O-dministration, O-Kaying images, O-verview, O-ptimism - the Obama beginning

Many are the melancholy or indignant post-mortems emerging as Bush's days draw to a close. Oh, how glad are we all to see the back of Bush.
Obama, awaiting inauguration and setting up his administration, stands in stern contrast to the invocational charm of the campaign. Well may he be stern. He has much to put to rights and already the dissent and criticism festers from the Right. As Paul Krugman says in the NY Times, the GOP needs to stop whining and look at the mess it is in.

Meanwhile, we quietly shimmer in anticipation for the Obama takeover and to see a country with this impressive family in the White House. I gather it is called the White House simply because it is white, made of white marble. Somehow the name seems as inept as it is unimaginative now that it is to hold a black incumbent.

What we will have to understand is that the Obamas are going to be given not only the unprecedented physical protection that they require because of the disgrace of death threats they have been receiving from the racist underclass of America, but also they will be spin doctored and marketed with much greater care and caution than any of their White House predecessors. Michelle's caustic ad libs will have to go. She is a role model now who makes Oprah almost insignificant. The strategists are working out the balance between gravitas and glamour, puppies and politics, not to mention comparisons with Kennedys and Clintons.

Good luck to the lot of 'em. We and they are in for an interesting and, I hope, uplifting time.

Why Obama can't win

The polls show Obama in a significant lead.
The early voting is showing early voters are out in hordes - dominantly Democrat and Independent voters and many of them black.

I have no confidence that this will result in Obama getting what would seem to be a logical win. I have no confidence the voters will get their vote.

The GOP has been screaming voter fraud from the Dems - which is its pre-empt of voter frauds they have up their sleeve. They have done it before and they are about to do it again.
I seem to live amid people who believe that honesty and ethics will prevail and that the results of the election will relate to the figures on the opinion polls. I simply cannot be as Pollyanna. I expect the on-the-day votes to deliver a "surprise" victory to McCain.
I am so sure of this that my heart is heavy from the futility of it all.

Voters have already been reporting that they can't get the voting machines to accept their Democrat votes, that the machines keep bouncing their votes in the other direction.
The voting machines are made by GOP supporters.

The GOP is discrediting the votes being made by blacks through ACORN registrations. These will disappear. Black votes generally are doomed - again. I do admire black Americans for continuing to come and and stand up against this crap.
The special facilities being laid on to get votes from the armed forces overseas are, by contrast, a complete scam to glean what are expected to be predominately Republican votes. They can vote online.

Just watch a repeat of Florida.

Meanwhile, forget Jackie Kennedy and her extravagant clothes in the White House. If Sarah Palin requires $US150,000 of high fashion hockey mum grooming in a couple of months, god knows what four years of primping would cost.

Sidin' with Biden

Now, I know Biden has been around for decades and is a respectable Democratic senator from, uh, that corporate tax haven state of Delaware. I was keen to hear him speak when I was in New Hampshire, but his dates and whereabouts never quite worked out for me. He was on a slimmer campaign budget than some and did not tour as extensively. Not like Clinton or Obama.

So, not hearing him in the flesh, I could only join his newslist and keep an eye on him. He did not fire me up. Not like Bill Richardson.

But he seemed civilized, seasoned, intelligent enough... There is a long tradition of good Catholic men in liberal politics. I have time for them.

The main thing that impressed me about Biden and impresses me now is the silver hair and Hollywood features - he looks like someone who has come direct from Central Casting.

Perchance this makes him just right for the role.
White man for the white vote. Restrained and conventional for the middle-of-the-roaders. Photogentic for the media.
He is a fine piece of political window dressing.

And now we move our support..

And down she goes.
With elegance, eloquence and grace.

Behind her fine speech comes an unleashing of extraordinary anti-Clinton spite in the excited masses of online feedback. I have just been reading it on site after site after site. The non-Clinton supporters have no inch to give, no grace in their spirit and, as I have always maintained, they are more a product of the right wing marketing machine than they will ever know. But they are happy. For the moment. They are milking their venom glands and feeling some relief.

