February 11, 2008
Column: Why Democrats must choose Obama
The manager or the visionary. Hillary Clinton’s own supporters – the candidate herself, in speech after speech – have cast the fight this way. Stirred emotions and soaring rhetoric are all very well, goes the line. If that is what you want, vote for Barack Obama. But if you care about getting something done, choose experience, technical expertise and a safe pair of hands.
Do not be blinded by passion and excitement. Do not gamble on a dream that way. Rise to the challenge of being dull. “I am Hillary Clinton, and I endorsed this message.”
It may not be the most alluring pitch, but it has served well enough so far. Such a boastful lack of sex appeal in a political campaign does command a certain respect. And after two terms of President George W. Bush, Americans would give a lot for humdrum competence. The Democratic electorate is split in half and bracing for weeks and maybe months of further campaigning. Mrs Clinton, on some estimates, is still favourite to win the nomination.
The remainder of this column can be read here. Please post your comments below.
I remember when I followed the presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush and it saddened me in the end how stupid the American people could be to choose Bush. The world would probably have looked a whole lot different today and US a bit more popular. Al Gore would probably also have gone against al-Qaida in Afghanistan (which is good) but left Iraq alone (which is now turning into another fundamentalist Iran).
And now we’re back to the first square, for me (as a European from Sweden) Obama is the only presidential candidate that can bring back some popularity to the US. What made me decide is that he said that he would talk to the so called “enemies” of US (like Cuba), which is a hole lot better than Clinton who will follow the childish stance to ignore them.
BTW why not attack North Korea? That’s a place with real suffering people and real weapons of mass destruction…
Posted by: Karl-Oskar | February 11th, 2008 at 9:52 am | Report this commentKarl-Oskar, I was one of those who chose Bush in 2000, much to my regret. Before you make a blanket condemnation, you should look back to the campaign of 2000 as opposed to what happened since. Candidate Bush spoke of a “humble nation”, Gore was the interventionist plus his agressive populism was a turn off for me. Admittedly, I speak only for myself, but I could not have forseen what would take place. I am backing Obama now.
Posted by: ConsDemo | February 11th, 2008 at 11:08 am | Report this commentI take exception to only one point in this otherwise excellent column. Mr. Crook says that Senator Obama is running…”as though he merely happened to be black”. But that is exactly the way many white Americans (myself included) see him. Otherwise, how could he possibly get so many white votes, especially in Southern and Midwestern states?
This may be a very poor analogy, but I am reminded of the furor that took place in 1947, when Jackie Robinson became the first black player in major league baseball. At the time, as I well remember, this was a very big deal. Now, who even notices the skin color of the people out on the diamond at a baseball game?
Perhaps Americans have become a little more mature about black-white relations than Mr. Crook gives us credit for. Our real racial problem is more one of the divide between Anglos and Latinos, highlighted by the racist demagoguery over immigration which we will be hearing quite a bit more about in this campaign (despite Senator McCain’s one-time support for “amnesty”, from which he is rapidly backing away).
And Mr. Crook is absolutely right about Hillary Clinton’s baggage. If she is nominated, the Republicans will revive every imaginable truth, half-truth and vicious lie that was circulated about the Clintons during their time in the White House - the Lewinsky scandal, impeachment, Whitewater, “Travelgate”, the death of Vincent Foster, and on and on. Hillary will be spending so much time playing defense that she will never have a chance to talk about the issues.
I also agree that if Hillary uses the super-delegates to steal the nomination away from Obama despite his winning the popular vote, many Democrats will stay home this fall - again myself included.
I also sympathize with ConsDemo. Even though I was one of the many who did see Bush coming in 2000 and voted for Gore, who could have imagined at the time that things would get this bad? But the neocon authoritarians (I am trying to be polite) who soon highjacked the government were in the background at the time. It did not take them long to emerge after the Supreme Court selected Bush to be president.
Posted by: algasema | February 11th, 2008 at 2:09 pm | Report this commentTake it from someone who grew up in the rural American south: You’d be surprised how many people still notice the color of the people out on the baseball diamond, the football gridiron or the basketball court. And, based on the exit polling, it appears a lot of those folks who register Democrat are voting for Hillary. In Kentucky they call themselves “Yellow Dog Democrats” (as in, “I’d vote for a yellow dog before I’d vote for a Republican”) and a lot of them are the most virulent racists you’d ever have the pleasure of meeting.
