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Column: Now it is time for Obama to be more ordinary
June 9, 2008
When Barack Obama, having secured the presidential nomination, ended his victory speech last week, CNN sought its first reaction from Jesse Jackson – not long ago, the standard-bearer for blacks in US politics. What did it mean for the US, Mr Jackson was asked, that the Democratic party would for the first time nominate a black man for president?
It was a jarring transition, so much so that Mr Jackson’s reply is hard to recall. One’s first thought was, what does this have to do with him? It took a moment to remember.
Race has intruded on Mr Obama’s campaign, to be sure. The raving reverend, Jeremiah Wright, threatened to sink it completely. Polls suggest that racism was a factor in Mr Obama’s defeats in West Virginia and elsewhere. In the end Mr Obama secured the nomination thanks to the overwhelming support of black Democrats. Quite possibly, race could cost him the general election in November. So yes, this election is partly about race.
The remainder of this column can be read here. Please post comments below.
Can Mr. Crook or anyone else show that Senator McCain, or for that matter, Senator Clinton, has come out with any proposals that are more specific than Senator Obama’s on any issue? To name just one, has any presidential candidate besides Senator Obama published an FT oped dealing with the subprime mortgage crisis?
True, on immigration, for example, Senator McCain co-sponsored a very specific, detailed bill last year that would have given measured, reasonable and badly needed relief to both legal and illegal immigrants, while Senator Obama has so far been content mostly to label immigration opponents as “bitter”.
What a pity that Senator McCain has since abandoned his previous stand, in favor of the same “enforcement only” policy supported by the anti-Latino bigots who defeated his bill last year. What good is it to be specific if one lacks the courage to stick to one’s principles?
True enough, Senator Obama’s “bitter” comments may have been “vague”. But they were accurate.
Posted by: algasema | June 9th, 2008 at 1:23 pm | Report this commentI find the article above somewhat misleading in two respects, which may be explained by an obvious anti-Clinton bias (”the Clinton curse” pops up as a gratuitous affirmation, the meaning or nature of which is not explained).
First the thesis that Obama did not use race in his campaign is deeply flawed, not to say disingenuous. It is not exactly an accident if black voters voted for him en masse. He used it in two major ways:
1. He repeatedly stated that only in the US could someone “like him”, with both black and white ancestry, have risen to where he was, and clearly echoed Martin Luther King’s stance of unification, of “I have a dream” etc…
2. Much like Clarence Thomas in the past, he used it to guilt trip his opponents wherever possible by seeming to misunderstand first Bill’s remark on past elections, then Hillary’s on different topics. He also guilt-tripped the entire country in his famous post Wright speech on race, by cleverly side-stepping any need to justify why he had consistently chosen a racist lunatic fringe if well-meaning pastor as his mentor (see Obama’s own books), by claiming that everyone, including his white grandmother, was guilty of racism of some sort or another and that the thing to do was therefore to forget and forgive and unite and transcend, not judge peccadilloes like his belonging to Wright’s Church. Interestingly, he has now opportunistically seceded from the latter. I quote a black woman’s assessment of the campaign: “the foundation of Obama’s success was black pride and liberal guilt.”
Second the affirmation that Hillary Clinton ran as someone entitled to win as a woman is deeply misleading. In fact yesterday’s NY Times, which has been pretty consistently anti-Hillary, pointed out that “throughout the campaign, Mrs Clinton steered away from presenting her candidacy in the context of feminism. But not on Saturday.” (in her concession speech). From the start, she ran as someone more competent, more experienced and better prepared to bring solutions to America’s problems than her opponent, whose brief stint in Senate was marked by more than 100 abstentions on critical topics, as both she and Senator Edwards pointed out before belatedly rallying to him.
I regret to see your article smacking of the prejudices rife in the US media throughout the campaign, and so well denounced by your New Statesman colleague a few weeks ago. And I find it sad that the standards of accuracy and truth of the FT should be so lowered by your article, even if it is conveniently placed on the Comment page.
