Obama being Obama
“U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois told more than 2,000 evangelical leaders in Orange County on Friday that he “respectfully but unequivocallyâ€? disagrees with those who oppose condom distribution to fight the AIDS pandemic. But he said a solution to the worldwide spread of AIDS would also come from churches guiding people to make moral decisions…In measured words, he dismissed the notion that simply discouraging promiscuity could stop the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS…â€?We can’t ignore the fact that abstinence and fidelity, although the ideal, may not always be the reality — that we’re dealing with flesh and blood men and women and not abstractions, and that if condoms and, potentially, things like microbicides, can prevent millions of deaths, then they should be made more widely available,â€? he said.” – LA Times
What a guy!
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What the hell is it about him? It can’t just be that he’s a good speaker. I’ll admit it, I’m star-struck. I’m too young to know what JFK was like but the way he was spoken of reminds me of the way this man makes me feel. Frankly, I don’t get it. Is it because I’m so weary of seeing people demonize one another and call one side evil that when someone comes along and says that you can disagree without hating (hardly a brilliant discovery) and who’s politics I happen to like I become downright mushy?
Reading this blog it seems I’m certainly not the only one. I think we’ve had three posts in two days about the junior senator from Illinois. SOMETHING is at play here. Anyone want to tell me what it is?
I think you hit it. Articulate pragmatic candor is intoxicating to moderates.
In the early summer of 04, I first heard of the guy running for senator of my state. People were so taken by him and crowds turned up everywhere all entranced.
I am not a person easily swayed by a politician. I saw Bush for what he was from the start. All his political sloganing were just that.
I watched him at Harkins steak fry on cspan and was still entranced. He just carries you away. There is no reasoning why. It’s just amazing.
But, unlike alot of people claim, he has done alot of work in the senate passing small, unsexy bills. Not the big, publicized things. Small meat and potatoes stuff to improve life. Many think he’s not done much because the small everyday stuff never gets noticed.
In the state senate he had a rep for being “the brain” and not for speaking, which he did very little of. A policy wonk.
Even with the fact that so many are carried away by him, I think many more will be surprised by the depth of him. they don’t know of his old rep of brainy and hard working. Issues guy.
If he runs, and when he is on the trail and in debates, alot of people will be very surprised.
There have been some attacks against Obama in the left-wing blogosphere in the last couple of days. Some are uber-concerned about his so-called lack of experience, some really seem to despise him because he encourages Democrats to speak about religion if they have religious beliefs, and there’s the same old same old: he doesn’t meet the purity test of having supported Lamont enough, etc.
Personally, I just find him so compelling that I did some more research on my own and I agree with vwcat, that he’s got more substance than people give him credit for. I’m enormously impressed that he did low-pay community building work right out of Harvard Law. And he’s just built his resume since then.
My opinion is that he might as well run in the Primaries and undergo all the fire one has to go through to get the nomination. See if he passes the test – it’s not a done deal, just an opportunity for him to test the waters and see how folks respond. Personally, I’d like somebody to save me from a Hillary nomination. I think part of the Obama effect a lot of us feel is because he appeals to our better natures in an authentic way and it’s been a while since a Politician has done that.
I haven’t seen his speeches or public speaking, nor do I plan to do so (outside of current PotUS, I avoid politician speeches).
His actual statements seem fairly boring and middle of the road. I guess that could work for the Democrats, compared to HilCare Clinton, and he’d be a better choice for boring, middle-of-road than the more experienced (and therefore owning more skeletons in the closet) candidates like Kerry.
I’ll say he’s very good as working as a sponge, though : whatever you want to see, he’s willing to take it an project it.
He’s done the basics : been deblacked on the TIME magazine cover, find some trace to Jewish roots (Barack -> Barauch), and been somehow compared to the entire United Nations (on Oprah, no less), and been. No governership, though : (.
He won’t do well, of course. The Democrats will be terrified of losing southern states (cause we’re all racist, redneck hicks, donchaknow, not at like the the elegant 99.7% white NorthEasternites), and I’d hope that after trouncing the Dems got in the 90s, they’d know better than advocate someone who “believe[s] in common gun safety laws like the assault weapons bill.”
