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Democratic Primaries: Black anger... real?
Elki
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The Speech
Apparently, Obama was up till 2 am writing it.
Also, the Economist's blog asks a question..
What did you want the speech to be?
Elsewhere, Penn is a little sad.
And Jack Murtha endorses Clinton, but it's not getting much coverage because pretty much everyone is talking about Obama's speech.
On firsts, this is the first time I've seen this accusation used by any campaign. Clinton aid Phil Singer says Obama's position on revotes is "a passive-aggressive effort on the part of the Obama campaign to disenfranchise the voters of Michigan and Florida." Hilarious.
Talking about revotes, Rendell hit up Soros for some cash to fund new primaries in Michigan/Florida. Soros says no, no, no.
And that Republican dude running for president makes a funny.
I'm going to use the following post as an excuse to post an old Economist article.
Reason #2 I loved that speech.
Apparently, Obama was up till 2 am writing it.
Not a Herculean task, but I love the little details.PHILADELPHIA, PA.—Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was up late last night putting the finishing touches on the most important speech of his presidential campaign to be delivered this Tuesday morning—an effort to talk about race in America and address the swelling controversy about his relationship to his controversial minister the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama “finished essentially about two in the morning,†said his top strategist, David Axelrod.
Also, the Economist's blog asks a question..
What did you want the speech to be?
Hehehe.AS IF to prove that many stopped listening seriously about Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright somewhere around "God damn Amer...", step up, bloggers at the National Review's the Corner. As mentioned below, Mr Obama went out of his way to discuss not only black grievances but white grievances. This was the key paragraph:Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Apparently having stopped their ears with wax against the siren song, the Corner's blogger's writeCharlotte Hays: Obama is no longer a post-racial candidate. In his speech (it’s still going on, but I’ve heard enough) today, he has embraced the politics of grievance. He says that the Rev. Wright has “elevated what is wrong†with America — elevated?
John Derbyshire: As a member of the, uh, white community, what I'm hearing here is: "You white folks haven't been trying hard enough to be fair to us. You must do more!" OK, Senator, what shall we do to be saved?
Kathryn Jean Lopez: The more I think about this speech, the more I think Obama said: Damn straight, Rev. Wright is angry. That's how I wound up at his church. That's why I stay there. I'm mad too, I just control it better. Now let's get electing me president so we can all feel good.
Don't listen, conservatives, and beware! You just might hear something you agree with!
Elsewhere, Penn is a little sad.
First Read has learned that the Clinton campaign has hired Democratic pollster Geoff Garin to do polling for the campaign. Garin and his firm has plenty of experience polling in the upcoming battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Indiana.
The question becomes, of course: How does this impact pollster and chief strategist Mark Penn? Some in the campaign have been arguing for months that the chief strategist shouldn't be polling his own message ideas.
Garin, one of the most respected Dem pollsters in the country, is someone who will have instant credibility inside the campaign and -- more importantly -- with worried anti-Penn donors.
And Jack Murtha endorses Clinton, but it's not getting much coverage because pretty much everyone is talking about Obama's speech.
On firsts, this is the first time I've seen this accusation used by any campaign. Clinton aid Phil Singer says Obama's position on revotes is "a passive-aggressive effort on the part of the Obama campaign to disenfranchise the voters of Michigan and Florida." Hilarious.
Talking about revotes, Rendell hit up Soros for some cash to fund new primaries in Michigan/Florida. Soros says no, no, no.
And that Republican dude running for president makes a funny.
Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."
Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."
I'm going to use the following post as an excuse to post an old Economist article.
Hedgethorn wrote: »The content is not original, but the source (an A-list politician) certainly is.
And when you say source, you don't just mean that Presidential candidates don't say things like that these days, none of them could write anything like it either.
Obama wrote the whole damn speech himself.
Someone on dKos claimed that this is the first major speech written solely by a president or presidential candidate since the Nixon era.
That is one of the potentially great things about the ubiquity of the internet, cameras, and traceable bullshit. The next generation of politicians who come into power when this crop dies, or gets caught sexing stuff up, will be so over exposed to the public that the curtain between private and public will actually and finally fall. The mask they put on for press conferences and chicken dinners will be their real face and they'll be elected as the person they are, not the one they play on tv.