2. much like Clarence Thomas in the past, to guilt trip his opponent wherever possible by seeming to misunderstand first Bill’s remark on past elections, then Hillary’s on different topics. He also guilt-tripped the entire country in his famous post Wright speech on race by cleverly side-stepping any need to justify why he was
Posted by: Marie | June 9th, 2008 at 1:51 pm | Report this commentMarie,
Posted by: MIchael Johnson | June 9th, 2008 at 2:42 pm | Report this commentI think the Clintons just ended up reaping what they sowed. First, they had always taken Black voters for granted: Sista Souja, Ricky Ray Rector, 1995 speech on race relations, etc.. Second, they would have jumped on any Republican that made some of the comments that they did: “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina”, “Johnson signed the law”, “hard working, white people”, etc.. When you play with the fire of racial politics, you can’t complain when you get burned.
It is all down to fad and fashion. Never mind that Sen Obama has only four years experience in the Senate and already wants to become President (what law firm would consider a period of four years as sufficient for becoming a partner?) Never mind that Hillary was much the better debater and showed a far greater command of the issues.
But then what is there to expect from an electoral process that twice produced GW Bush.
Posted by: RCS | June 9th, 2008 at 2:47 pm | Report this commentThis column of Clive Crooks is remarkably well-thought-out. It’s the kind of analysis that contributes to clear thinking.
I would raise the point that nothing happens in America that does not have a racial dimension, the country is literally wired for Galvanic responses that way.
So this remarkable success by a black man was bound to generate shocks, and I think we will see a sorry amount of this during the actual presidential campaign.
Although not from McCain himself, whom I regard as likely fair-minded in this regard, but from the many well-financed private groups with grudges, the kind of thing we saw with “the Swift Boaters” and Kerry.
I am truly sorry to see a post like Marie’s. Frankly it is just uninformed and dripping with prejudices.
It is only natural that blacks would support Obama en masse. He is a genuine black prince and represents a tremendous welling-up of pride after centuries of both slavery and Jim Crow.
I don’t think most of us can even imagine the feelings he arouses, although you might think a woman - seeing that the same phenomenon happened around Hillary with a certain class of women - might be a little more sensitive to it.
Comparing - along any dimension, material or intellectual or spiritual - Obama with Clarence Thomas is just colossal ignorance.
Thomas is a thoroughly mediocre man, one with bad taste and judgment, appointed to the Supreme Court only because he was both black and conservative. He was not distinguuished before his appointment, nor has he distinguished himself afterward.
His speech about a “high-tech” lynching was an embarrassment at the moment he gave it. Utterly inappropriate, a cheap appeal to guilt around the black reality. I felt almost ill at the time that so few politicians or newspapermen called him on it.
Richard Nixon made two disgracement attempts to appoint incompetents to the Supreme Court. His appointments at least were questioned and failed, despite the infamous claim by Republican Senator Hruska of Nebraska, that, like all other qualities, mediocrity should be reflected on the Court!
Obama has brilliant mind, a sense of humor, and he is simply graceful. He has taught law at distinguished schools. He has a distinguished academic record. He is the finest public speaker to appear for years in the United States.
The recognition of Obama for just what he is is exactly what Dr. King dreamed of, not false claims for black faces with non-existent qualities.
With people like Ferraro and some other Clintonistas , we are getting exactly the equivalent of Clarence Thomas’s “high-tech lynching.” Rubbish and prejudice disguised as thought.
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | June 9th, 2008 at 2:50 pm | Report this commentI wonder if the above comments have missed the point of Clive Crook’s article, which I understood as saying that it is time to move beyond race or gender and on to specific issues.
However, this does not mean that the Republicans are going to let us forget for a moment that Senator Obama is black and has Muslim names, any more than they lost any opportunity to use the racist Willie Horton ads in 1988.
Posted by: algasema | June 9th, 2008 at 3:19 pm | Report this commentThanks for the interpretation, algasema.
It does seem by the quantity and quality of your posts that you, if no one else, regard yourself to be Clive Crooks’ unofficial interpreter.
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | June 9th, 2008 at 3:24 pm | Report this commentIt is somewhat bewildering that a candidate can spend $300 Million on a primary be celebrated by a influential columnist as “If ever there were a new kind of politics, this is it”.