Should Senator Clinton get the nomination, the Dems will spend at least another four years out of the White House. Her baggage and dissembling about her “35 years of experience” are the elephant in the room that her Democratic competitors are too timid to mention. Senator McCain will have no such compunctions. It will be humiliating for her, her husband and her party.
Posted by: Der Senator | February 11th, 2008 at 3:45 pm | Report this commentI am disappointed that an FT commentator should fall so easily for pure showmanship; your reply to Edward Luce is unconvincing.
If Obama was as intelligent as you claim, he would have performed better at the debates. No doubt he is gifted — a gifted demagogue.
I have read your column and I would like to ask: so why should Democrats vote for Obama? Your answers are as evasive as Obama’s hollow oratory.
Posted by: Ron Cohen-Seban | February 11th, 2008 at 4:49 pm | Report this commentDer Senator, admittedly I know very little about the rural South, having lived in or close to New York City all my life. However, it seems that at least some of the white “racists” in the Southern states are voting for Obama. Not that New York is entirely color blind either.
But none of the Southern states are going to vote Democratic in the fall anyway, no matter who is on the ticket, so the damage done to Obama by Southern racism would be far less than what would happen to Hillary in every state in the union because of her baggage and personality.
Sure, Obama has drawbacks such as inexperience. No one is perfect. And don’t expect any Republican to pronounce his name correctly after the nomination, if he is nominated. We will also be hearing a lot about madrassas, inner city drug gangs, and a lot of other lies that we don’t even know about yet, but that the Republicans obviously have up their sleeves and are holding in reserve until after the convention.
But at least Obama would have a chance to get elected, and a good one. Hillary has none at all.
Posted by: algasema | February 11th, 2008 at 5:09 pm | Report this commentObama, if ever elected, would be the next Jimmy Carter. I agree Hillary is an awful candidate herself, which points to the predicament facing the Democratic party, and with it America.
During the past half-century the default party of presidents has been the Republican party — and it seems that there is no other sensible choice today but John McCain.
Posted by: Ron Cohen-Seban | February 11th, 2008 at 5:40 pm | Report this commentMr Crook, you’ve hit this issue right on the head. It baffles my mind how dems are waffling on putting their full support behind Obama. How could you not vote for hope? Or maybe a better angle is how could you kill hope? Which is what the perception would be for millions of dems, and would not only put November in jeopardy, but could be another 30 year death blow to the democratic party.
Posted by: Jean | February 11th, 2008 at 5:43 pm | Report this commentRon Cohen-Seban, the only problem with your analysis is that John McCain is in an impossible bind over the immigration issue. He cannot win without Latino votes, any more than Bush would have been able to. And the racist Republican right will settle for nothing less than a full, public, and vigorous recantation of “amnesty”, and McCain’s signing on to its English-only, ethnic cleansing agenda of mass deportations, police-state style workplace raids and severe reductions in legal immigration.
No compromise on immigration is possible for the Latino-haters, any more than one would be possible on abortion for the religious fundamentalists. Therefore, if Obama gets the nomination, unless he runs the worst Democratic campaign in history, which is not likely, McCain is doomed.
I have to modify my previous comment to say that even if Hillary is the candidate, she might win bexause she is popular with Latinos. Most don’t care about her baggage, but about her position on immigration.
Not that the Clintons had such a great record on immigration in the White House, either, but it was good enough to give Hillary the edge for the Latino vote, because, unlike McCain, she wouldn’t have to compromise with Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo and the other assorted anti-immigration bigots to get elected.
Posted by: algasema | February 11th, 2008 at 6:13 pm | Report this commentObama’s Message of “Change” Debunked
Obama claims that he is the better candidate for president because he is the only candidate who can bring change to Washington. He is not running based upon his experience or his positions on the issues. Rather, he has staked his entire candidacy on this theme of change. But what this change is and how Obama will accomplish it, goes unspoken. His followers are asked to make a leap of faith and trust him; which explains all the messianic prose and images Obama employs.