My heart goes out to Hillary and my concern goes out for the US and the world - for the race is just begun and, even though McCain ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer, he will prove formidable against Obama.

A chunk of me has long wished that, somehow, Bill Richardson could have stayed in the race.
Albeit he was Latino, he did not attract the media favour or the gushing cult enthusiasm of the handsome young Obama - but he was the more solid, talented, wise and able by a long shot. He was prime presidential material. He could have stood his ground against McCain.

We will have an interesting time watching how the GOP now changes its media slant on Obama. We will have an interesting time watching the ingenuous new political breed cope with it all. We will hope that, somewhere behind the sophistry, Obama has the true grit.
He certainly writes a nice book, albiet that he writes a great deal about the issue of being black. And, if he becomes president, the important factor will be that he is a black president. That fulfils his promise of "change". And, has he has just said, if perchance he wants to do something about health care, Hillary Clinton had a good policy and may be worth listening to.

As for Michelle Obama, I have yet to find hope. I can only see the most divisive woman yet to arrive in politics - protected by the racist card. The racist card says that blacks are rightful to have a hate agenda against whites but that whites are racist if they criticise blacks.
Interesting to see a book by Shelby Steele A Bound Man: Why We're Excited About Barack Obama and Why He Can't Win, rushed through to cover this issue. Noel Pearson reviewed it for Online Monthly. This is really worth a read, dealing as it does with the phenomenon of white guilt and the moral high ground African Americans perceive therein.

We have the white hate church and the white hate preacher - who has refused to step down. The Obamas say, at the 11th hour, under immense pressure, that they have left that church and its militant ideology. Huh? Who is looking at the politics of that change of, um, policy? Um, is this consistent, loyal, honest...? Didn't Obama say that Reverend Jeremiah Wright was his "mentor"?
Oh, we won't look at it now. It is not an issue in the campaign. Let it flow through to the keeper. It was always more important to dislodge Hillary.

Nonetheless, they are raving ranting religious zealots from a hate church.

My reservations about Obama are not going to go away easily. He will have a lot of proving to do for me. Michelle Obama more so.

He was the one and only Democratic candidate with whom I did not make the effort to shake hands. He was the one and only Democratic candidate from whose appearance I chose going for a coffee over staying around afterwards. I left plain disappointed with him. Hence the consistency of my stance here in the blog.

I was there in the room with him. I listened. I watched. I arrived full of hope.
At that time I had not committed to Hillary. I could just as easily have been on his team - until I sat there and listened and felt the emptiness of his rhetoric.

Now, of course, I will now do the right Democratic thing - I will support him utterly against McCain.
And pray that all my misgivings are misplaced.

Michigan, the ugly

The role that New Hampshire plays in US presidential politics as the primary state geared my impetus for writing this blog. Swept into the state's hands-on action in the run-up to the 2004 election, I was wide-eyed with admiration. This, truly, is the democratic process, I thought. This is the people connecting with their politicians, putting them on the spot, picking holes in policies... This is the politicians, being tested on every level from stamina on the gruelling schedules to quick-thinking in the genuinely open forum conditions of house parties and town hall meetings. New Hampshire has been the first primary state for a very long time and its inhabitants have taken their role almost as a constitutional responsibility on behalf of the rest of their vast country. They are the nation's testing ground.

The old entrepreneurial spirit of America, however, turns out to be incompatible with this concept. The entrepreneurial spirit sees campaign expenses as a potential profit line. Politics be damned. Look at all that money!

Hence, the ugly jostle to steal dates, to push the primary dates forward until the first primary becomes meaningless.

Michigan is the latest culprit, going for January 15. That steals a month from the old schedule and pushes the primary primary and caucus states to yet earlier dates just to keep the status quo. It also forces the candidates to put more resources into Michigan - and that is what the game is all about. It is not that Michigan's 10 million people are in the least bit interested in taking on the political scrutiny game or even that they could. The sort of hands-on scrutiny that takes place in New Hampshire can only happen in the manageable demographics of a 1.3 million-strong New Hampshire, not in a hugely populous state. House parties in Detroit, population 5 million? Whose house is big enough? Intimate political contact is not a mass activity.
Mass political communication is - guess what? Advertising.
Hence, what Michigan seeks to achieve is to harness the campaign dollars into television advertising campaigns in Michigan. Forget human contact, genuine scrutiny of candidates and their policies. Let's have your dollars and whoever has the best advertising agency can win the presidency.
This is the short-sighted and mean-minded campaign now being waged in the USA. "Entrepreneur" is another word for "get rich quick" or "greedy". By definittion, entrepreneurship lacks wisdom, foresight or magnanimity.
These US states playing ugly entrepreneur games with the presidential primary are doing a serious disservice to their country.

