[NYTr] The US Election Campaign: Cynicism, Realism, Optimism

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Ed Pearl

[Here are different aspects of the current phenomenon.  I've inserted
my own brief note between them because it focuses on a critical,
missing dimension - in my opinion, perhaps the most important one.-Ed]

The New York Times -Jan 8, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08herbert.html

Striding Past the Cynics

By BOB HERBERT
Derry, N.H.

Some of the people who showed up early to stand in the long line
outside the field house of the Pinkerton Academy would end up waiting
more than three hours to see the candidate. Barack Obama was running
late, held back by huge and enthusiastic crowds at earlier events. Even
people who were not planning to vote for him wanted to see him.

When he finally arrived and took the stage, Mr. Obama told the
audience, to boisterous cheers: "There's something going on out there.
Something's stirring in the wind."

The past week has been a bad one for cynics. For all the criticism of
the presidential election process - that it lasts too long, that the
Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary have too much influence, that
the news media's coverage is too much about the horse race, and so on -
for all that, the early stages of this presidential race have been both
compelling and heartening.

Voters are excited about this election. They have trudged through snow
and frigid air in enormous numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire to see and
hear and question the candidates. And most of the candidates are
working incredibly hard, fighting their way through exhaustion to
attend the next rally or town hall meeting or community breakfast or
debate.

What is being fashioned in this process is nothing less than the face of
early 21st century America.

Debra Gable and Bill Laprade told me during a chat in a Dunkin' Donuts
here that they had driven from Barre Town in central Vermont to get a
closer look at Mr. Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton and maybe Senator
John McCain.

Mr. Laprade, who described himself as conservative, quietly expressed
his disenchantment with President Bush and said Mr. McCain "sounded
sincere and genuine."

Ms. Gable said she liked Senator McCain as well, but she was leaning
toward Senator Obama. "I dislike politics," she said, "because we focus
on our differences even though we have so many more commonalities.
That's what I think I'm hearing from Obama, so I want to see how he is
in person."

No one knows whether Senator Obama can sustain his remarkable quest, or
whether Senator Clinton can untangle the snags that have hobbled her
campaign, or whether Senator McCain can resurrect a candidacy that not
too long ago was pronounced dead.

But something new, not just in American politics but in the society as a
whole, is undoubtedly emerging. The change is already under way. It
would not have been possible to imagine even just a few years ago that
a black man could come out of Iowa (and maybe New Hampshire) leading
the charge toward the Democratic presidential nomination.

There are plenty of racists still lurking among us, and they'll no
doubt be agitated by the Obama phenomenon. But it would be hard for
anyone to make the case that the U.S. as whole has not become less
racially prejudiced over the past several years. Implicit in Mr.
Obama's message of healing and reconciliation is the promise of further
progress on this once intractable front.

Senator Clinton's candidacy is also historic - and emblematic of change.
Misogyny still permeates most aspects of society, but there aren't many
people willing to step up and make the case that a woman cannot lead the
nation.

If there is a theme running through the nominating process of both
parties, it's the idea that voters are fed up with the con, with the
phony, plastic, programmed politicians who are obsessed with power and
contemptuous of the real concerns of ordinary men and women.

I think it's interesting that the people crying out for a new kind of
politics are not the down-and-outers, but are educated, middle-class
Americans who in some sense understand that they've been sold a bill of
goods.

They see the value of their homes decreasing and their personal
indebtedness climbing to new heights. They know how much it costs to
send a son or daughter to college. They are tired of the war in Iraq
and concerned about America's standing in the world. And they are
worried that the American dream that has sustained so many generations
for so long won't be there for their children and grandchildren.

When Barack Obama asks how many people in his overflow audience are
still undecided and a third of the people raise their hands, it's a
sign that there is a hunger for new leadership but that it won't be
easily satisfied.

Something is stirring all right. Voters are paying attention. Young
people are coming into the process. The electorate is fed up and ready
to invoke the prerogatives of citizenship to hold the leadership to
higher standards.

The textbooks tell us that's exactly how it's supposed to work.

                                    ***

Comment from Ed Pearl:

[I'm a realist, deep down. I'm glad Kucinich exists and does what he
does, but he'll never go anywhere as a presidential candidate.  Obama is
incredibly inspiring to the entire nation's young people, as was Bobby
Kennedy, and his brother before him. Imperial intentions aside, JFK's
peace corps was the training ground for Mario Savio, et al who then
turned to civil rights activity and leadership, then empowerment (the
FSM,) then anti-war, and on. That's reality. Obama is also riding the
effects of Katrina and Jena and the many now-disgusted voters of
2006.  This could begin a tidal wave, whether or not he gains the
presidency. He'd be hard pressed trying to shut down that force,
especially black people.  If I were a Democrat I'd have voted Kucinich,
then Edwards, then, holding my nose and breath, Obama.

