Noah Millman, who cops to being a registered Republican (I mention it in case any of my readers can’t stand to read anything written by a Republican or a conservative, though, frankly, if that’s how you feel, I’d be surprised to find you among my readers), decided to try to write Obama’s acceptance speech.
I still, at this late date, have no idea why Obama is running. I mean, I know why: he wants to be President. He’s “got game” – you don’t need more reason. But Obama has done a rather astonishing thing: he’s built an entire movement – he’s built a fundraising and organizing machine comparable to a national political party, in fact – without really standing for anything in particular. He is not, as George McGovern was, running to take the Democratic Party decisively to the left, nor is he, as Ted Kennedy was, running to restore a certain kind of liberalism within the Democratic Party, nor is he, as Bill Clinton was, running to transform liberalism into some kind of new, Third Way synthesis. Apart from his position on Iraq, he in no way distinguished himself from his rivals as representing a particular faction or even a particular worldview within the Democratic Party or the tradition of American liberalism, and Iraq he has forcefully maintained was a matter of his personal good judgment rather than an indication that he thinks about foreign policy profoundly differently from the Washington consensus. Obama has been attacked from various quarters for running a personality-based campaign, all about his own innate wonderfulness and ability to magically bind up all our political wounds and so forth. And while it’s certainly true that Obama has his lunatic supporters who think he’s the messiah, I think the real reason he’s perceived this way is that, lacking an animating cause, the candidate himself perforce became the cause. And that’s a huge problem because, in the end, a majority of voters is simply not going to vote for Obama on the basis of his innate wonderfulness.
To me, that’s about as clear an expanation—for those who really need one—of McCain’s attacks on Obama’s celebrity status—a status Obama sought in order to deflect attention from his obvious lack of stature as a credible political leader with a track record.
It certainly is nice to see and hear Stevie Wonder on the stage there at Invesco Field. And I know this is happening 90 minutes or more before Obama takes to all the networks with his acceptance speech. But this ellision of a pop stadium concert with a political convention does really make explicit the very problem that began Obama’s descent earlier this summer — the idea being that he is a showbiz idea of a leader rather than being a real leader.
Bingo! And McCain has exploited that weakness—the absence of steak and its replacement with the sizzle of rock star charisma and jelly-kneed fans—very effectively. Now, every time the Obama campaign plans a heavily stage-managed pseudo-event or spectacle, a lot of bloodhounds are on the case.
Democrats have begun internalizing the criticisms of Hillary and John McCain about Obama’s rock-star prowess, worrying that the Invesco Field extravaganza Thursday, with Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, will just add to the celebrity cachet that Democrats have somehow been shamed into seeing as a negative.
But elsewhere in the New York Times! we hear that Team Obama is ignoring the possible pitfalls [e.a.]:
Some aides worried about the setting overwhelming the message. But those closest to the planning said they had no regrets and were sticking to the sort of big-event politics that no other candidate has been able to match this year.
“We are leaning into this, how can you not?” said Jenny Backus, a campaign strategist working on the convention plan. “This is the enthusiasm gap,” referring to what polls show as excitement for Mr. Obama that Senator John McCain’s campaign has not matched.
Well, sure, there’s plenty of excitement for Mr. Obama among his fans. But it’s more than a little weird to watch the spotlights sweeping over Invesco Stadium, to hear the rock music, and to think that this is the Democratic convention rather than American Idol.
Making your speech in front of 75,000 people at Invesco Field could add to the view that this man is a celebrity, a rock star, somebody who’s fresh in the political scene, been taken by the press clubs. And that’s been a problem for Sen. Obama. Ever since he went to Europe and made the speech that he was running for president of the United States in Europe, in Berlin, he’s been in a slide. And question is whether he will stop that tomorrow night or accelerate it. And it’s a high stakes venue, no if’s, and’s or but’s about it. …
[T]hey had the biggest rally in the history of Pennsylvania just before the Pennsylvania Democratic primary — 35,000 people were in a rally for Sen. Obama in Philadelphia, and he lost the primary in Pennsylvania by almost two to one. So I wouldn’t take his ability to generate crowds. In fact, historically, if you look at this, some of the largest crowds in presidential campaign history were those entertained by George McGovern in the final moments of his horrendous defeat in 1972.
