I don't even see why you're bringing 'big government' ino this in the first place. Did Obama say that the government would solve all their problems? There are lots of ways to stimulate an economy, and a governmental role is only one aspect. He did refer to specific promises that were made in the past that remain unrealized to this day, but that's legitimate.
Big government, states' rights, no taxes – those are all conservative formulaic responses in every situation, it sems to me. . That approach doesn't work for me. The world is too comples to reduce every situation to such elemental, and thus simplistic, terms.
I don;t start with having the answer before I've examined the problem. I don't call for a big government or a small government. I want the right size governemtn to fulfill its obligations.
I'm looking for balance, but you start at one end of the spectrum and stay there, so regretfully, we will not meet.

What has all this to do with Obama, anyway? The way I see it, he is more about cleaning up the process than arriving at specific, as opposed to general, end goals. A primary goal is dislodging special interests. which would lead to deliberations on the principles and paragmatism of legislation, not on how well the legislation would pay off one or another group's interests.

I'm sorry, but your concern about big government has no relevance here, from my perspective.

Here's what I mean….Obama was pointing out that people are cynical about politicians promising to give them better economic conditions and then failing to deliver. He's correct, I think, on that point.

He's pointing out also that the cynicism leads them to give up, and that while that's understandable, it also isn't healthy or helpful.

OK, I'm with him there too, to an extent (though it's also partially an argument for conservativism- that the promises of politicians are often empty ones because the economy isn't nearly as controllable as they'd like to pretend it is.)

But in asking people to try to put their cynicism aside, if he doesn't give them any evidence that he will be able to deliver on his promises, then he really is asking for a religious type of faith. I will concede that he wasn't speaking to that target audience at the time, but in his follow up explanations for what he meant by the comments, I didn't hear anything that explained why people should put more trust in him than in his predecessors. Why should they give big government a chance this time around?

Quote: “But what did the comments actually convey, if not a call for people to have a religious type of faith in their government? “

You have to stretch very far, too far, to get that kind of meaning from Obama's words. There is a night-and-day difference between religious faith and the expectation that the government will act in the interests of its citizens and will keep its word to them.

Similarly, there is an equally vast difference between being sceptical about the government's intentions and banning it from the arena of conducting civil affairs.

Scepticism about all things is healthy, including business interests, religious instituions, grass roots movements (lynchings were grass roots efforts) – everything. Undue scepticism can bring a society to a screeching halt, unable to move in any direction, because everything seems suspicious.

And btw, when referring to the FF in the context of a specific issue, not their collaboative product of the Constituion, we should really be aware of which FF we are talking about., as there was wide disagreement.. What strikes me is how aware they were that they couldn't predict conditions in the future, nor how people would relate to the government.

And then in MG's analysis of Obama's 'small town bitterness' comments, he seems to look on the remarks favorably- presumably because he thinks Obama was speaking some hard truths. But what did the comments actually convey, if not a call for people to have a religious type of faith in their government? The comments pointed out reasons that people distrust government, yet he offered no concrete reasons to think that he'd usher in new policies that will raise the economic conditions in those towns- he only offered that people should have faith.

That's not, as runasim suggests, the kind of faith that our founding fathers asked the citizens to have. In fact they knew that the people should be quite skeptical about the powers of government, and should keep it on a short leash. What they asked people to have faith in was that they could create a constrained system with checks and balances so that the people could have maximum potential to take care of their own affairs without government interference.

When you consider that this country was founded by a leap of faith, a decision by a group of men of different beliefs and philosophies , to create something new, you begin to understand the power that such a decision can have.
People may vote for Obama, or not vote for him for different reasons, but once again, many of those who support him are looking to create something new, a new direction.

The faith that's required for such a leap need not be blind faith, not at all.
The Founding Fathers didn't write the Consitution without a great deal of thought ,deliberation and debate. Likewise, Obama 's ability to fulfill the hopes is now being thought over, deliberated upon and debated. The leap of faith will happen in the voting booth.

I just want to say that, though the reasons may be as varied as snowflakes,, every candidate thinks he will do something good for the country. The burdens of the preisency are so heavy, few would seek the job just for the glory alone. It's up to us to judge if what the candidate wants to do for the ocuntry is what we want done.

AS there is no assurance that our dudgment will turn out to be corrrect, you can say that every vote is a leap of faith.

All that being said, I have no problem pointing out the BS candidates engage in and praising them when they strike “gold”

And I'll check back when I find out why Obama's running, now that I know it's not to actually get elected.

Interesting take you have.
temple

I was fascinated by the religious/spiritual aspect of it — the Kirkegaardian “leap of faith” — which seems characteristic of many supporters of Obama.

Now it is one thing to have a leap of faith for a deity who is silent . . . and another for a politician. Perhaps it is necessary to leap into the unknown with Obama, since little is known about him…in contrast to HRC or McCain, who both have extensive paper trails.

I support HRC…but I am a pretty cynical character, and hence my support is not personal . . . it is business. I admire her pluck, but find other aspects of her character very unappealing. Her platform is probably the best of the three, in general I think.

What is fascinating to me about the Obama appeal is how deeply personal it is for many . . . almost religious . . . despite these people being often secular liberals.

Obama seems to have touched something in a lot of people.

It would be nice if other folks here — like Holly or T-Steel — could write posts describing why they favour one or another candidate in such a way as Michael has.

Not to start a Flame War…but as a matter of interest.

https://webmail.pas.earthlink.net/wam/addme?a=h…

I wonder which white relative he can slam in order to make people happy this time.

C'mon. I don't see a litany of white relatives coming out and saying they feel betrayed. Puh-leeze.