But once you peal away the layers of poetic prose and idealistic vagaries, it becomes clear that Obama’s message of “change” is nothing more than a campaign strategy. It is a carefully crafted attack on his opponent, Hilary Clinton. Obama gives no details on how he will accomplish this “change” because it’s not a strategy for change, it is a strategy to win the election. The lofty ideals he so eloquently expresses are nothing more than backhanded attacks. The candidate who is running on theme of change, is Mr. Politics as Usual.
If you take a look, every illusion to change that Obama makes is a veiled attack against Hilary Clinton.
1. “I am running for President because I believe that to actually make change happen - we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, Independents, and Republicans together to get things done.”
2. “I am running for President because I believe that we need fundamental change in America… unity instead of division; hope instead of fear; a politics that leaves behind the fights of the past so that we can finally take hold of our future
3. “We don’t need a candidate who agrees with Republicans that lobbyists are part of the system in Washington. They’re part of the problem.”
Obama is playing on the divisiveness of the 1990’s when we had a Democrat as president who was trying to put through progressive measures to help the American people. The Republicans did everything they possibly could to shut President Clinton down. The Clintons didn’t win every battle, but they sure tried. The Clintons didn’t create the divisiveness, the issues did. And if they had shrunk from their responsibility to the American people and not waged those battles, they would not have had the success they had in changing America for the better. The result was unprecedented growth in America and respect for our nation abroad.
The truth is, Obama couldn’t change Washington politics even if he wanted to, and while there is always room for improvement, the system itself works just fine. There will always be divisiveness in Washington, because people have different beliefs, needs and interests that they are passionate about. The “divisiveness” Obama condemns, is the give and take of those interests; it is the process through which compromise is found. This give and take is an essential component of a functioning democracy, and it’s what makes our system of Government the best in the World. And the “evil” lobbyists Obama condemns, give the “little guy” a voice that he would otherwise not have.
Obama doesn’t give a strategy to accomplish “change” in Washington because the goal is not to set a strategy for change, the goal is to attack Hilary. But Obama’s rhetoric and some of his positions (like health insurance) indicate that as President he would be less inclined or even unwilling to wage battle with the Republicans over important issues like universal health insurance and bringing our troops home; that he rather seek unity. Obama’s history of watering down legislation in order to achieve unity, at the cost of important protections for American citizens, demonstrates this tendency to put unity over real change. Thus, for all his talk of change, an Obama’s Presidency would espouse compromise at the expense of change, unity at the expense of solutions to the problems facing America.
Posted by: suskin | February 11th, 2008 at 8:12 pm | Report this commentAs far as the race for the Democratic nomination this is a battle between the Clintons representing the status quo , the past and entrenched Washington power and the Obama campaign representing change, the future and the power of a grass root movement.
So far the Clintons much touted experience and management skills have underperformed Obama’s judgement and leadership. A clear example this week was the weak fund raising efforts and fund management of the Clintons, which depended on the deep pockets of the usual suspects for fundraising while the Obama campaign instead rallied a movement of over 700,000 supporters willing to invest small amounts again and again.
It was during the South Carolina primary that the secret weapon of the Clintons, divisive campaigning, backfired and finally gave Democratic voters a chance to see what independents and Republicans have long found so troubling in the Clintons, their willingness to do anything to win.
But things are far from over, now the Clintons look toward Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Hoping that their politics of the past can withstand Obama’s momentum. In Texas they will again seek to divide the electorate along ethnic lines. Here the test for Obama is to convince Hispanics that he will bring positive change not just to black or even white America, but all of America. But Obama has already overcome these fears in many parts of this country, in fact he had to overcome the fears of rejection among many African Americans before winning their support from the Clintons.
But it is in Pennsylvania that the real test will be faced for Obama. This is where the entrenched power of the Ed Rendell will attempt to end the dream for Obama and his movement. It is between now and then that Obama must rally his grass root forces to over come the party machine.
So in the end there is long way to go but the real difference is …
The Clintons are managing a campaign, Obama is leading a movment.
Posted by: Max McGloin | February 11th, 2008 at 8:50 pm | Report this commentMax McGloin, I agree with you 100 per cent (if not 830 per cent, to quote Martin Lukes)
Posted by: algasema | February 11th, 2008 at 9:19 pm | Report this comment“We are the ones we have been waiting for”, Said Obama in a speech. Anyone who regularly uses such wacko, totalitarian-sounding lingo is potentially dangerous. Watch him with the sound off. Does he not look like a narcissistic personality disorder.