I think this is the old kind of politics where one buys an a bunch of very expensive cocktails for the press who then coax the public into thinking that 1970’s style Leftism is somehow a practical way to manage a country.
Mr. Crook does note that Obama limped into his victory, with “by the narrowest of disputed margins; at the end, the momentum was with Mrs Clinton” with directly contradicts his previous statement that “he came through the Wright storm stronger”…this despite losing the popular vote by a count of 450,000 and outspending Clinton 3:1, after the media noticed that Sen. Obama was a member of Rev. Wrights congregation.
So if Rev. Wright makes Obama stronger, I wonder if he will become a part of the fall campaign?
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | June 9th, 2008 at 3:29 pm | Report this commentI agree with Clive Cook’s assessment. From what I have seen, I am extremely impressed by Barack Obama, but there are things that I want to hear more about. For example, I am interested to hear more about what he has to say about trade — I have been a little concerned about the Nafta bashing I have heard from the Democrats. Globalization is here to stay and I think that while it has hurt some areas of this country (the industrial rust belt), we need to see plans that drill down to the nitty gritty on trade and that includes agricultural trade where the US is the world’s leader in subsidized agriculture. Also, there has been a lot of vague talk from everyone about the mortgage crisis and what they will do. The sloppy lending practices and the change in the markets, i.e. the securitization of toxic mortgage debt compromised the entire global banking system. The current solution by the FED warded off Armageddon but encourages moral hazard. The energy crisis is real for more complicated reasons than bashing rapacious oil companies. We need some detailed info about how Obama will go about laying out a comprehensive approach to reducing energy dependance as well as his approach to managing the complex issue of climate change. Last but not least, if he is elected president of the US, the Iraq mess will be his. HIS. He has to wrestle with the collossal mess created by Bush, Cheney and co. I think that he focused on his “innocence”, i.e. not voting for the war which was true and helped him get the nomination, but I think that that wears thin. I don’t condemn Congress for authorizing the war; I condemn the selective use of shoddy intelligence, mendacity on the part of the Bush adminstration and its abuse of that authorization. Everyone was a part of that mess and now it is our mess, as much as our outrage at the incompetance and mendacity of the Bush administration. How we approach immigration will be crucial as well as how we think through on a macro level how we do everything we can to raise the education level of all Americans to respond to the challenges of a new world economy.
Posted by: Donatella | June 9th, 2008 at 4:03 pm | Report this commentObama presents an attractive proposition as a possible head-of-state. No doubt he could be the face of a reinvigorated and forward-looking America. However, that is not enough. As Prof Buiter points out on his blog, an American president is also head-of-government. Do Obama’s four bland years in the Senate suggest that he is fit for that job? Does anything he has done beforehand suggest it?
Posted by: RCS | June 9th, 2008 at 4:19 pm | Report this comment1. To say that Obama ran as an exceptional candidate who happened to be black is absolutely absurd. Obama’s success depended on two key votes, the black vote and the young vote, which is why he repeatedly referenced his colour and upbringing in the campaign. And why wouldn’t he?
2. Clinton referenced her gender as little, or as much, as Obama referenced his colour. I challenge you to review their speeches, and back up your claim. You’re right, though, she did ramp up the feminist rhetoric in her concession speech - because she needed to thank women for their support, and also to stop them defecting to McCain. That’s also why Obama toned down his victory celebrations.
I was overseas and not reporting in Washington during the Clinton era, so maybe I’d feel differently if I’d been there. But as a journalist with a fairly respectable resume I’m absolutely amazed by the Clinton bashing that’s gone on in the media this campaign. The blatant prejudice expressed in vicious terms, often amounting to hate language, is beyond anything I’ve ever seen before.
What’s worse, though, is what appears to me to be a deliberate attempt to distort, or misreport, the facts. And I can’t figure out if this is deliberate, or a reflection of the fact that a lot of columnists and correspondents have now completely lost the plot - they’re so sucked down into the muck that’s swirling around on the internet and the message boards they’re no longer capable of maintaining an appropriate distance and acting responsibly on their readers’ or viewers’ behalf.
