the election. Some smart ass radio DJs sent a guy in to Harlem where he interviewed random people about why they were voting for Obama. To be honest, it was a set-up on several levels, but I still think it was telling. They'd ask the person to choose between several choices of policy positions that they felt mattered most as the reason they were voting for Obama. But the choices were all McCain's positions. So they'd ask something like, "Which do think is more important, Obama's desire to stay the course in Iraq or his pledge to appoint pro-life judges?" Often, the answer was "both," or they'd make comments like "I think it's more important that he stay the course in Iraq."
I just don't think they were all on the same page, which will make for an interesting clash of expectations down the road.
It dawned on me today what it was that I had witnessed in the elections just ended. But I believe that what it really came down to was that voting for Obama was the feel-good vote of the season. By that, I mean that the act of voting itself, made many people feel really good about themselves. The reasons for feeling good were many and varied. There were the true believers of liberalism, of course. But there are just too many stories out there about certain demographic groups level of support to think that they were all in agreement about motives. For instance, while both black and gay voters went overwhelmingly for Obama, it seems that the huge black turnout, in California, also helped push the gay marriage ban over the top, much to the consternation of gays, their presumed ally. My guess is that when they cast their Obama votes, each group left the polls feeling pretty good about what they had just done, but for different reasons. There also was a 1968 feeling coming from the young people. Among students, I think one would have to have been a brave, true believer to have shown support for McCain to their peers. There was a sense that Iraq was their Viet Nam and they were going to make the revolution succeed, this time. Hispanics backed Obama 2 to 1, although McCain had been been on their side during the immigration bill debates.
I don't want this to sound like sour grapes. And I'm certainly not going to say what liberals did in 2000 and 2004 (That the American people are basically stupid), but I refuse to believe that this was about liberal policy. A very embarrassing audio tape was circulated around the Internet a few weeks before the election. Some smart ass radio DJs sent a guy in to Harlem where he interviewed random people about why they were voting for Obama. To be honest, it was a set-up on several levels, but I still think it was telling. They'd ask the person to choose between several choices of policy positions that they felt mattered most as the reason they were voting for Obama. But the choices were all McCain's positions. So they'd ask something like, "Which do think is more important, Obama's desire to stay the course in Iraq or his pledge to appoint pro-life judges?" Often, the answer was "both," or they'd make comments like "I think it's more important that he stay the course in Iraq."
I just don't think they were all on the same page, which will make for an interesting clash of expectations down the road.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
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