But the show is about to start, so I’m going to kick back and enjoy it!
This time it’s courtesy of a totally tone-deaf Michelle Obama, who suggests that Barack is an accessory:
“Barack and I — as partners, as friends and as lovers — we accessorize each other in many ways,” said Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. “The best thing I love having on me is Barack on my arm and vice versa, whether it’s having him standing there smiling at me, or watching him mesmerize a crowd or talk to some seniors in a senior center.”
That is sure to improve Obama’s image as a potential commander in chief, dontcha think? There will be more in this vein, too. HuffPo reports:
Among the highlights in the Essence story, Ifill reports from the campaign bus as the family travels to Montana, and how they interact with supporters and with each other. “The Obamas pride themselves on creating a family picture that is authentically black with shades of Norman Rockwell,” she summarizes.
Listen up: I totally understand the cultural fascination with the Obama family. Even I am fascinated by the Obama family. But selling the family—printing the legend, as it were—only gets you fans. It is no guarantee of votes.
In this paper, we use geographic differences in subscriptions to O! – The Oprah Magazine and the sale of books Winfrey recommended as part of Oprah’s Book Club to assess whether her endorsement affected the Primary outcomes. We find her endorsement had a positive effect on the votes Obama received, increased the overall voter participation rate, and increased the number of contributions received by Obama. No connection is found between the measures of Oprah’s influence and Obama’s success in previous elections, nor with underlying local political preferences. Our results suggest that Winfrey’s endorsement was responsible for approximately additional 1,000,000 votes for Obama.
I wrote about the Oprah-Obama nexus here, where I also discussed Matthew Baum’s research about the impact of “soft news” on “low information voters.” Maybe all that overexposure did have an effect for Obama in the primaries. But even if it did, Oprah’s endorsement is not helping him today, in the general, where some pollling tells rather a different story.
Barack Obama has lost ground among some of his strongest bases of support, including young people, women, Democrats and independents, according to a new ATV/Zogby poll. …
Zogby called the results a “notable turnaround” from a July survey he did that showed Obama leading by 46-36.
“McCain made signifciant gains at Obama’s expense among some of what had been Obama’s strongest demographic groups,” Zogby said.
His findings:
-Among voters aged 18-29, Obama lost 16 percent and McCain gained 20. Obama still leads, 49-38;
-Among independents, Obama lost an 11 point lead. They’re now tied;
-Among Democrats, Obama’s support dropped from 83 percent to 74 percent;
-Among Catholics, Obama lost the 11 point lead he had in July and now trails McCain by 15.
Zogby said Obama also lost ground among minorities.
He attributed Obama’s erosion of support to McCain’s criticisms of Obama as inexperienced in the wake of Obama’s trip to Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq and to Obama’s flips on some issues.
Does anyone doubt that Jacksonianism (which I discussed hereearlier today) has become the subtext of McCain’s campaign, that he’s trying to unearth his all-American war-hero “country first” image from under the avalanche of celebrity love that his opponent has received?
STURGIS, South Dakota (CNN) – Standing on the main stage at a world famous motorcycle rally in rural South Dakota on Monday, John McCain looked out on a sea of denim-wearing bikers and told them he enjoyed their company much more than that of the 200,000 Germans who turned out to see Barack Obama last month.
“As you may know,” he told the tens of thousands gathered at the 68th annual Sturgis Rally at Buffalo Chip campground, “not long ago, a couple of hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of fifty thousand Harleys any day.”
Bikers in the crowd, who had arrived from around the country to partake in the massive outdoor party, revved their engines numerous times in support of the presumptive GOP nominee. McCain said it was music to his ears.
“This is my first time here,” he said, “but I recognize that sound. It’s the sound of freedom.”
If McCain seemed more energized than usual, it might have been because the rally was one the campaign’s most colorful (and noisy) events in recent months. He even purchased four commemorative t-shirts.
I think it’s probably pretty safe to say that the Obama Messiah seems to be falling short. Various people pile on here, here, here, here, and (very shrilly) here.
