Obamarama08 - Updated Repost

Note: I originally posted this when Obama for President started heating up in October. Now that he's declared, enjoy it in slightly updated fashion. --IVFK

Blacks in Chicago average about half the income of local whites. Barack Obama himself is probably doing his part to bring the average up, and good for him - he's a sharp guy who took advantage of his opportunities. But every politician has a pretty good living wage. What's sticks out about Obama? Why is he different from other politicians? Why do people love him so?

I think it's his silver tongue. Obama can give a damn good speech when he wants to, and frankly that's something recent Democratic Presidential nominees Kerry and Gore were unable to do. He's a charismatic guy, and he gives off the air of someone who is thoughtful, principled, and really smart. And what's more, he looks less stupid than most Democrats when he talks about religion. This is both good for Democrats and good for religion. The rampaging maniacs who currently control religion-in-politics are ruining us politically and ruining the reputation of religion. So on these two fronts, I think Obama is a great candidate.

Unfortunately, Obama doesn't meet the leadership standards I would really like to see, at least not at this point. My leadership standards are essentially the same ones that are being pushed across the internet by concerned rank and file Democrats. They include pulling the debate to the left instead of caving to the center and unplugging the influence machine in DC that puts its own above the country. But Obama came of political age at the tail end of the Clinton triangulation era, before these values rose to prominence.

In 2000, Obama was dealt an embarrassing defeat right here in Hyde Park. In the Democratic Congressional primary, entrenched incumbent Bobby Rush mopped the floor with him. His stated reason for tilting at this particular windmill was an astute observation that Bobby Rush is not a particularly responsive legislator.

For example, Rush is beloved across the netroots for his sponsorship of the legislation to destroy net neutrality. One begins to suspect some undue influence may have swayed his opinion on the issue, though. Telecom interests gave Rush hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars. He also helped arrange a hefty donation by telecom interests to a technology center in Englewood. I would argue the long term interests of his constituents are better served by having a measure of freedom on the internet than by having a technology center. Internet freedom is what allows jerks like me to fight otherwise unaccountable insiders like him. But at least Rush doesn't see a contradiction between constituent service and corporate corruption.

At any rate, Obama took his purified optimist shtick out for a test drive and was soundly defeated. He challenged the corrupted insider interests, and they put him in his place. The lesson he appears to have learned is not that he should try harder. Rather it is that he should play the insider game, even if he sticks to his populist rhetoric. For example, he has had problems respecting the will of the party's voters in Connecticut, where his show of support for Ned Lamont was tepid at best. He apparently feels it's OK to praise George Bush.

Obama also has some phraseology in common with Joe Lieberman. Of particular note is the unspecified phrase "a different kind of politics" to denote some sort of transcendent bipartisanship. I don't think anyone is saying that rancor, partisan or otherwise, is a good thing, but it's not a nuanced or sophisticated phrase to say. It basically tells to me, as a member of the liberal base, that Obama is committed to centrism. Again, no one is saying people shouldn't agree on stuff, but when you go for centrism, you move the whole debate to the right.

David Callahan recently wrote a book called The Moral Center in which he makes the case for (a) more moral bottom lines in political rhetoric, (b) more centrist policy solutions, and (c) more unity thereof. However, as this reviewer points out, the reason moral bottom lines would resonate is that they would appeal to people's hunger for (allegedly) Kantian absolutes. Per her interpretation of Kant, there is always one right thing and everyone should always do it. But if we take that interpretation, then "moral center" is an oxymoron and trying to find one will do nothing to sate the hunger.

But the point of pulling the debate to the left is that you have to if you want things to end up in the center at the end. If you start off shooting for the center, you get negotiated down by the right and end up with something right of center. For example, say you want to decrease income disparity. You can start (as Democrats are doing) by tinkering around the edges of the issue by lowering student loan rates. Doing so is a great idea, but it is certainly going to be opposed by the powers that be on Wall Street (who also happen to run the Treasury Department right now). To get anywhere, negotiations will need to happen and anything that ends up succeeding will probably be watered down significantly. In the end, not much will change with this pretty centrist approach. Whereas to fix the issue of income disparities between blacks and whites in Chicago will require a significantly more visionary, boldly leftist set of policies.

Offering up some bipartisan praise or refusing to go against a powerful guy at your office (especially if he's president of the US) aren't capital sins in and of themselves. But putting things like this together with co-opting Lieberman rhetoric leaves me thinking that Obama isn't on board with the grassroots platform. Not to say he would be a bad president (and certainly better than anything Republicans will ever offer), and not to say he couldn't straighten himself out, but I'm just not sold on him yet.