To reference a “curse of the Clintons” without explaining what you mean is not only confusing but irresponsible. To say that Clinton felt entitled to win because she was a woman is not only insulting to all the non-women voters who banked on her, but ignores the fact that even before she announced her candidacy, Clinton always said securing the nomination was going to be more difficult than securing the presidency.
Furthermore, how the hell do you or any other journalist know how Clinton “feels” about that or anything else - what are you, the thought police? For crying out loud. So where this fiction about a sense of entitlement comes from except from, I don’t know.
Yes, I’ll admit it, my bias is towards Clinton. I didn’t particularly like her at the start of the campaign, but she impressed me more and more as she battled on to within a whisper of victory, despite this vicious onslaught from the media. And to me, Obama is nothing more than a pretty face, a pretty resume, a bunch of pretty words - absolutely not what the US and the world needs at this critical juncture.
So maybe I’m wrong, but if so, please explain to me why. As a journalist now working on other things, who now depends on reporters and columnists and expensive subscriptions to give me the information I need to formulate intelligent views on the world, I’d really appreciate if everyone would just get down off their high horse and start doing their jobs properly. Trust me, your readers would be very grateful….
Posted by: S. | June 9th, 2008 at 6:10 pm | Report this commentMost probably it is time for OBAMA to be MORE ORDINARY, but also one should must admit that OBAMA IS “NOW ALONE”, an African American alone, in front of most “Racial Attitudes which poses a Challenge to Obama”. Let us be REALISTIC and not dream or believe in nice speeches, that the Democrats might think it will convince the American citizens.
Alone OBAMA is half the way capable to win this battle against McCain, he might have good intentions, good speeches, good replies, but the American people have THEIR OWN QUESTIONS and doubts first on his origin, his middle name Hussein, where does he come from a Kenya family on his father side, about his family’s background NOT ONLY IN THE UNITED STATES on his mother’s side, BUT IN KENYA, how long did he actually lived in the United States.
I know that all this sounds unfair to him, but that is REALITY, that is how PEOPLE THINK at the time of voting, States like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Florida, some might think he is little too slick and smooth, too young, not much experienced, whether he was born Muslim and raised Muslim, some may be troubled by his ties, now broken, to a former pastor who cursed the United States and accused the government of possible conspiracies against blacks.
ALL THESE QUESTIONS THOUGH UNFAIR TO SOME OF US, are a real way of thinking of American people, they have their values and respects over wearing “wear a flag pin”, otherwise they feel and say “Obama’s not one of us”. In politics you cannot deny what is a reality in the AMERICAN SOCIETY, what is present in the minds of most citizens.
I think IT IS A PRECIOUS TIME, WHICH is already passing and who knows time that will be lost by OBAMA, if he does not react soon and decides to announce and NOMINATE HILLARY CLINTON as the VICEPRESIDENT. Perhaps out of convenience to his present situation, where as an African American, he is NOW ALONE, to face all these problems, all these feelings, all these questions unresolved or with no transparent solution. People might listen to his speeches, but THEY DO NOT SEE AN ORDINARY AMERICAN CITIZEN.
Not to have next to him Hillary Clinton, to back him up and continue to obtain the support of MANY AMERICANS VOTERS for the coming elections. I KNOW LIFE IS UNFAIR SOMETIMES, BUT OBAMA NOW HAS ON HIS SIDE TO ALSO ACCEPT, THAT THERE IS A NEED THAT HE HAS TO FACE, he needs a strong VP like Clinton, IF HE WANTS TO COME STRONG FOR THE ELECTIONS IN NOVEMBER. Recognition of it will make him stronger in the front of American voters, believe me.
Posted by: gaby43 | June 9th, 2008 at 6:28 pm | Report this comment“It is all down to fad and fashion.” RCS, thank you for this short but peircing line.
It seems to me that there was every effort in the primaries from both sides of the Obama and Clinton camp to rationalize, even with precise logical arguements, and necessarily mathematical calculations of pledged delegates, etc., why one is for obama or otherwise without really examining their biases. Having read majority of the possible arguments from both sides, it seems that all information in the history of the Democratic primaries can be counterfactual.
