The Presidential Campaign: Good Change, Bad Change, No Change & Spare Change
Change is the lodestar of this presidential campaign season.
The notion of change is, of course, an integral part of the campaign of practically every non-incumbent candidate, but the degree to which it suffuses the 2008 contest is extraordinary.
For starters, the Democratic nominee will be either a woman or an African-American for the first time, and there is a very good chance that one of them will be the next president.
As the result of a presidential regime whose signal accomplishment has been to alienate the public, long-term economic trends that further threaten the viability of the middle class and a feeling that today’s challenges are beyond the grasp of institutions that are supposed to help see us through hard times, voters thirst for change even if they are unsure about what that should be.
Barack Obama, of course, has turned what seemed to be an improbable quest into the big story of the primaries because of the power of his own message of change.
But not commented on is what this message means to Washington insiders – the media bigshots, consultants and other camp followers – who are confronted with the prospect of having to deal with, as well as possibly accommodate, Obama’s army of bright-eyed idealists for whom politics is a passion and not a paycheck.
These are the insiders whom Atrios derisively calls the Villagers. They are the permanent, self aggrandizing inside the beltway clique for whom change, except for the abstraction of a stump speech or television commercial, and the quadrennial shuffle of used-up candidates in and out, is anathema because this clique grows more incestuous by the campaign cycle and views the voting public as a bunch of rubes to be diddled.
The Hillary Clinton and John McCain organizations are joined at the hip with this clique, while Obama can be viewed as a threat to its monopoly on how the game is played and how the players are rewarded.
Having tired of JFK comparisons (of which I too am guilty) and having been unable to pin anything particularly egregious on Obama other than his having experimented with drugs as a teenager and been in the same room a few times with a notorious Chicago slumlord, look for the mainstream media to begin pulling out the stops over the excitement he generates.
Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times is merely embarrassed by Obama supporters, while ABC News chief national correspondent Jake Tapper observes that when he sees the excitement generated by Obama he can think of only one thing — a cult.
A little over the top, wouldn’t you say?
Tapper later appended his post to say he’s all for enthusiasm in politics but was merely touching on the fact that some Obama supporters’ exuberance seems to be getting a little out of hand. (I wonder what he would have thought back in 1968 when legions of long-haired and bearded young men, including both of my roomates at the time, “Got Clean For Gene” so that they would be more respectable looking as Eugene McCarthy workers for his own campaign of change.)
Could Master Jake be a Villager who is feeling threatened?
From arriving at the polls to waiting in line to going into the booth and pulling levers or pressing buttons, voting has always been a deeply personal experience for me, and the more people who feel similarly the better off we are.
This is why a change that on its face seems good may not be.
California is in the vanguard of states permitting early voting by mail. In fact, about half of all votes cast in the Super Tuesday primary had been signed, sealed and delivered before Election Day.
It’s a good thing that people who want to vote aren’t locked into having to juggle their schedules to go to a polling place on a certain day and at a certain time or go through the red tape that once made absentee voting so difficult.
But filling out a mail-in ballot while sitting at a kitchen table or behind the wheel in a McDonald’s drive-through lane cheapens perhaps the most important civic duty, and that’s not the half of it.
How many of those early California voters would have voted differently if they hadn’t had that option and instead of mailing in their ballots three or four weeks out had been exposed to the debates and speechifying in the days before Super Tuesday, including Obama’s bat-out-of-hell charge from well behind Clinton to nearly break even with her?
I suspect that the outcome might have been different.
Does that matter? If you believe in politics and voting as personal experience, then it does. If you believe that convenience trumps personal experience then you can order me a Super Sized Fries and a large Coke.
For a good Catholic girl with impecible conservative credentials, Peggy Noonan has been going through some changes of her own.
Perhaps you could call it getting religion.
Noonan, a former Reagan speechwriter and present day Wall Street Journal columnist, first broke ranks with the neocons over the Iraq war and then with President Bush.