Joe Biden, Democrat presidential candidate from the tiny state of Delaware, put it very well:


"Powerful interests are trying to change the Democratic nomination for President into a game of Monopoly, replacing the retail politics of Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire with a process in which the only credential necessary to be President is to be the wealthiest candidate.
Under the current calendar, voters can regularly meet candidates in their homes, town halls and diners. This provides an almost one on one opportunity to hold candidates accountable for their ideas and records for solving the most pressing issues facing this country. The communities of Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire provide a diverse array of voters and a level playing field for candidates to compete in, as a lead up to the larger states which will decide who the next Democratic nominee will be for President.

I call upon all of my fellow Democratic candidates to reaffirm their support for the retail role Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire and publicly ask their supporters, such as Democratic Senate Leader Mark Schauer, and Governor Granholm to oppose any attempts to break the Democratic National Committee’s “calendar window” as Republicans did in Florida on behalf of Mitt Romney.”

Political strategists in the mix

Sometimes one wonders just who is the real candidate.
I have no doubts about Hillary Clinton. She is the old hand. This is not her first time at the rodeo, so to speak. She has now spent decades in among the strategists, handlers, staffers and keen-bean volunteers. She has observed them from varied perspectives and I am pretty damned sure she is a step ahead of them and well aware of their assorted ambitions and motives.
Political strategists are both ally and encumbrance in the electoral process. One sees candidates fall into desperate holes thanks to the misguided directions of their strategists and, oh my, haven't we been seeing some firing, drop-outs and swerves of allegiance among the staffers as the primary plays out!
Hillary's association with the Mandy Grunwalds of this world go far back to a point of mutual understanding - or so I choose to think, having done the archival Hillary reading.
I see Mandy still there, a strong shadow in the scheme of things. Indeed, perhaps a stressed shadow, since last spotted on the campaign trail, she seemed to have put on a few pounds. Fast foods on rushed schedules, comfort foods in late night hotel rooms..?
I had an interesting insight into some of the localised campaign strategising for Hillary and, while charmed by the quality of some of the dedicated Democratic support, I found myself a little underwhelmed by the concepts of strategy. Well, put it this way, I've been to a few rodeos in my time, too, and there is not a lot I have not run into before. Oddly, there was no encouragement for us to put forth ideas. Strategic mistake. But it matters not a jot in this context, since all Hillary really needs to win votes is to be heard. Hardened cynics swing into her camp the moment they have actually seen and heard her on the stump! I've watched it happening!

Barack Obama, on the other hand, is surging towards a huge tumble as he follows the leads of his strategists who would seem to be urging him to "show some balls".
So he is uttering warmongering words - threatening Pakistan, for heaven's sake.
"The war we need to win" he touts - the chase for Osama bin Laden and al Quaeda. His latest campaign push is based on this strategy - and one can only assume it has been directed by strategists who seek to lure votes from the Right.

"Political masterminds have transformed the candidate from a political visionary into an electoral product like every other presidential aspirant", writes Chicago Times op ed columnist Salim Muwakkil.

Mukakkil has known Obama since the early 90s and offers dismal observations on the path that his campaign has been taking. He looks at the strategists. I look at the strategists. These people have their own agendas. They are potentially dangerous.

Indeed, they are a study in themselves - as are so many of the young staffers, each so very anxious to claim a piece of the action, the ingenuous quest for self-aggrandizement posing all manner of subtle problems for the smooth forward movement of the message.

With devotion and enthusiasm comes paranoia and territorial imperative.

The successful candidate will prevail, not because of their staff, but despite them.