This post for instance tells us that the reason why Clinton failed is because she ran with the gender card. While a recent commentary by Marie Wilson at CNN indicates that her loss was partly due to the fact that she did not play the gender card as much as she played her “white house experience” cards. Or, this post for instance argues that Obama never played the race card and that he made the humble gesture to not mention it in his nomination speech, but from the outset, one will have to wonder whether those coming of age book and memoirs he wrote was not a subtle attempt to frame it based on race, the american dream etc. and create a commotion. After all why would a Junior senator all of a sudden have two books published(and one re-published) had it not been for the intent to frame his campaign in this manner. Another, many would seem to argue that Clinton played politics and a selfish campaign stretching her concession too long that it divided the party. Since when did politics stopped being an egoistic enterprise? I donot see how Obama’s campaign which is plagued with a mantra of hope and change, run by an ad man, and plastering his coming-of-age story almost in every major magazine as the ultimate story of all; any less egoistic. These are just one among many counterfactual things during the primaries, having the mainstream opinion dominate the division.
Much has been said about the need to vote smart, the pressure to think logically about a particular candidate, but there are surely biases that first occur before rationalization. The bottom line is that: bias as this position may be, they are nevertheless real. The ordinary people’s vote will consist of these subjectivities and nothing else can be expected. Its neither bad news or good news. They are like happy confusion unaware of its internal contradicition. Truly it all boils down to numbers not ad hominem charged againt Clinton or Obama or the validity of an ordinary man’s justification.
“Hope and Change” was surely the zeitgeist. Obama was too golden and extraordinary that he needed to be ordinary to win the race. And if there is anything that can be learned from this campaign, it is that: its all about the zeitgeist. One just has to come out and say it rather than make fanciful arguments and slipping biases here and there to prove one’s point.
Posted by: Fizzkoeren | June 9th, 2008 at 6:41 pm | Report this commentjust playing devil’s advocate.
Posted by: Fizzkoeren | June 9th, 2008 at 6:44 pm | Report this commentI think that all of us are speaking for ourselves, John Chuckman, including Clive Crook. However, I am glad to see that you and I seem to be on the same side, at least when it comes to supporting BHO.
Do I detect a slight sore loser syndrome on the part of some of the Hillary suporters? I can understand that, from their standpoint, it must seem as if nothing could be worse than losing the nomination to a relative newcomer like Barack Obama, who, like every other politician since the beginning of time, is not perfect, and who, also like all the others including Hillary herself, has had associations at one time or another who are even less perfect.
But there should be something even worse for Hillary supporters than losing to Obama. It is having McCain as president. The question is whether they will act on this certainty before it is too late, or whether they will allow McCain to become president and then have the truth rammed home by four or eight more years in the quagmire of Iraq, more wars, a possible draft, more recession, greater economic inequality, subsidies and tax breaks for the richest Americans, and more lost freedoms.
Hillary supporters, it is your call. You are the ones who will decide the election. If Hillary is as wonderful as you think, you should at least respect her decision to support Obama. Otherwise, can you really call yourselves her supporters at all, if you are unwilling to follow her in the most difficult and heartwrenching decision that she has, arguably, made in her entire life?
Posted by: algasema | June 9th, 2008 at 7:19 pm | Report this commentOdd how 7 years of uninterrupted economic growth can be interpreted as “more recession”, or tax breaks equalized across the board are only for “the richest Americans”. Axelrodian Newspeak has been everywhere in this campaign.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | June 9th, 2008 at 7:38 pm | Report this commentJBP, you and Marie-Antoinette both seem to have been blessed with the unique ability to detect improvements in the standard of living for ordinary citizens when no one else can. But most Americans who do not belong to the super-rich elite, even who plan to vote the straight Republican line of guns, God, gays and “go home, Jose”, would still tell you, bitterly or otherwise, that their standard of living has gone down considerably under Bush/Cheney.
This is why, unlike the former Queen of France, McCain should not expect a cakewalk.
Posted by: algasema | June 9th, 2008 at 8:24 pm | Report this commentSorry: “even those who plan”.
Posted by: algasema | June 9th, 2008 at 8:27 pm | Report this commentJohn Powers, criticizing anyone in American politics for how much they spent on a campaign is a great deal like criticizing MacDonalds for how many hamburgers they served.
