I have a rather longish piece over at Outside the Beltway regarding John McCain’s “honor” in being endorsed by Rev. John Hagee, who I think is fair to call “a pro-Apocalypse, homophobic, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, pro-Holocaust bigot.”
One thing I didn’t mention in that piece that readers here will probably appreciate is that in my research, I determined that John Hagee is not only anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and anti-Catholic, he’s also anti-Harry Potter.
As millions of people anticipate the release of the latest Harry Potter book and film, we’re reminded once again of Satan’s ongoing attempt to deceive and destroy. The whole purpose of the Potter books is to desensitize readers and introduce them to the occult.
As I’ve always said, if you’re not pro-Harry Potter, you are providing aid and comfort to the other side. In other words, Lord Voldemort.
Somebody needs to get on John McCain and ask him if he’s pro-Death Eater!
To boil down the argument he’s making as I understand it, my position that the more substantive voting bloc should be bothered by Obama’s (at that point) nondescript campaign isn’t really a good one, largely due to the flaws in the primary system and partly because it’s the only way he can say consistent with his self-portrayal as an outsider.
I don’t really disagree with that in theory - I do know why Obama’s run the campaign like he has, and it’s obviously worked for him so far. With that said, there’s something to be said about the essential bait and switch he’s pulling as well, and campaigning on active deception may be a good tactic in a primary candidacy where the scrutiny can be distributed among numerous candidates, but at some point the chickens have to come home to roost.
The problem is compounded by the way Obama phrases issues. Stephen Hayes over at The Wall Street Journal does a great job demonstrating this:
His rhetorical gimmick is simple. When he addresses a contentious issue, Mr. Obama almost always begins his answer with a respectful nod in the direction of the view he is rejecting — a line or two that suggests he understands or perhaps even sympathizes with the concerns of a conservative.
At Cornell College on Dec. 5, for example, a student asked Mr. Obama how his administration would view the Second Amendment. He replied: “There’s a Supreme Court case that’s going to be decided fairly soon about what the Second Amendment means. I taught Constitutional Law for 10 years, so I’ve got my opinion. And my opinion is that the Second Amendment is probably — it is an individual right and not just a right of the militia. That’s what I expect the Supreme Court to rule. I think that’s a fair reading of the text of the Constitution. And so I respect the right of lawful gun owners to hunt, fish, protect their families.”
Then came the pivot:
“Like all rights, though, they are constrained and bound by the needs of the community . . . So when I look at Chicago and 34 Chicago public school students gunned down in a single school year, then I don’t think the Second Amendment prohibits us from taking action and making sure that, for example, ATF can share tracing information about illegal handguns that are used on the streets and track them to the gun dealers to find out — what are you doing?”
In conclusion:
“There is a tradition of gun ownership in this country that can be respected that is not mutually exclusive with making sure that we are shutting down gun traffic that is killing kids on our streets. The argument I have with the NRA is not whether people have the right to bear arms. The problem is they believe any constraint or regulation whatsoever is something that they have to beat back. And I don’t think that’s how most lawful firearms owners think.”
Hayes compares it to the perception of Reagan, but I don’t know if that’s accurate - Obama’s setting up where he wants you to believe his position is - in this case, a respect of the the second amendment - but, in reality, doesn’t really buy into the rights wholesale. When you read Obama’s speeches like this, you see it happen time and time again, and it works great - even I’ve been hoodwinked once or twice by the slight of hand. At what point, however, does someone who’s thinking A but realizing B act on that disconnect.
I think this is where the “policy geeks” should be very concerned. If you’re a policy geek for Obama, it’s because you buy into what he wants to do, or at least think he’ll do it better than the alternatives. Right now, the reason your horse is leading the pack is not because Obama’s got those positions, however - it’s because his rhetorical flourish is exciting people who don’t know about his economic plans or may think he’s actually strong on gun rights. McCain isn’t going to let that slide if he’s a smart campaigner, and I believe he is. If you’re inspired by Obama as a bipartisan reformer, are you going to buy into the bill of goods that Obama can’t reach when that comes out, or the solid and well-known record of McCain that can be easily demonstrated.
When you hitch your apple wagon to a star, there’s a really good chance you’ll get burned. At this point, it might be too late for the policy geeks with Obama.
“No series (or mini-series, or feature film) can follow the underlying book exactly. … If you love the book just the way it is, then enjoy the book for what it is and come to the TV series prepared to enjoy the show for what it is.”
-Terry Goodkind, on the announcement of a TV series based on his Sword of Truth books.
I have to be honest–the second that I heard that there was going to be a new Indiana Jones movie, I openly scoffed. Harrison Ford–too old. Steven Spielberg? Well, he’s been hit or miss lately. And George Lucas hasn’t been involved in a good movie since, er, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Of course, leave it to the trailer to give me some hope that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull might actually be, well, good:
Of course, I’ll just keep saying to myself, “The trailer to Phantom Menace looked good too…
Co-heretic Jeff Raymond and I have been talking recently about an issue pertinent to Obama’s candidacy: I’ve mentioned in comments on this site that my support for Obama, at least for purposes of the democratic nomination, is largely based on his nuanced view of public policy and what seems to be a deep understanding of how policies actually affect the real world. However, the image of Obama that most people seem to be latching onto is the idea of the charismatic, airy, substanceless candidate who’s only real asset is his ability to sell promise of changing the system.