Consultants, ad-men, and pollsters have done more to kill politics than lobbyists ever can, or party bosses did in years past. They are the true gate-keepers to power, and they are functionally retarded at a base level that Tammany Hall never was. You have to look no further than Al Gore in 2000 or Bob Dole in '96 to see how destructive that kind of cognitive dissonance is to a politician's appeal and to their own sanity. Hell, Bob Dole had referred to himself in the third person because the guy making those speeches and appeals sure wasn't him, not the real him. The Al Gore on the campaign trail and the Al Gore in Futurama might as well be two completely different people. If your real self is as constantly exposed as your public image, well you'll either become a master schizophrenic or you'll become a single being that's comfortable in your own skin to the point where the youtube videos aren't an issue. I really don't want to see more of the former.
The Economist, on April 2006 wrote:ON THE evening that Martin Luther King was shot, Bobby Kennedy was due to speak in a black ghetto in Indianapolis. The audience had not yet heard the news and the police were worried about how they might react to being told by a white man. But Kennedy would not be deterred. “Ladies and gentlemenâ€, he began, “I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because I have some very sad news.â€
The speech was one of the great pieces of political rhetoric: an oration that registered the enormity of the event while also beginning the work of healing. There were riots in 76 American cities over the next few days. Indianapolis remained quiet.
Kennedy's words marked the end of an era when politicians could dare to be natural. Today political professionals—consultants, pollsters and admen—test out every phrase. The result is a veritable Hobson's choice: the droning inanities of a John Kerry versus the scripted platitudes of a George Bush.
“Politics Lostâ€â€”the loss of all spontaneity in politics today—is everything that readers have come to expect from the author of “Primary Coloursâ€. Based on a lifetime of careful observation, it is full of colourful vignettes and wonderful phrases (Michael Dukakis hailing from the “National Public Radio wing of the Democratic Partyâ€), and it is suffused with powerful affection for the promise of American politics and exasperation at its reality.
Political consultants have taken the place of old-fashioned party bosses. They not only decide who gets what at every level of the political system; they embody their party's institutional memories. The most important relationship in politics is between two shadowy groups—the political aides who run the congressional campaign committees (those who dole out money to would-be candidates) and the political consultants (who dole out legitimacy). If you can't persuade the “right†consultant to work for you, you have little chance of getting on the political ladder.
These new lords of the political universe are a strange mix of eccentricity and cynicism. Dick Morris, the pompadoured pollster behind Bill Clinton's “triangulation†policy, was caught with a prostitute. Arthur Finkelstein, who did the most to make the word “liberal†radioactive, was a homosexual who eventually “married†his long-term partner. Both James Carville (who helped Mr Clinton) and the late Lee Atwater (George Bush senior) epitomised a certain Southern-fried weirdness.
Mr Klein convicts these consultants of an astonishing list of crimes—not just the generic vice of dumbing down democracy but also innumerable sins of incompetence. A hired-gun almost ruined Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign before he was expelled by let-Reagan-be-Reagan loyalists. Susan Estrich took a bad candidate in Mr Dukakis and made him worse. Bob Shrum has lost all seven of the presidential campaigns he managed, notably steering Al Gore to disaster by persuading him to abandon Mr Clinton's winning formula in favour of a vacuous people-against-the-powerful populism. Yet this did not dissuade Mr Kerry from giving Mr Shrum another go.
So why do candidates hire consultants? One reason is that campaigns are such huge productions—arranged on a continental scale and often lasting more than 1,000 days. Even seat-of-the-pants candidates like John McCain in 2000 need specialists to arrange schedules and buy advertising. Another is that good consultants can work wonders. Remember how Atwater eviscerated Mr Dukakis? Or how Mr Carville, the “Ragin' Cajunâ€, choreographed the 1992 Clinton campaign.
The real issue is not whether you use consultants (everybody does) but how you manage them. Here the Republicans have been running rings around the Democrats for decades. The Republicans treat consultants as hired help rather than equal citizens. This means that they establish clear lines of authority and fire the duffers: there is no Republican Bob Shrum.