American national politics are about money.
Still, within the limits all must operate within that corrupt institution, Obama’s performance is remarkable. The odds against him at the start were overwhelming.
There was a much better-known, then well-financed candidate ahead of him. He was black. He has an Arabic-sounding name. He is an intellectual. He is young.
I do not see how anyone who does not have some kind of grudge against him can say otherwise.
And “S,” your words “everyone would just get down off their high horse and start doing their jobs properly” make you sound childish.
You remind me of undergraduates I’ve taught who expect the instructor to reduce the material to something they can swallow in one mouthful and understand. Babyish.
If you are genuinely interested in being informed, then it’s your job to plow through all the stuff. That’s the way it has always been, just look back at the writing of someone like I.F. Stone, a distinguished journalist who understood how it works.
If you don’t understand, why are you commenting?
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | June 9th, 2008 at 8:47 pm | Report this commentJohn, you’re right - I sounded very snotty.
I’m actually stunned that anyone at all bothers to read this stuff, let alone comment on it.
Must get back to work…
Posted by: S. | June 9th, 2008 at 10:07 pm | Report this commentHow is Obama exactly an intellectual?
Posted by: Sun | June 10th, 2008 at 12:29 am | Report this commentThis statement baffles me. You throw words like “simply graceful” “brilliant mind” saying it with so much admiration but does not know what this means, except that it makes one feel good saying it.
John Chuckman, thank you for your compliment to I.F. Stone, who happened to be a close friend of my parents. They were all in the same generation, born shortly after the turn of the last century.
I had the privilege of meeting him a number of times when I was growing up, and even of inviting him once to speak at Harvard before a few of my fellow undergraduate students (far too few).
Now he is revered almost as if he had been a mainstream journalist, but in his lifetime he was very far from that. He was, to my memory, completely ostracised by the mainstream press, but that never stopped him from publishing his own newsletter, in which he always told the truth fearlessly as he saw it.
If he were alive today and following the election campaign, I imagine that he would have quite a few scathing things to say about all of the major candidates, and it would not be surprising, in my view, if he supported Ralph Nader.
The closest comparison I can think of to I.F. Stone today would probably be Noam Chomsky, who is also barred from America’s mainstream media, even though everyone recognizes that he is one of the foremost and most courageous American thinkers of our time, whether they agree with him or not.
Posted by: algasema | June 10th, 2008 at 3:13 am | Report this commentIf I can be forgiven for mentioning one personal memory of I. F. Stone’s outspoken views, I remember asking him once what he thought of then US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. His answer was that Dulles was a “bleeding, potruding horse’s ass”. Those were his exact words.
I wonder whether, if I. F. Stone were still around today, he would have been any kinder in his comments about Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice. I have a sneaking suspicion that, if he had encountered the latter two especially, his comments would have made it seem as if Dulles got off easy by comparison.
Posted by: algasema | June 10th, 2008 at 3:40 am | Report this commentObama is the marxist stooge of George Soros and his MoveOn/Al Qaeda-in-America goon squads of politically immature, emotionally disturbed and intellectually stunted pop fanatics.
Posted by: John Ireland | June 10th, 2008 at 6:24 am | Report this commentChuckman,
You tell us “American national politics are about money” but Clive tells us “If ever there were a new kind of politics, this is it”. So which is it? Is spending $300 Million a new kind of politics or business as usual?
Roger,
Regardless of your imagined political narrative, the USA is in its 7th consecutive year of quarterly economic growth. A reasonable political leader should be managing for economic growth with low inflation, which is exactly the situation we have been in for the last 7 years under President Bush.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | June 10th, 2008 at 1:40 pm | Report this commentJohn Powers,
Have you never heard of something being new within limits? It does seem an obvious concept to me.
Indeed, most of what we know as new, in politics or science or anything, is new within limits. We speak of a new planet around a distant star when in fact there must be billions of them our technology still does not permit us to perceive or measure.
If you don’t understand that American politics is about money, you must be extremely naive. Even John McCain had some insight into that when tried for years to get some meaningful reform (and essentially failed).