Most amusingly, this turn of fortunes for his favorite candidate has caused Keith Olbermann to excommunicate his longtime pal and interviewee Dana Milbank—on whom he blames this mess—from Countdown:
For nearly a week we’d been waiting for him to offer a correction or an explanation for his column from last week in which he apparently reported an Obama quote without a full context turned the meaning of the quote inside-out. …
We had decided not to have Dana on this news-hour again until this was cleared up, and, sadly after some very happy years, he’s apparently chosen to make that cloud permanent.
[[You'll have to bear with me, though, if you want to get my argument. I'm not in Sound Bite Territory here. This blog is my playground for the ideas I've been thinking about for more than a decade. So if you're with me, read on. If not, skip to the next post.]]
Let’s back up a minute and think about culture and how it influences many domains in our lives and in our society. Here’s Peter Wood, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, about “How Culture Keeps Students out of Science”:
The precipitous drop in American science students has been visible for years. In 1998 the House released a national science-policy report, “Unlocking Our Future,” that fussily described “a serious incongruity between the perceived utility of a degree in science and engineering by potential students and the present and future need for those with training.”
Let me offer a different explanation. Students respond more profoundly to cultural imperatives than to market forces. In the United States, students are insulated from the commercial market’s demand for their knowledge and skills. That market lies a long way off — often too far to see. But they are not insulated one bit from the worldview promoted by their teachers, textbooks, and entertainment. From those sources, students pick up attitudes, motivations, and a lively sense of what life is about. School has always been as much about learning the ropes as it is about learning the rotes. We do, however, have some new ropes, and they aren’t very science-friendly. Rather, they lead students who look upon the difficulties of pursuing science to ask, “Why bother?”
Success in the sciences unquestionably takes a lot of hard work, sustained over many years. Students usually have to catch the science bug in grade school and stick with it to develop the competencies in math and the mastery of complex theories they need to progress up the ladder. Those who succeed at the level where they can eventually pursue graduate degrees must have not only abundant intellectual talent but also a powerful interest in sticking to a long course of cumulative study. A century ago, Max Weber wrote of “Science as a Vocation,” and, indeed, students need to feel something like a calling for science to surmount the numerous obstacles on the way to an advanced degree.
At least on the emotional level, contemporary American education sides with the obstacles. It begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn — and worse, fail to develop as “whole persons” — if not constantly praised. The self-esteem movement may have its merits, but preparing students for arduous intellectual ascents aren’t among them. What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who “feel good” about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments.
ABC News’ Sunlen Miller Reports: Barack Obama took a “tough love” message to African American youth, telling that finishing high school is a better route to success in life than an unlikely trip to the NBA or the top of the rap industry.
“You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Lil’ Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school,” Obama, D-Ill., told a cheering crowd, brought to a standing ovation at a town hall meeting in Powder Springs, Georgia.
The presumptive Democratic nominee was speaking about high school drop out rates and the need for people to be committed to working hard in school so they can get a job after school.
Obama said he knows some young men think they can’t find a job unless they are a really good basketball player.
“Which most of you brothas are not,” Obama, who played basketball in high school, a sport he continues to play to this day, said jokingly. “I know you think you are, but you’re not. You are over-rated in your own mind. You will not play in the NBA.”
In case you haven’t noticed, this election is about the quintessential “Jacksonian”*** versus the quintessential post-Jacksonian (excuse me: I mean post-partisan) American.
[N]o matter what happens to those [failing conservative] imprints, conservative publishing will certainly survive—and thrive. If liberals continue to ignore the power of conservative books, moreover, the losers will not be conservatives—who cannot help but be endlessly exposed to left-wing views through the networks and leading newspapers—but liberals themselves, complacent in their ignorance of the other side. “There’s always another side, that’s a classically liberal argument,” observes Bellow with a laugh. “The problem for contemporary liberals is that they really don’t understand it applies to them.”
Approached at a park in Moscow, Taisiya Gunicheva, 17, a college student, said she had heard of Mr. Solzhenitsyn, but could not name any of his books.