The real problem that Mr Klein is diagnosing is not the rise of the consulting industry. It is the loss of self-confidence of the political elite. And nowhere is this loss more desperately felt than in the party that gave us Bobby Kennedy.
Reason #2 I loved that speech.
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Dude, he was offered a chance to go home early, and turned it down. Then suffered greatly for it. What else do you call that?
anyone know when they're going to be on tv and on what channel?
Yeah, jo, I think you're barking up the wrong tree with McCain on that angle.
Fair enough, I'm likely just uninformed of the details of the situation. There are about 100 other details of McCain's policies I disagree with, so I didn't concern myself with researching him as a person.
As others said, his lack of political courage with respect to the waterboarding legislation validates the claim of cowardice.
Right, the man was awesome and then stopped being awesome either right after Bush won the nomination in 2000 or during the 2004, I'm not sure which though I prefer in 2004 because I liked him between the two elections.
Exactly. The man had some seriously big balls back then.
These days? He's so desperate to be president, he's sold everything he is.
All of them (except for Fox, I'd suppose).
I think he'll be talking about Iraq, tomorrow.
It's a quote from tonight's The Daily Show. John Stewart said it right before locking the doors and activating the alarm on his desk.
McCain did great things when he served, and he at least potential represented good things when he served as a politician. That doesn't mean what he represents now is not, or can not be, reprehensible.
For what it's worth, it pisses us off too.
I'm sticking with Karl Rove broke him in the 2000 primaries. Karl Rove - Worse than Viet Cong Torturers.
Maybe it's because I'm not black, or something.
It's kind of annoying seeing friends of mine get scared going through predominantly black communities as if they were going to die.
Maybe they were taught stupid things as kids.
I live in a predominantly black community, but am not black. A few days ago, I overheard some white college kids talking about missing their stop and accidentally ending passing through my area on the subway. They hid their iPods and cell phones, they said, and were so scared.
Meanwhile, I live here, comfortably.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
That actually makes sense from a torture/interrogation perspective. The best empirical ways to break people have been through psychological manipulation, not through beating a person unconscious repeatedly.
Anyway, leave it to The Economist to be the voice of conservative reason.
As for consultants. Like I said. I don't like them. But I like the money the high-profile ones make. And, yes, Bob Shrum is the devil. But I've been on the side where someone didn't take political advice. And that is really the problem, IMO. Political advice too often dovetails into and in many cases becomes policy advice (except W. There is no policy. Just politics). But for some people, they need the help. They can get it from political mentors, if they're lucky. But not everyone has one, and some people come from a position where their characterization is as someone who eschews the system and is proud not to have one. But you have the greatest candidate in the world but if they're not connected, or just naturally astute like Obama seems to be, it can be a real problem.
Maybe it's just resentment on my part. If I wasn't a volunteer, and was getting paid as such, maybe they'd have listened and not lost--or at least not lost so badly. Or not. But that "paid" part is a key when they do come in, because once money is spent on a person and not on media it becomes very important to maximize their apparent value. Of course, if it's bad advice then it's money wasted, and a lot of people don't want to admit they blew enough money on a radio campaign on some idiot that didn't move them up in the polls.
I almost, almost, think Clinton is doing this intentionally to toughen up Obama. She's basically run through the litany of things he can possibly be attacked on, and given him time to not only refine his candidacy in general, but to inoculate himself against each thing as it comes up.
And then I think she's just gone completely insane, and the only thing keeping her from going full bore swift boat is the party jerking her back from the brink each time she tries.
I can't decide which I believe. I'd love for it to be the first, but besides the fact by its very nature we'll never know if it was, I don't think I'm that optimistic of naive.
It's going to be an eventful week.
I really wonder how Hillary reacted after she saw that speech. Like, her reaction as a real person. They stand for pretty much the same things, she had to recognize the significance and power of the things he'd just said. How do you deal with that wave of emotion that we all felt and then switch into "How are we going to spin this around to either hurt him or help us?"
Like, Jesus Christ white college kids annoy the fuck out of me.
@hippy: I'd go with insane.
@jo: When you're as cold as her as a politician, it's not that hard. It's not personal. It's business.