Jeff seems to suggest that Obama supporters like myself whose support comes from careful policy analysis should resent Obama supporters latching onto that image and feel insulted at the fact that Obama seems to embrace this image and encourage it among his supporters. I’m here to take the opposite view.
The primary election process used in the U.S. has a number of significant drawbacks in it. The first is that primary elections tend to favor party loyalists who are either already well-known among other ardent party loyalists (and by this I don’t mean mere name recognition, I mean have a deep and full knowledge of who they are, what they’ve done, and what they want to do) or candidates whose platform caters perfectly to a large subgroup within the party.
This leaves outsiders moderates with two options: either make nice with a subgroup within the party that you otherwise have no business making nice with or find some way to bring new voters into the primary process. Obama has clearly chosen the latter option.
The latter option is by no means an easy option. It requires understanding why it is a given group within the voting age population isn’t voting and crafting a strategy to overcome that inertia and bring these voters into a process that even fewer people participate in that the general election. Young adults (I believe the usual age range for this measure is 18-35) are by far the largest subgroup within the voting age population who don’t vote. Obama decided to go with a charismatic, anti-establishment candidacy loosely styled on Howard Dean’s campaign and addressing the specific political alienation that many young would-be voters feel about the entire process. He figured that this would bring in enough new voters, and when combined with establishment votes he could count on for other reasons, could make him a formidable candidate. And judging from the results thus far, he was right.
But campaigning as an anti-establishment candidate comes with a big problem. If Obama preaches the standard democratic policy platform, as Clinton is, he belies his status as the anti-establishment candidate. What kind of anti-establishment candidate can he be if he doesn’t differ any from the establishment candidate? Another alternative is to move his platform either to the left or right of the establishment candidate, but neither works especially well. Anti-establishment moderates tend to alienate their party base and pay dearly for it like McCain did in 2000, and anti-establishment candidates moving to the extreme get treated like Ron Paul and Ralph Nader.
Since none of these options bode well for Obama, he did the only reasonable thing a candidate in his position can do: avoid public discussion of his policies. If he can coast on his campaign strategy without getting bogged down in policy minutia, then he can save the policy arguments for the general campaign. Strategically I think this was an especially good idea for Obama’s platform since the difference between his policy proposals and Clinton’s are very subtle and require decent policy geek credentials to understand them.
Ralph Reed once said that there are two kinds of people in politics. The first kind of person he dubbed “prophets”. They could stand on the sidelines and shout any extreme position that crossed their mind and be as ideologically pure as they wanted to be, but could never actually get elected to public office as a result. Obama is clearly not interested in being a prophet. Unfortunately, that means he has to play the game and play it well to do what he wants to do. Do I hold it against him? No. The problem is systemic. Every candidate who gets elected has done it to one degree or another. Nixon used the Southern Strategy and spectacularly failed to deliver on his anti-Warren Court promises. Reagen used the Religious Right’s disillusionment with Carter to get elected and then stabbed them in the back by appointing Sandra Day O’Connor. Clinton announced the joke that was the end of Big Government, Bush announced the era of Compassionate Conservatism which proved to be neither compassionate nor conservative. I have no doubt most of the great expectations for Obama will fizzle when and if he ever becomes President. But his approach to crafting policy is refreshing enough that I think, when faced with a hostile legislature, he can craft compromises with equal skill. And that’s enough for the anemic approval I’m giving him.
“My understanding, though, is that this doesn’t really count because it’s a small state, much as Utah doesn’t count because there aren’t many Democrats there, DC doesn’t count because there are too many black people, Washington doesn’t count because it’s a caucus, Illinois doesn’t count because Obama represents it in the Senate even though Hillary was born there, Hawaii won’t count because Obama was born there. I’m not sure why Delaware and Connecticut don’t count, but they definitely don’t.”
– Matthew Yglesias, on Obama’s win in the Maine caucus
You would think that this would be a straightforward case. Police aren’t perfect–they can make mistakes sometimes. But when I was a kid, my mom taught me that you should admit to your mistakes and take steps to make up for them.
Apparently, this police department is composed of folks who were not as well-parented.
Just got back tonight from my first ever caucus here in the 11th Senate District of Kansas. I’m a little too keyed up to write a coherent post, so here’s a few notes from the experience.
First off, there were a lot of people there–over 1500 of them, which is impressive when you consider that we were in the beginning throes of what the weather forecasters say is going to be a nasty ice storm.
Also, lots of the people who came to the caucus were either first time voters or people changing their voter registration to Democrat. I know this because my wife’s line, the line for people already registered Democrat, wasn’t that much significantly longer than the line I was in, the line for folks who needed to fill out a registration form. (Yes, I was already registered to vote–I just had to change my party affiliation to Democrat).
The Obama people were jazzed up–there were tons of signs for Obama, fliers, stickers, etc. The Clinton people were not nearly enthusiastic.
That lack of enthusiasm showed in our final results (only one round of voting was necessary)–1093 Obama to 420 Clinton, a percentage final vote of about 72%–which is consistent with the results coming in from Kansas now.