She said his work was largely absent from her school curriculum. “Can you imagine, there is nothing about it at all,” she said. “It is sad, but unfortunately, it’s true.”
Nearby was Anton Zimin, 26, an advertising copywriter, who said he was quite familiar with Mr. Solzhenitsyn but doubted that others in his generation were. He said people his age had lost touch with the struggles of their parents and grandparents.
“The problem is that now, it’s all about consumption — this spirit that has engulfed everybody,” Mr. Zimin said. “People prefer to consume everything, the simplest things, and the faster, the better. Books are something that force you to think, reading books requires some effort. But they prefer entertainment.”
Andrei V. Vasilevsky is accustomed to such sentiments. Mr. Vasilevsky, 52, is editor in chief of Novy Mir, the magazine that published Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s first major work, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” in 1962.
Mr. Vasilevsky said on Monday that young people considered figures like Mr. Solzhenitsyn to be artifacts, and that Russian society in general was no longer interested in towering cultural or social figures.
“There is no demand for great people,” he said. “I can’t say why, but this fact is simply obvious to me. Famous, notable, popular — yes. But not great, in the fullest sense of the word.”
If you’re one of those people who are deeply disappointed in John McCain “going negative,” Steve Kornacki understands your pain, but he also wants you to know that (unsurprisingly) going negative on your opponent works!
What can win him the election, as sad as it is to say, is the kind of campaign he is now resorting to. McCain’s aides have privately told the press that they see the fall race as a referendum on Obama. They are right. This campaign is not about hordes of undecided voters weighing the pros and cons of McCain and Obama; it is about hordes of undecided voters who are inclined — both because of his party label and his personality — to vote for Obama, but who still have trouble imagining him as America’s commander in chief. If Obama can remove their doubts, he will win going away — just as Ronald Reagan did in 1980, when he won the masses over in a debate a week before Election Day. If he can’t, then those voters will default to McCain, the “safe” old warrior. And it will have little to do with whether they approved of the tone of his advertising.
And one of the commenters at the NY Observer explains exactly how the McCainiacs hope to turn Obama’s superstardom against him [e.a.]:
But the newest ad, which uses Mr. Obama’s enormous celebrity status against him, appears to be a major achilles heel for Obama and is, therefore, terrifying both the Obama campaign and its media fans (which is to say most of the media).
The idea is simple and effective. Take those huge cheering throngs for Obama and get voters to see them in a negative rather than a positive light.
The story line is that Mr. Obama may be an international superstar of the first magnitude, but that doesn’t mean he has any substance (this is where the Paris Hilton/Britney Spears reference kicks in). It asks “can he lead?” and then suggests that Mr. Obama’s gas and tax policy are wrong for the country.
The structure of the ad is brilliant. Why? Because what is seeks to accomplish (and, in my opinion, does very effectively) is turn what should be a positive for Mr. Obama into a negative. It creates a situation in which every time footage is aired of Obama exciting large crowds and blathering out slogans about “change” (whatever that means), millions of voters will look at it less as inspirational and more as meaningless and ridiculous.
Fun stuff! Too bad Obama’s Narrator didn’t think of this chink in the Obama Messiah’s armor—that a political campaign isn’t about posing as president.
That’s what all the late-night comedy writers told Bill Carter, and that’s what he wrote on the front page of the New York Times, and so of course I thought it was true.
Openly mocking Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as having a Messiah complex, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) launched a new attack ad today making fun of his opponent as “The One.”
The Web commercial, which compares Obama to both Jesus and Moses, opens with the narrator intoning in a prophetic voice, “It shall be known that in 2008 the world will be blessed. They will call him ‘The One.’” The parody features clips with Obama employing his loftiest rhetoric, including “A nation healed, a world repaired” in one speech and “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” in another.
“And he has anointed himself, ready to carry the burdens of the world,” the narrator continues, as the screen is bathed in gauzy light before it flashes on the screen Obama’s recent comment, “I have become a symbol of America returning to his best traditions.”
I see that theMcCain campaign finally caught up to my Obama criticism—that Obama is running a celebrity-marketing campaign rather than a political campaign—which I leveled starting back inJanuary and extendedinto February and extended much further into the year, till I got tired of repeating the same thing over and over again.