It's probably the best we're going to get out of all this, and it's a
lot better than now, isn't it. If Edwards becomes VP and holds firm on
his current anti-corporate politics, that would be a bonus.  And don't
be too hard on Dennis.  He probably has the same analysis I do. -Ed]

                                ***


The Hutchinson Political Report - Jan 7, 2008
(no URL provided but his blog is here:
http://earlofarihutchinson.blogspot.com/


What to (and not to) Expect from an Obama White House

by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A President Barack Obama will be the most scrutinized president since
Abraham Lincoln. Ironically, the reason for this has less to do with
race, though that will loom large in the lens of many, as it has to do
with him. He's lifted public passions and expectations to the clouds
with his soaring rhetoric about hope and change; the man who can repair
the shambles of Bush's domestic and foreign policies.

That's quite a cross for a Senator halfway through his first term, with
a wafer thin voting record, little experience with foreign policy
matters, and whose still fuzzy, or to put it more charitably, with a
still work-in-progress program on affordable health care, education,
criminal justice system reform, tax policy, and the housing crisis. A
man who needs to pound consistency into his pronouncements that at
times seem at odds with the other pronouncements he's made on winding
down the Iraq war and the terrorism fight.

The jury is still way out on just how many of those inflated
expectations that he can fulfill. But there are glaring clues as to how
much change he can or will even try to make. One is his record in the
Illinois state legislature. At first glance, his votes and views during
his days in the Illinois Senate on taxes, abortion, civil liberties,
civil rights, law enforcement and on capital punishment give much
comfort to those who crave for him to make the change he hints at. His
stance on tax hikes marked him with some business and taxpayer interest
groups as another tax and spend Democrat, and his views on social
issues, marked him as an unabashed liberal.

He's anything but that, and that's another clue as to what to expect
from an Obama White House. He's a centrist Democrat who is fast
replacing the Clintons with the Democratic Party's shot callers as the
consummate party inside, their new go-to guy. Corporate donors,
Hollywood moguls, and through the back door with him, fat cat lobbyists
with the quiet nod of Democratic Party insiders have dumped millions
into his campaign. They don't shower money, favors, and promotional
praise on a candidate unless they are comfortable that the candidate
will not stray to far off the beaten political path and abandon the
moderate, respectable approach to policy making.

In the White House, Obama will move cautiously and do everything he can
to ensure that the tag "liberal" won't be slapped on him. The majority
of Congressional Democrats and Republicans are centrist to conservative
to even ultra-conservative. They would instantly draw their line in the
sand against him if he makes a quick push for big tax hikes for
education and health care to a push for a quick withdrawal from Iraq
which Obama does not favor.

He will do everything he can to escape the fate that befell Bill
Clinton the instant he touched a toe in the White House. Republicans
waged a gutter wallowing personal and political stealth, and at times,
open war against him and his policies, and Clinton made no pretense of
being a liberal Democrat. Their attack arsenal included everything from
personal slander to stonewalling his judicial appointments and his stab
at health care reform. That forced Clinton to tip toe even further to
the right on the death penalty, beefing up police power, gay rights,
welfare reform, and reining in bloated military spending, while
assuring that the Democratic Party would not pander to minorities and
the poor.

Obama's pro-choice and abortion rights defense in the Illinois
legislature earned him a perfect rating from the Illinois Planned
Parenthood Council. And he was a major backer of legislation limiting
police interrogations and requiring police to keep racial stats on
unwarranted traffic stops, and he supported strict gun control. These
are three hyper sensitive issues for conservatives. If Obama puts White
House muscle into big reform fights on these issues, he will draw
instant fire from right to life groups nationally, police unions, and
the NRA.

It's not likely he'll risk that, it's not his style anyway. He got high
marks from Illinois Senate Republicans precisely for his willingness to
horse trade, deal make, and compromise on the touchiest of issues for
conservatives. They praised him as a flexible politician and consensus
builder who listened to the views of his Republican opponents.

American politics demands that, especially of moderate Democrats. With
Obama, corporations and lobbyists will be even more hawk like in
guarding the legislative door to protect their interests, conservatives
will tighter their perennial gate keeping against any effort to push
abortion rights, and the defense industry will be even more vigilant
against any effort at deep military slashes.

Any president that bucks these dominant special interests risks being
branded anti-police, anti-business, pro abortion, pro labor, pro-gun
control, and a dreaded tax and spend liberal Democrat. That fear more
often than not translates into even the best intentioned president
caving in when the battle is on for crucial political and social
reforms. That will include even one who has made hope and change his
ticket to the White House.


[Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His
forthcoming book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to
the White House (Middle Passage Press, February, 2007). ]