A U.S. Senator quite literally spends two-thirds of his or her time on the job soliciting campaign contributions.
A full-blown presidential campaign with all the primaries and festive trimmings can go through a billion dollars.
American politics are about money because that is what America is about.
Nevertheless, within the squalid limits of soliciting money and paying obeisance to major lobbies, sometimes something new happens. Obama is just such a phenomenon.
He won’t be able to turn around the United States from its barnacle-encrusted ways, only a very naive person can believe that.
Indeed, George Bush’s legacy is that he has in many ways tied the hands of future reformers.
Just one small example: Bush stupidly abolished the inheritance tax which did not affect small asset holders. Every economic historian knows that the passing on of great economic wealth is no force for good. Often the recipients are far less competent than a fortune’s founder, but even more importantly, it promotes overall the kind of rigid social structure of late 18th century France. Jefferson understood this. We do see America settling into a kind of de facto aristocracy today. Even political offices are now frequently handed down in families.
Trying to undo the harm of this is a very great feat. New taxes are unpopular even if they are good for society.
And then there’s Bush’s whole quasi-police state with the Bill of Rights practically suspended over superstitious nonsense and the bumbling FBI being empowered even to get lists of what you read at the public library.
Many vicious, freedom-hating (for aristocrats like Bush do hate true freedom) measures have been embedded in laws with names like The Patriot Act. Try undoing something with a name like that in country like America where the Congress spends more time historically on flag-burning amendments than on many sensible needs – eg., getting rid of the obsolete, anti-democratic Electoral College.
But here and there, he will offer small changes and new perspectives. And, all over the world, people will stop feeling like puking when voice of the President is broadcast, the case for the last eight years.
I do think hoping for much more than that is overreaching. The United States is a very conservative society with an outdated 18th century constitution that has many anti-democratic provisions and is close to impossible to change.
If he tried a great deal more, he would be knee-capped by the establishment, the Borgias of Washington. The office of the presidency is, by the way, in domestic affairs quite a weak one, far weaker than a British Prime Minister.
If he or anyone else persisted, well, there is the example of the Kennedy brothers, a reality recognized already by Hillary and others on television with sick jokes.
The Borgias on a global scale, that’s America.
Posted by: JOHN CHUCKMAN, TORONTO | June 10th, 2008 at 3:07 pm | Report this commentWhat wonderful news about our economy, JBP. I’m sure that your glowing report will be really helpful to the up to 2 million people who are at risk of losing their homes because of the predatory lending that the states tried to regulate before being blocked by Bush “federal pre-emption”, which has also gutted attempts to protect the environment.
It will no doubt come as even better news to the Katrina victims, to the 47 million people who cannot afford health insurance, to the people who have to work two, or three, full time jobs just to survive, and to everyone who has to fill up a gas tank or buy food. They, I am quite sure, are having a great time enjoying the “low inflation” you mention.
Frankly, John, I don’t think that many voters, even Republicans, are going to go for John McCain’s Hoover economics, for which you are such an enthusiastic apologist. If McCain wants to win the election, he had better crank up Jeremiah Wright once again - and do it fast. It’s all he’s got.
Posted by: algasema | June 10th, 2008 at 3:39 pm | Report this commentChuckman,
If $300 Million is “within limits” of “a new kind of politics” then we are well on our way to an Orwellian dystopia.
Buying elections becomes “A Grassroots Campaign”, Regressive politics from 1970 becomes “Change we can believe in”, hateful sermons become “Liberation Theology”, it is all coming together.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | June 10th, 2008 at 3:42 pm | Report this commentAfter eight years of Bush and a compliant Republican Congress, this is the year of the Democrats. Had Obama not run for President, almost surely Hillary Clinton would have been the next President with a large Democratic majority in Congress. Obama ran a very clever campaign to win the nomination.
He has used the race issue very adroitly. The Republicans are likely to exploit this issue to attack him. No matter who wins, the black-white divide that he opened up will become a chasm by November. Both the Democratic party and the nation will face a challenge to bridge that gap.
Posted by: Arun Guha | June 10th, 2008 at 5:11 pm | Report this comment