As to the AIDs thing… even in heterosexual genital-genital couplings, HIV is known to regularly penetrate condoms (I’ve seen values between 2% and 5% per year of ideal use; much, much higher for new users or homosexual couplings. Expect only 80% protection compared to normal transmission rates according to what I can find).
I wouldn’t slam my johnson in a door if it were protected 19 times out of 20. I don’t think it’s firm public policy to advise others to do the same. Compared to rapid testing and promoting safer sex among only those infected (including, yes, condoms, but also promoting oral intercourse and other threat reduction techniques)… saying not to have sex but giving free condoms out doesn’t seem the best choice.
Gattsuru,
Can you provide a link to the studies that you mentioned in your comment. I want to see if condoms are really that ineffective. If they are I would like to sue the condom makers and other scientists who have come out and said that condoms “reduce” the chances of contracting HIV, which clearly is false according to the studies that you mention here.
PS. Please be quick
Obama has what is lacking in today’s political climate- a fresh moderate approach that is unstained by corruption or political hackery. He is genuine , able to work in a bipartisan way, and offers hope not fear for what lies ahead. Americans are tired of living constantly under the threat of terrorism, and being reminded constantly that our way of life is at stake. His message is more about the best of America, not the worst. We only have to look at the last campaign to see appeals to the worst of our natures. Even when they work, they make us feel lousy about ourselves as Americans. We have lived in fear and felt lousy about our image abroad-here’s an opportunity to start anew. Obama’s appeal lies in his newness, and inexperience on the Washington scene.
gattsuru,
I appreciate your skepticism.
It is helpful for someone to make us stop for a moment and double check our reality.
I share your same concern that Obama is relatively weak on executive experience as compared to a governor.
I support the second amendment but would like to limit access by predators.
No method to prevent STD is 100% effective. But I think we should do what we can.
Rebuttal: W.
Bush did a relatively good job in Texas.
The problem wasn’t his lack of productive experience it was how his politics changed as President.
I still would prefer a Presidential candidate who has experience negotiating with a divided legislature.
Yeah gattsuru is there a link? I tried and can’t find it. However, mathematically (if wikipedia is right) what you’re saying is both right and misleading.
The transmission rate for (vaginal receptive) unprotected sex is 10/10,000 exposures = 0.1% chance per event. Since condoms reduce it by 80%, that means it goes down to 2/10,000 or 0.02%.
Then it’s all about probability for determining annual risk. I’ll assume each event is independent (does anyone know otherwise?) so intercourse 150 times a year would have a annual probability of 1.0 – (1.0-.0002)^150 = 3% chance of getting HIV per year.
However, without a condom it would be 1.0 – (1.0-0.001)^150 = 14% chance of getting HIV in any given year.
The real difference is over many years. Twenty years of having unprotected sex gives a 95% chance of contraction while twenty years of protected is 46% chance. Cutting it in half is definitely a worthwhile goal. Remember, all these numbers are if intercourse was with a HIV infected person each time.
Obama’s problem is people farther Right of Gattsuru and really crazy may try to kill him. This is one small reason why Poweell wouldn’t run for POTUS.
Oh I forgot to mention one more thing and that’s that the probability is per person. If you look at it as a rate (i.e. since the whole population has sex, it will grow at the same rate as each individual) and use a logistic population model — which is OK for disease transmission under most circumstances — then we see a huge difference.
For Sub-Saharan Africa I used 25 million for currently infected, with a carrying capacity of 300 million (50% of the population currently there, which seems like a reasonable guesstimate since in some places 66% of the population is infected) and looked to see how things will change over 20-year generations.
Unprotected it went 25,46,84,141,212,271,296,299….
Protected it went 25,35,49, 93,123,156,192,222
Of course this is simplified, but if the disease rates and populations didn’t change, then in 100 years of condom usage about 120 million people less would be infected with HIV. It would take 16 generations to reach 300 million as oppossed to 7…so it would take about 180 longer for the protected rates to max out.
er 180 years longer. Of course in generation 13 there would be >290 million, but still that’s 140 years more for it to get close to maxing out.