Especially the ones sheltered in a mansion or something their entire lives.
Maybe I learned growing up in NYC that everyone's an asshole and they need to get the fuck out of my way rather than "Oooo two black people walking together they must be in a gang hide the ipod"
No, the shit I'm talking about is a lot more subtle. "So what gang is that?" says the white cashier, in a not so jokingly tone, as he points to my tattoo of an e.e cummings poem.
The white store clerk who says I, at 15 years old and very computer literate, can't touch the display model P.C's, while two 5 year old white girls banging on the key boards go unnoticed.
Getting pulled over, being told I fit the description of a man who stole a car, when, simply running my plates would indicate I work(ed) for the feds.
Black. Anger. But enough about this. Political thread.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I think the only thing about her I like on a personal level anymore is that iron will. The sheer self control and single mindedness she represents HAS to be respected. Ever since she cried in New Hampshire, legitimately teared up, and instantly spun it into a stump speech I've at least respected that while she continues to plummet into madness on every other front.
Colin Powell.
@CF: Like I said, I have to believe a lot of it is upbringing. Because I wouldn't have let you or the fucking five year olds touch the models.
But, seriously. What gang are you in.
With respect to the young republicans talk so many pages back, whoever it was that mentioned having stronger beliefs when you're young hit the nail on the head. When you combine that simple fact with some of the incredible efforts that some parents go through to groom their kids, it really shouldn't come as a surprise. Young people can be incredibly fierce and unforgiving in their religious views, even if they'll come around to a more reasonable view as they wizen. It's easy to forget that when you spend so much time looking at how each generation is overall more reasonable than the ones that came before it.
This is quickly derailing into a race thread, but it goes both ways. I got 10-20 Security Notices every year I was at Case Western detailing the assault+robbery on students. The description was almost always "black male, early to late 20s, 5'9"-5'10"." I got flashed a gun *after* my friend gave the guy $10 so he could "get his car out of the parking garage."
Anecdotal experience isn't worth stereotyping entire groups of people. But individuals, on the whole, are weak and easily frightened. It's not really surprising.
Bringing it back to Obama's speech, there is a problem in urban communities that needs to be addressed as part of the solution to ending these stereotypes and prejudices.
To be fair, it is on-topic to the speech we're referencing to.
I think it was extremely successful, mostly by indirection. He gave an eloquent explanation, but more importantly (because any speech that stopped at an explanation would get torn apart by the talking heads simply for something to say) he changed the topic successfully. No one really cares about Wright anymore, because he's "put race back on the table."
Only time will tell if he can survive that, but he staked out a good position that's even handed and pragmatic, so any attack is either empty or inane, though that hasn't stopped them from working before.
You're part of "Da American Greatz" aren't you.
That's a good point. The Wright thing was getting out of control. He brought it back by throwing everyone in media the story they'd been looking for all along: A Black Man Is Running For President. But he did it in a way that forces them to talk about it but only in a way that talks about how awesome he is.
All that in addition to the fact that the substance of the speech was fucking epic.
It's like he's really fucking good or something.
It's not only that, but it's also a matter of supporting those views. I already mentioned the Federalist Society at my law school, so let's back up further to undergrad. I went a university in Washington, DC. By its nature, and even more so the nature of the people I was around (PoliSci. Woo!) it was expected that people got involved in politics. And it was the nature of the beast that the College Republicans had their stuff together. It was like being in a frat without rushing. It meant having ready access to politicians, internships, debate prep. Everything. It meant that you got to be bussed to mid-Atlantic states to do the ground-level work so that when you graduate you never have to do that grunt shit again. Grooming a ready mind. It worked. It works.
One of my freshman floormates was/is? John McCain's 2008 webmaster. He started out as a senior political communications consultant for Internet campaigning. I don't know anyone on the left that's done something similar. And that's the political side. The policy/think-tank stuff goes the same way. It's a phenomenal web of connections and support that goes directly to the permanent majority concept.
But I will go to the Fed Soc again for a second to add this: They are eager to throw money and speakers at their law school chapters because a) they can, and b) because it adds to cachet that you can't buy but also provides the kind that you can.
Luckily, it doesn't always work. But this? This is what we're fighting.