I didn't vote for Hillary like he did, but James Wolcott's first paragraph perfectly captures my problems with Obama. Four years ago, I was carried away with a candidate myself--but one with the gravitas and the credentials to justify wide eyes.
I'll bypass my ill-informed political thoughts and risk coming off as simplistic, but I'd be willing to bet that not one of the people he name dropped in his article knows a damn thing about college football. I do however, think I see where you're coming from.
Posted by: Picture Me Rollin at February 7, 2008 07:11 PMI find it fascinating that a vote for Clinton is being spun by Wolcott like it's the action of an adult. Obama's policy ideas are there if you're willing to look.
I like his position on using market mechanisms to achieve social justice goals... Likewise, reducing costs in healthcare, a field with something like 30% administrative overhead as a first goal is just as legitimate as giving the insurance companies a big old cash infusion to make up for their stock market losses... but to hear people like Paul Krugman tell it, Obama will kill universal healthcare dead. A negative hysteria to the squealing teenagers and midwestern farmers.
The problem with being an adult as Wolcott would put it, is that you are assuming others are being as rational as you are. A quick look at how Clinton plays in the country at large suggests that it doesn't really matter how prepared she is, how incisive a debater she might be, it won't do a thing to convince the large swathes of people who for whatever reason don't like her, that they should vote for her anyway.
I can understand being put off by the Obama fan-boy atmosphere. But the rhetoric is a marketing initiative, not an absence of policy proposals. And being put off by the outrageously biased coverage of Clinton (or voting for her as a referendum on feminism or global misogyny or whatever) is no more rational a basis that because Obama makes you feel all funny inside. So is Wolcott really being calm and rational? Is he voting for someone or against a fad?
As usual, I find myself voting against someone rather than for someone. Yay.
Posted by: DC Trojan at February 7, 2008 09:12 PMNB: I don't doubt his ability to surround himself with smart people, and I'd support him happily in event of nomination. But I'm just not buying it right now. And I hate Hillary more.
Posted by: Holly at February 7, 2008 09:36 PMSkepticism is warranted with both candidates. As usual, the real problem is other people. Too many of them too punch, and... well, there are too many of them to punch.
You know who could give America the punch in the kisser that it so desperately needs? Shockey could, that's who.
I think I've found my new candidate.
Posted by: DC Trojan at February 7, 2008 10:17 PM