Writing about the problems that Clinton now finds herself saddled with, chief among them a reality the mainstream media cannot yet utter — that Obama for the moment is eating her lunch — Noonan wryly notes:
“The Democrats have it exactly wrong. Hillary is the easier candidate, Mr. Obama the tougher. Hillary brings negative; it’s fair to hit her back with negative. Mr. Obama brings hope, and speaks of a better way. He’s not Bambi, he’s bulletproof.
“The biggest problem for the Republicans will be that no matter what they say that is not issue oriented–’He’s too young, he’s never run anything, he’s not fully baked’ –the mainstream media will tag them as dealing in racial overtones, or undertones. You can bet on this. Go to the bank on it.
“The Democrats continue not to recognize what they have in this guy. Believe me, Republican professionals know. They can tell.”
Music has lost its power to change the world.
That message is courtesy of movie director Bernard Shakey, who is better known as Neil Young, the writer of so many politically charged songs.
In Berlin for a screening of his new movie, CSNY Deja Vu, Shakey-Young opined:
”I think that the time when music could change the world is past. I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age.
”I think the world today is a different place, and that it’s time for science and physics and spirituality to make a difference in this world and to try to save the planet.”
Perhaps it is naive to think that music can help bring change. If so, then color me naive.
Young has been one of the few troubadors who never shrank from speaking their musical mind — from racism in “Southern Man” in 1970 to the hypocrisy of the Iraq war in “Living in War” in 2006 — so his catharsis is disheartening.
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12 Responses to “The Presidential Campaign: Good Change, Bad Change, No Change & Spare Change”
Would I be correct in assuming that the antecedent to “the insiders” is “the media bigshots, consultants and other camp followers”? That's the way it makes the most sense although one might assume that the referent was to the nearer clause, i.e. “Obama’s army of bright-eyed idealists”, which makes little sense.
I think you need to add one more group to “the villagers”: the career Congressmen, elected for life by virtue of the phenomenon of safe seats.
These are the people who bid fair actually to decide who the candidate will be. I continue to think that Obama will need to take some big states e.g. Ohio or Pennsylvania by substantial margins in order to gain their support. Otherwise I think they're more likely to stay with the devil they know. And fear.
Dave:
All correct.
Are the Obama supporters setting themselves up for disappointment. After helping my daughter's high school with mock Congress and seeing the huge distance between reality and the way high school students believe the government operates, I have come to see the same problem with Obama supporters.
Obama will be sworn in half way through the FY09 fiscal year. It will take him a couple of months to fill all of the political appointment positions. Thus, no getting out of Iraq in 60 days or starting any major policy decisions for several more months. He will also likely step on at least one political land mine (such as Clinton did with homosexuals in the military).
The villagers, the established bureaucracy, the legislators, and the NGO's will all work to protect their positions. Also, Obama will have to translate his vague, generic positions into actual policy positions and will immediately lose the support of people who have misinterpreted what he said on the campaign trail.
I agree with what Peggy Noonan said and that is what persuades me to support Obama – The possibility of a break with the gridlock of the past.
However if the Democrats don't close in on 60 votes in the Senate then all of the best laid plans and hopes of Obama may evaporate.
Shaun – Obama represents only a tipping point for change. As you correctly point out there are a whole slew of people and institutions blocking real change anytime soon. What I see in an Obama Presidency is not a revolution but an evolution of change. America has some deeply entrenched problems, fiscal, societal and political. Obama, even in a two term Presidency will only scratch the surface of these problems but hopefully will be building momentum for more change down the road.
Obama will need to prioritize the needed changes. Our fiscal problems are enormous and if he can balance the budget sometime in the next 4 years that will not only be a great start but probably all that can be accomplished. On the political front, he must try to establish a permanent political majority so that change and gains are not reversed in the next election cycle. I think redistricting reform is an essential place to start. Incombant protection is killing the vibrancy of our democracy.
