The Right Wing Gets Obama
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Hillary, RepublicansSimply put, Obama could start a movement. Hillary could not. Repubs get this. So why don’t Dems?
From the right comes Byron York:
Watching the crowd of more than 3,000 fill up the convention center, watching the people send up waves of energy to Obama, and watching him play off that energy in a speech that was one of the best political performances anyone has seen this year, my Republican friend said, simply, “Oh, s—t.†He recalled the scene from Jaws, in which the small seaside town’s sheriff realizes how big the shark he’s tracking truly is, and says, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.†What my friend didn’t have to say was that he was deeply worried that Republicans just don’t have a bigger boat.
From the left comes Kevin Drum, who doesn’t seem to get it…
So: overt appeals to the public to support a progressive agenda, or a stealth appeal to rebrand progressivism? Personal charm and empathy in small meetings, or a willingness to play old style politics? Which would be more effective?I’m not sure. I lean toward the Hillary approach because I think the Obama approach only works when there’s already a real groundswell of support for significant change (as in the 30s, 60s, and 80s, for example) — and as much as I hate to say it, I just don’t see that at the moment.
How can he not see that America is yearning for change after the past 8 years of nonsense? And Drum is a smart guy too, so either this is his liberal bloggerness blinding him against the possibility of a post-partisan presidency or he truly doesn’t understand that Obama has the potential to do for progressivism what Reagan did for conservatism.
End game: Obama has to come up with a more compelling reason why his candidacy is vital. And he has to show it, not just say it. I have no idea how he’ll do it, but in order to really shut down the Clinton machine once and for all, it needs to happen…and quickly. Super Tuesday looms and he could really be crippled by big wins from Clinton in those massive primary states.
Tick tock…
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January 22nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
It’s not that Dems don’t get it. Many do. It’s a generational issue. Baby boomers like Drum don’t see this as a time for change because they aren’t at that stage in their lives. For them, the time for optimism and hope was the 60s and 80s, when they were young and working to change the system. Now that they’ve been a part of the establishment for a while, they’re suddenly in favor of pragmatic, incremental change. They aren’t ready to sit on the sidelines and watch another generation’s movement.
Look at the exit polls from each state. He won the female vote in Iowa and preference by race has fluctuated in the polls. The only consistent trend is that Hillary wins older voters, Obama wins the young vote.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
How much of York’s Obamalust is just an expression of frustrated rightwing desire for a charismatic of their own?
There are other factors too, of course, though Obama’s evoking of Reagan MUST have set York’s little authoritarian heart racing with both nostalgia and longing.
January 22nd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I think that article shows pretty clearly that York doesn’t have Obamalust, he has Obamafear. The right wing knows a movement when they see it because they’ve built their machine over the past 30 years on the back of Ronald Reagan, and they know a movement when they see it. The left hasn’t had anything like that since Kennedy. So Drum and his fellow Baby Boom Dems have NO idea what a leader like that looks like. They only know what the Republican version of that looks like, and they have an inherent fear of things like that. In that sense, I agree with Elyas that it’s definitely a generational issue.
It’s interesting to see that blogs like this and Andrew Sullivan’s get what Obama could do. He’s a game changing figure who could frame liberalism in a transformative way that Hillary couldn’t even in her wildest dreams. And that’s what we need right now, transformation. Incremental change is a given in politics, and it’s not like Reagan was able to pass everything overnight, but you need a guy like Obama in there to do it for the Dems.
January 22nd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
“Simply put, Obama could start a movement.”
Since when is vacuousness a movement inspiring trait?
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Americans wants to feel good about themselves. People feel good when they hear Obama speak. Thats it. That’s why there is a movement. What kind of “change” are they looking for? A change from the bad feelings they get when they see George Bush talking. Nobody who exits an Obama rally could list 3 concrete positions on specific issues that Barak has, but that’s unimportant.
We know that he is generally left of center, but thats about it. The only way a movement like this could happen would be if that candidate were a leftist so that he could spout out the same old populist rhetoric about how the government will save the day and make you happier, rather than to tell people they have to rely more on themselves.
January 22nd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Addendum:
That’s why Obama is so dangerous. Feelings are an extremely powerful force to motivate human behaviour.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:13 pm
“Since when is vacuousness a movement inspiring trait?”
Remember Camelot!
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Of course I remember it. Robert Goulet was great!
(I was born in 1968, thankfully, so I missed the political silliness byt he same name.)