The way Barack Obama is being covered by the media and the blogosphere, he’s not a political candidate anymore—he’s a celebrity. He doesn’t have political followers—he’s got fans. He doesn’t have a political platform—he’s got a one-word slogan—”change” [which works, 'cause "change is good," just like Nissan says, right?]. He makes narcissists feel so good about themselves.
Jeff Jarvis quoted me here. He went on to make a salient point [e.a.]:
I am reminded unfortunately of the scene from The Candidate in which Robert Redford sits in back of his car mouthing the words he’s been delivering in random order. …
I am also reminded of the final scene, in which the victorious Redford asks, “What do we do now?”
I have no doubt that Barack Obama is a decent, smart, and well-meaning politician. But don’t forget that he is a politician. And I fear that turning yourself into a slogan is an essentially cynical political act. Since the start of his campaign, except for a brief period in the middle, he has lacked the courage to be specific in his oratory.
Rich Lowry quotesthe shrewdest take that I’ve seen so far on McCain’s new line of attack—and it indicates that the McCainiacs have had their puffed-up target it their sights for a long time; they were simply waiting for the right moment to strike [e.a.]:
Musings from a shrewd friend on the latest turn in the race (quoting roughly): “The Berlin speech was overreach. This is the moment we were waiting for Obama—to over-step. No candidate has ever acted in this fashion. No one has ever campaigned in front of foreigners. He’s showing hubris and contempt for the rest of us in how he considers America fundamentally broken and he’s the solution. Messianism is usually a quality you don’t want in a president. This was always the soft underbelly of his candidacy. They’ve gotten too caught up in their own story. What always does in a celebrity? Overexposure.
The thing that undergirds the notion of Obama-as-Celebrity rather than Obama-as-President is his campaign’s track record of promiscuously selling the candidate (consciously and subliminally) to every possible marketing and demographic niche and via every marketing and publicity channel.
The selling of Barack Obama started with Oprah, when Obama told the Talk Show Goddess: “Oprah, you’re my girl, suggesting that if indeed he decided to run for president, he would announce it on her show [rather than on, say, Meet the Press? How come? ---ed.].
During Obama’s primary fight with Hillary Clinton, the campaign to let Americans get to know Obama continued with him being anointed by the Kennedy clan,and went on to feature appearances with him dancing with Ellen
It’s official. The Obamas are just like us. With their latest PR move — being photographed as a family for this week’s People magazine cover story titled “The Obamas At Home” — it’s apparent that Team Obama has a clear and clever presidential marketing strategy: present Michelle and Barack as the beloved Brangelina of the political world.
Like every in-demand A-list couple who concedes to allowing a peek behind the curtain, the Obamas insist this will be the “first and last” up-close and personal look at them as a family. What they don’t admit to is that this was a carefully orchestrated, well-thought-out brand presentation. And it isn’t actually the first highly personal look at the photogenic family. No, it’s the culmination of a publicity campaign designed to take advantage of the couple’s charisma and Hollywood-worthy good looks. Team Obama is using popular mass-media vehicles such as People, Us Weekly, “The View,” “Access Hollywood” and “The Colbert Report” to familiarize the American public with the candidate and his wife, and to dispel myths about the couple, in a far more aggressive way than has ever been done before in a presidential election.
Of course in America we’ve been selling presidents as long as we’ve had presidents. Politicians have always had to sell themselves, and in many eras they’ve had a boisterous, rude press and public to contend with.
It just hasn’t happened in recent memory, so it seems new (and newly nasty) to us. That, or we’re not paying attention. Or we really areAmusing Ourselves to Death(though I prefer to think that we’re Simply Amusing Ourselves for Distraction, which is why, um, infotainment rules).
And, by the way, I think the McCain attacks will work to sow doubt about Obama. The attacks will get some people to question their love affair with Barack and perhaps to look a little deeper into what Obama says under witheringquestioningby the MSM.
It may lead people to places they don’t necessarily want to go, noting, as John Dickerson did, that Obama is very slippery on the issues [e.a.].