In short, I am an Obama supporter who recognizes the limitations of what he can accomplish and have counseled fellow supporters to be realistic – it's a couple of decades process we are about to embark on.
jdledell,
As long as the government has trillions of dollars and 100,000 of pages of regulations, the culture of Washington, DC will remain the same. As an Obama Administration tries to nationalize healthcare (single payer healthcare) and starts a national industrial policy (greenhouse gas regulations) the problems in DC will get worse instead of get better.
Specifically,
The idea of raising taxes by 400 billion per year to balance the budget when have huge negative effects on some aspects of the population.
The idea of a the “a permanent political majority” will create a huge amount of corruption. If the political process is cut off to most Americans, they will resort to corruption.
The idea of letting Ivy League trained lawyers run ever aspect of our lives (except drugs and sex) is very Orwellian and will not do anything but make the DC more powerful, more intrusive, and more insider based.
“Are the Obama supporters setting themselves up for disappointment.”
Yes, they are — many of them are just starry-eyed, naive idealists (and groupies).
There won't be much change (much less greater government interventionism and activism, what grown-up Americans reject wholeheartedly), not as much as they imagine. And no, we don't have faith in a bunch of “Whiz Kids” following Obama to Washington.
However, if we do get Obama in the White House, there is at least potential for that “shake-up” at least of personnel, if not of much policy, and that is welcome.
Change, or at least a departure from business as usual, is sought. Don't forget also that even Clinton supporters want to see a Democrat in the White House. While so much of the record Dem turnout in elections is obviously due to the Obama phenomenon (and look at the crowd in the photo Shaun posted to begin this thread), don't neglect the Clinton supporters. I've checked current truly-conservative sentiment about McCain and the GOP's chances in November lately by viewing Town Hall, the conservative site (fortunately, not had to field much garbage on this liberal site about such a thing), and those who have had the stomach to view the reader remarks there will have noted an occasional warning posted by readers, that everywhere, Demoratic voter turnout has been enormous. This looks to be a massive Democratic vote-wave this November, by all observations to date.
The youth vote
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/730/young-voters
For Superdestroyer in particular:
“The villagers, the established bureaucracy, the legislators, and the NGO's will all work to protect their positions.”
Don't forget who likes McCain — the business community, who wants to protect the flow of immigrants into the USA to keep labor costs low. I'm sure they'll be happy on immigration with either Dem candidate, though taxes and regulation will annoy to alarm them as much as it would Americans in general.
Your immigrant-driven doomsday scenario, SD, will take longer to materialize than you currently expect.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/729/united-states-p…
Meanwhile, Calderon is visiting from Mexico and what does he want? “a wider vision and a peaceful, objective analysis, less emotional and more rational about the phenomenon of immigration” … “bridges of cooperation and understanding instead of building walls”
In other words, he wants more lax US immigration controls, more income heading to Mexico (some of which no doubt will be redirected to Mexican government officials), and a bigger, better safety valve for Mexico. Will our next President move in this direction?
“raising taxes by 400 billion per year to balance the budget”
Where are the spending reductions? Not merely reductions in growth, but absolute reductions?
And a need for “change” in the GOP?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/opinion/10dou…
Obama vs. Clinton
————————-
“A few days ago I was at a dinner party of Seattle liberals – people who usually sing in tedious harmony on every issue from Iraq to the crying need for universal healthcare – when a small war broke out at the top of the table.
Recounting a conversation with a friend, a white woman said that, after so many decades of the struggle for women's rights, it was disheartening and unfair that Hillary Clinton's historic candidacy was in danger of being derailed by that of the first-term junior senator from Illinois.
As she spoke, I saw her neighbour, a retired black professor, staring grimly at his plate. Face averted from her, still looking down, he said: “Anyone – anyone – who equates the situation of women in this country with the struggle for civil rights by blacks is talking bullshit.” That was an utterly unexpected word from him – a man of graceful and formal manners – and the shock of it reverberated down the table.
I wondered how many leftish-leaning dinner parties across America were at that moment fracturing, like this one, along the lines of race and gender, not to mention the lesser ones of age and class. …”
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentato…