Shorthand for Nothing

Via Slog:

I, like many people, have been guilty of thinking that there is nothing that’s going to keep track of a candidate’s campaign promises. A candidate can say anything to get himself elected, then just renege on all of them, because who’s going to remember? He must make hundreds of them over the course of his campaign, right?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: the Obameter, a compilation of about 500 campaign promises. The St. Petersburg Times is tracking their progress–whether the promise is kept or broken, whether he compromised, whether it’s stalled, or whether no action has been taken as of yet.

I keep forgetting that we live in an age of the internet. As John Allison once put it, “Google is giving people the facts, and we want them back.” Maybe this won’t be used in a terribly widespread fashion. A lot of political afficionadoes will have lost their interest in politics. But now there is accountability. Someone is watching, and it’s easy to access. People can get information more readily now. Is it possible we’re finally entering an age of government transparency?

No Responses »

I really should have written this when it was still relevant, but here it goes.

A number of conservatives make no secret about blaming Barack Obama’s victory in the election on media bias. John McCain’s campaign got only negative coverage, where Obama only got positive coverage. I’m not going to dispute their claim, though I disagree with it. Let’s assume it’s true: the press was exceptionally positive towards Obama and exceptionally negative towards McCain. What could this mean/why could this be? The way I see it, there are four options:

• Barack Obama is legitimately better candidate than John McCain, and the media is merely reflecting the realities of the situation.
• Barack Obama is roughly on par with John McCain in terms of his ability to lead the country or win votes, but he ran a better, cleaner campaign.
• Barack Obama is roughly on par with John McCain in terms of his ability to lead the country or win votes, but the media liked him better so he was given a free pass and remained positive in the public perception.
• Barack Obama is a worse candidate than John McCain, but a vast media conspiracy concealed these obvious truths, and tricked the American public into voting for him.

I tend to favor one of the first two options. Though I will acknowledge that Obama was something of a media darling during the summer months, he had already weathered some pretty unpleasant media scandals during the primaries. And let’s face it: he has a compelling narrative.

Obama had people fired up about him irrespective of the media. He had massive support on the internet, and a terrifyingly efficient grassroots political machine.

Those who are inclined to favor the latter two options, I have two words for you: John Kerry. There is no way the media gave Bush more favorable attention than McCain in this election. He was pretty universally reviled at the time.

But even besides that, look at the record turnouts among young voters. If the media is biased, it has always been biased. Something about Barack Obama’s campaign made him popular among a generation of people that is largely disaffected with politics.

And he definitely ran a better campaign to reach these people. He brought technology into politics, in a prominent way. There were internet-based campaigns, and stories written about how internet-based politics were the way of the future. People received updates on text messages. His transition website uses some very web 2.0 technologies. John McCain was not a bad candidate, but his campaign, especially in comparison to that of Barack Obama, made him unelectable. It ruined his brand. It made him look like a bad candidate. He did it to himself, and the electorate responded.

No Responses »

(A sincere apology to both of my readers, who have probably missed my insightful commentary deeply. I will probably change gears and stop talking about politics eventually, but I cannot not talk about Blagojevich.)

I’m not going to say the honeymoon is over for Barack Obama, but there is some talk circulating, including at least one unfortunate headline, which makes it sound like people think Obama knew about Blagojevich’s mind-numbingly stupid corruption. And people were concerned about his cabinet choices–Clinton cronies, people who have a history of sending dead fish to people they don’t like. They wonder if his politics of change was just talk, and if he will basically be the same as any other politician–or worse, because he’s from Chicago, which is comically corrupt.

I’m not sure if this qualifies as buyer’s remorse, but I haven’t lost my generic hopefulness just yet. Consider a comparison of the McCain and Obama campaigns, if you will. McCain’s campaign felt like it was being run by his advisors. McCain allowed himself to be herded and ended up appearing disingenuous. Obama never seemed to lose control. Perhaps he simply chose the right advisors, but it seems like he has the force of will to keep any of his staff picks from running amok–or at least that he can reign them in and use their powers for good.

But Blagojevich! He may sound like a badly written villain in a comic book, but is his corruption going to ruin the Obama presidency? In this particular instance, I am going to say no. The American public has the memory span of a goldfish, so even if he did something shady, he’s in the clear in four years–and he has already been elected. Right now, public opinion can’t do anything to him.