Obama’s take on the surge also tells us how he processes information about Iraq. This has direct bearing on how he shapes his policy for the country today. The same choices are in play—will military tactics or withdrawal get the Iraqis to make political progress? If Obama was wrong about the tactical gains that would be made by the new strategy and wrong about how the Iraqi political leaders would react, can his larger theory about how Iraqis will respond to a troop pullout remain intact? Perhaps, but he has the burden of explanation. Does he elide contradictions, claim they’re irrelevant, and generally spin? In his interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, he suggested that he’d always said the surge would decrease violence in Iraq. That’s not just spin. It’s not true. At the time Bush announced the surge, Obama said: “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”
The surge that Obama opposed had two parts to it: an increase in troops and a bet on a new military strategy. Obama opposed the additional troops; he also opposed a host of other new tactics Gen. Petraeus tried, arguing they would not lead to political improvement. Even if you agree with the argument that the additional brigades didn’t change much in Iraq on their own, you still have to account for whether the overall Petraeus strategy shift worked to assist the positive developments among Sunnis and Sadr’s Shiite militia. Obama suggests the military had almost no role in the Anbar Awakening and the decision by Sadr’s militia to stand down—that the two sets of events merely happened “at the same time.” Military leaders think they had a role in bringing about these improvements. (This might be a bigger dis of the brass than his conflict with them over a timeline for withdrawal.) What did he learn on his trip that suggests he’s right and the generals are wrong? Did nothing on the trip shade his view?
In case you’ve forgotten—and I wouldn’t blame you if you have, because it seems like it was eons ago—that’s the climate in which Dana Milbank wrote his devastating takedown of Obamain the WaPo.
As he marches toward Inauguration Day (Election Day is but a milestone on that path), Obama’s biggest challenger may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris.
The question now is whether Dana Milbank is the bird leaving the wire and every other bird in the press follows him or not. If this narrative sets in, Obama might have to move up his VP announcement to change the story.”
Today, according to the WaPo’s Dana Milbank, Barack Obama says, without any apparent irony, that he’s the embodiment of America’s hopes and dreams [e.a.]:
Inside, according to a witness, [Obama] told the House members, “This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for,” adding: “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”
He couldn’t have said it better if the words were written by Andrew Sullivan.
And the news editors of theWaPo help him do it [e.a.] (whereas the editorial writers are “not impressed“); interesting development inside the Beltway!):
Sen. Barack Obama, on his first and likely only overseas trip as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has remade the campaign’s foreign policy playing field, neatly sidestepping Republican charges that he has been naive and wrong on Iraq and moving to a broader, post-Iraq focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In essence, Obama has declared the war in Iraq all but over. “There is security progress,” he said during yesterday’s news conference in Amman, Jordan. “Now we need a political solution.” While a diminished U.S. force under his presidency would continue to protect U.S. personnel, target terrorists and provide training, he said, it would be up to Baghdad to consolidate the victory by “setting up a government that is working for the people.”
Two days spent in Afghanistan and two days in Iraq, Obama said, reinforced his belief that it is time for the United States to move on. Calling the situation in Afghanistan “perilous and urgent,” he said both U.S. military and Afghan government officials agree that “we must act now to reverse a deteriorating situation.”
Obama’s analysis has been buttressed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders who, to the dismay of the White House and Sen. John McCain, his Republican opponent, have publicly agreed with his call for completing a U.S. combat withdrawal from Iraq in 2010.
McCain argues that the United States is succeeding in Iraq — although the war is still not over — because of last year’s “surge” of U.S. troops, which Obama opposed. McCain’s aides and surrogates continued that theme yesterday, accusing Obama of what Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) called “a complete inability to acknowledge that the surge worked.”
Note how McCain is left to sputter: “But I was right and he was wrong!”
Meanwhile, I am left to note to Team McCain: You asked for it. You needled him into making his faux-presidential whirlwind tour of the globe. Now you’re reaping what you sowed.
"Even in the most civilized societies the demagogues are
always in wait, ready and testing. They are indefatigable and we will never entirely prevail over them. And that is OK.
But if we stop resisting them, they will prevail over us. And that is not OK."
