Comments on: The Right Wing Gets Obama

By: Rich Horton

Rich Horton — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:05:55 +0000

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.)

By: Dos

Dos — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:13:05 +0000

“Since when is vacuousness a movement inspiring trait?”

Remember Camelot!

By: Jimmy the Dhimmi

Jimmy the Dhimmi — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:42:35 +0000

Addendum:

That’s why Obama is so dangerous. Feelings are an extremely powerful force to motivate human behaviour.

By: Jimmy the Dhimmi

Jimmy the Dhimmi — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:40:12 +0000

How can he not see that America is yearning for change after the past 8 years of nonsense?

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.

By: Rich Horton

Rich Horton — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:40:07 +0000

“Simply put, Obama could start a movement.”

Since when is vacuousness a movement inspiring trait?

By: Justin Gardner

Justin Gardner — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:33:39 +0000

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.

By: bdr

bdr — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:58:33 +0000

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.

By: Elyas

Elyas — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:48:25 +0000

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.