Mikkel,
I suggest you write a few hundred words summarizing your thoughts on this topic and ask Joe Gandelman to run it as a guest post.
Your knowledge may be obscured by the generality of the original post.
Paul, sounds good. It actually gives me the idea of inquiring whether I could become a regular co-blogger that comments on some basic mathematical concepts that crop up a lot in political topices to (hopefully) give most people a base to evaluate claims they read.
Rudi, not very likely. He’s too generic to get that sort of response. Clinton II, yes, but anyone after Obama would be worse, and be sure to win.
Mikkel, my numbers were largely based on napkin math, using the article linked to by Wikipedia (Vargess et all, 2002) and a couple assumptions about rate of actual events and the actual use of condoms. While yours are more numerically substantial, they also make some false assumptions.
You’re not going to see, for example, a 100% correct use rate, or even a 100% use rate, no matter how well individuals are educated – it’s just not a reasonable assumption. Individuals will also have sexual relations they perceive as risky less often than relations they perceive as more risky. You’re also ignoring alternatives other than advocating no condom use – as I noted, promoting abstinence and targeted testing followed by condom use and – which may be more effective.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not disagreeing with any of your points at all…I’m just saying that the common argument that condoms themselves won’t do much isn’t accurate. For example, all my math would be most valid if both the disease and sexual activity was uniform across the population. Obviously this isn’t true at all, and identifying and targeting the most at risk groups would make a much bigger difference than general outreaches.
Like you said, perhaps the number one most important step is testing and identifying risk groups. Another important step is to have cheap anti-virals to reduce the viral load and make spreading it much more unlikely. Obviously it’s also important to change mentalities based on the region. In some places so many people have HIV that they are resigned to getting it and figure it’s not worth it to try not to. In others, it’s common but still rare enough to think “I probably won’t get it.”
Doing simple math like I did above is vital to make people understand that even with high incidences of HIV, you can have a substational reduction in transmission through simple behavioral change (both using condoms and everything you said) but that with low incidence of HIV and no behavioral change there is a huge risk of infection over 20-30 years.
So Basically, Barack Obama is telling the Church to do what it has been doing for 2,000 years (e.g. trying to guide members to moral decisions, esp. those regarding pre-marital sex and the avoidance of it). Well Done Barack.
Next Stop: Tell Planned Parenthood to continue its program of abortion on demand. (and give them mad props while he’s there)
Then: Tell the Congress to continue spending like drunkards.
Finally: Tell Larry the Cable Guy to keep saying Git’R Done.
I fail to see what makes this man so inspiring and insightful. If you look at his (small) record he’s basically the anti-evangelical on abortion. Clinton II is an accurate depiction, except Slick Willie plays a better game than Barack. He’s going to be talking a big game about being moderate, but should he get in office, he’ll turn left so fast even the Kos Kidz will be blindsided.
Barack seems to me like the recently elected empty suit in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. About the only words you can use to describe him are “charismatic” and “a great speaker”. His platform? What platform? An empty suit might fly in Massachusetts, where a D next to your name grants you a rubber stamp of approval, but it won’t fly at the national level.
Is that the same Massachussettes where conservative Republican Mitt Romney lives in the Governor’s mansion for some reason? I hate unelected people squatting in Governor’s mansions.
Mitt Romney was hardly unelected, he kept the office for nearly 16 years. Only Democrats complain about “stolen” elections, despite the fact the most recent actual example was Robert Kennedy’s theft of one.
If Republicans win: “ITS DIEBOLD I TELL YOU! RIGGED ELECTION RIGGED ELECTION!”
If Democrats win: “Voting machine problems? What voting machine problems? I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Massachusetts, constantly veering left at every turn despite the exodus from our Commonwealth, has now decided Massachusetts needs to be a one-party state. I have not heard Harry Reid complain about the evils of having one party in power thus far, as I imagine he only cares when it is the other party that has the monopoly.
Quite frankly I’m happy the Democrats won this time, it is cool not to have suffer through another 2, 4, or 6 (depending on office) years of “STOLEN ELECTION GET YOUR TINFOIL HAT!”