The media is a big fan of freaking out. It always ends up blowing over.

No Responses »

As of this writing, the last few states are too close to call. It is clear that Barack Obama is the next President of the United States, and I’m not alone in feeling like this may be the start of something big for our nation–and I hope the world. His speech was spectacular and moving. John McCain gave a concession speech that was polite and dignified and everything a concession speech should be.

Tonight I’d like to look back at this election, all sarcasm, snark, and joking aside.

I really started following it towards the end of the primaries. I’d heard of Barack before, but didn’t know a lot about him. I knew I didn’t want to see Hillary as president–but I think more importantly, I knew that Barack Obama had a lot of grassroots support. He was energizing people–he was energizing the young, disaffected, cynical group I was a part of. There was hope for something new. So I started watching the primaries. Hillary had long odds against her when I started. Superdelegates were a big deal. And I started learning more about Barack Obama. He was intelligent, calm, dignified, charismatic. There was something inspirational about him, and this unbelievable sense of inevitability.

At some point during the summer, I started really watching the election in earnest. Blogs, news media, political analysts, polls. There was something almost absurd about Barack–there was so much eagerness, so much enthusiasm. The media was in love with him. Everyone I knew was in love with him. And it was infectious. I found myself laughing, not because he was a bad candidate, but because he was a good candidate. It was refreshing to joke about how awesome a candidate was, and to be sincere.

Still, I knew he wasn’t going to save the world. There was something almost Messianic about his presence. And it was easy for his detractors to paint him as if he had a Messiah complex. In the end I felt that he knew that really, this wasn’t about him–this was about inspiring the people of America. This was about reminding America that they could make a difference.

And what a difference we’ve made. I don’t need to explain how momentous this occasion is. I hope this energy lasts. If everyone remains as fired up as they were for the campaign, we really will be able to change America. Who can say if it will last, or how long it will take? But change has arrived in America. If Barack Obama can keep people as fired up for the next four years as he has for the past two, maybe we won’t be a nation of people who think it’s somebody else’s problem.

If that’s the case, that’s change I can believe in. (I know, I know.)

No Responses »

Okay, this time I am prepared for it. This time I am ready. Here it is, Hope himself becoming a god.

(more…)

No Responses »

MSNBC has an article about how Barack Obama misrepresented some of Sarah Palin’s comments about negative campaigning. The very first comment: “You people are ridiculous with your headlines. Palin clearly criticized the robo-calls.” The poster’s name is “MSM is biased.” This confuses me. I’m used to accusations of bias, of course–Fox is conservative, MSNBC is liberal, and as some people would have it, everyone that isn’t Fox is liberal–but I’m not sure I ever expected to see someone accuse MSNBC of conservative bias.

Perhaps this is just a case of the hostile media effect. But that is most prominent in a controlled study–and by and large the media is pretty friendly with Obama. What I think this is about, really, is the danger of getting your news from Daily Kos or Huffington Post (or, on the other hand, WorldNetDaily or all those other fun Republican places). Research your news, please.

No Responses »

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Colin Powell has just endorsed Barack Obama, and the conservative base is not pleased with the result. He has “betrayed his party,” “revealed his true leaning,” and basically all sorts of nasty words. Perhaps this is a minority representation–I’m still looking into a more representative reaction–but this is pretty much exactly what I expected.

It reveals a lot about the campaign. Let’s go back to John McCain for a minute. He’s a maverick, right? He leans across party lines. He’s got half the Democratic ticket from 2000 endorsing him. He fights his own party leaders. He does this because he is bipartisan and compromises.

Colin Powell is, as far as I am aware, is a highly respected public figure, which may well sound the death knell for McCain’s political chances. I believe he is respected across party lines. If anyone’s endorsement would likely be viewed as “mavericky,” as something indicative of a strong independent mind and reasoning apart from party lines, I think it would be Colin Powell’s. But instead, it’s casually dismissed as treason to his party, probably because they are both black.

Obama is routinely criticized for never reaching across the aisle by the conservative base. He is “the most liberal Senator.” I wonder if this isn’t because everyone who ever works with Barack Obama is immediately dismissed as a traitor to his party?

4 Responses »