Posted by: John | February 11th, 2008 at 9:57 pm | Report this commentAs an old (literally and figuratively) American political professional, now retired, who has served in senior positions with Democratic and Republican Congressmen, as a Presidential appointee (Democrat Carter and Republican Bush Sr.) and, uniquely, with both the Democratic and Republican National Committees, I enjoyed the analysis in the column titled “Why Democrats must choose Obama” (Financial Times, Feb. 11, 2008).
Very rarely does someone come upon the political scene who transcends “politics as usual” and who provides a vision which can unite disparate groups. Senator Obama is such an individual. As was pointed out, he may not succeed, but at least he is willing to try. That in itself is unique in America today. That he is frightening to those without his abilities is as obvious as is the fact that he may win the vote but lose the nomination, much as Al Gore won the vote but lost the nomination to the “safer, more traditional” candidate, Bush, in 2000.
But — may I suggest that you missed one other reason why Hilary Clinton would be a mistake for America?
Her tears just before the New Hampshire primary brought her the women’s vote in such record numbers that she cynically repeated the scene in Connecticut before Super Tuesday. However, I found myself wondering: does America really want a President who would break out in tears if she didn’t get her way with Russia’s Putin (who will undoubtedly become Russia’s Prime Minister and stay the true power after their upcoming election)? Is that the image of America’s leader that we want?
Can you imagine Britain’s Margaret Thatcher publicly crying if she didn’t get her way politically? Or Indira Ghandi? Or would Israel’s great Prime Minister, Golda Meir, have broken out in tears if Egypt’s Nasser had frustrated her? I doubt it. Hilary is unfit to led the nation and the western alliance simply because she is not a leader who can inspire strength and confidence. Period!
Posted by: Peter M. Borormeo, Esq. | February 11th, 2008 at 10:57 pm | Report this commentsorry for the mistake — I typed “nomination” but obviously meant “election” for the Gore-Bush comparison.
Posted by: Peter M. Borormeo, Esq. | February 11th, 2008 at 11:24 pm | Report this commentI know that I have spoken too much already, but in view of the Senate’s shocking cave-in February 12 to the Bush administration’s unconscionable attempt to exempt phone companies from liability for helping the federal government spy on their customers illegally, it is worth comparing how the two senators voted on the bill.
Senator Obama voted for an amendment that would have denied this protection to the phone companies, thereby standing up for the freedom of all Americans from unlawful spying. Senator Clinton - well, she somehow didn’t manage to vote at all, because then she would have had to take sides. Of course, she might have had a prior out-of-town campaign commitment, except that all of today’s primaries are in or close to Washington D.C.
This is not the first time that she has chosen expediency over principle. Witness her recent disgraceful waffling on the issue of driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, something which Senator Obama had the courage (and it took quite a bit) to support.
So it is not just a problem for Hillary that she seemingly, cannot control her tears, but her bigger problem is that she cannot summon up the backbone to stand up for principle.
Posted by: algasema | February 12th, 2008 at 9:01 pm | Report this commentA word to Mr Peter M Borormeo who wrote
> Very rarely does someone come upon the political scene
> who…can unite disparate groups.
If what appears to unite us is rhetorical fluff, then it is a fragile–if not outright illusory–unity … which further flies in the face of the venomous villification to which those who do not subscribe to the cult are invariably subjected.
WHY DEMOCRATS MUST CHOOSE OBAMA NONETHELESS:
Because times have changed.
Hope is no longer born of having
|| 1 a firm grasp of reality–warts and all–
|| and
|| 2 a concrete plan to improve our lot
It is now born of
> 1 diversion
> and
> 2 a cult-induced trance.
REALITY:
The serious issues which truly affect our lives are often boring to listen to–not surprising, because the matter of our security and our economic well-being are not meant to make us
1 sway and dance, as well as
2 sing along and chant slogans.
Haven’t most of us at least once had our spouse, parent or grandparent sit us down for a serious discussion–do any of us remember them playing happy music ‘to set the mood’ or ‘to give us hope amid the realities’? No.
Ditto Sen Obama’s ‘HAPPY THERAPY POLICY’.
Posted by: HKLivingston, 26, investment banker | February 15th, 2008 at 6:14 am | Report this comment