The U.S. readies for Obama versus clinton
The U.S. readies for Obama versus clinton
Published: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 Of all the things Barack Obama can say to himself this week that the rest of us needn't, "Thank God I wasn't named Time magazine's Person of the Year," may be the most important.
What with all the other hype fuelling the current Obamarama, the last thing the junior senator from Illinois and presumptive candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for president needed was to be lionized on the cover of Time for the second time in two months, and this time with inevitable comparisons to Martin Luther King's Time cover as the man of 1963.
Instead, he and the current Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, are squaring off on the cover of Newsweek under the headline, "The Race is On," to advertise an early exploration of which prospect Americans might be less balky about: a woman president or an African-American one. In Newsweek's poll, 86 per cent of registered voters say they'd vote for a qualified female candidate for president if their party nominated one, and 93 per cent say the same for a qualified African-American.
Although those numbers are much higher than they were a generation ago or even a decade ago, they drop precipitously when respondents are asked about whether they think everyone else is as open-minded as they are. When asked whether "America is ready to elect a woman president," only 55 per cent said yes, with 56 per cent answering in the affirmative for an African-American presidential candidate. Most interestingly, women are more skeptical about Clinton's prospects and blacks about Obama's.
There is more than a year to go before the January 2008 New Hampshire primary that will officially launch the presidential campaign that will, barring a last-minute turnabout from Jeb, end the Bush era that has so dramatically redefined the United States since 2000.
But there in New Hampshire last week was Obama, single-handedly if fleetingly raising the black population of the state close to one per cent with his 24-hour pre-primary speed date with the most relentlessly courted ornery white people on Earth.
The Manchester Union-Leader, arguably the most powerful newspaper per reader pound in the world, breathlessly called it "Obama mania," reporting as to how 150 reporters were following the non-candidate and, "Fox News was airing live reports from the Merrimack Restaurant on Elm Street more than 24 hours before Obama was scheduled to speak."
Eight states down the I-95, in Washington, pundits were tripping all over themselves and each other to come up with new ways to describe the Obama mystique. Is he the black Bobby Kennedy or the white Bill Clinton, as Newsweek's Howard Fineman says: a man whose appeal transcends not just race but prejudice itself to make him, politically speaking, colourless?
Whatever he has, it is not the reverse, uncharismatic charisma of a Stephane Dion. Obama has genuine, unfettered, crowd-hushing charisma that is closer to Bobby Kennedy than Bill Clinton because of the way he talks about the United States, and that was apparent about three minutes into his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention.
Unlike the current president, who talks about the United States like a bouncer, or Clinton, who talked about the United States like either a wonk or a Southern Baptist preacher, Obama talks about the United States, as Robert Kennedy did, like someone who knows it has to change and loves it anyway.
More than anything, Barack Obama is the walking reflection of Americans' projected wishes for something more hopeful, less cynical and less treacherous than what has been going on with their country. Part black, part white, part Christian, part Muslim, born in Hawaii and raised in Jakarta, Obama is about as far from the George W. Bush model of inherited white American privilege as you can get. But if people can't articulate what it is they like about him beyond that he's "new," "fresh" and "different," then it's not about him, it's still about another guy, and being nothing but not-the-other-guy might give you a great first trip to New Hampshire but if every reporter quotes 10 people on what it's like to look at you, and quotes the same line from you about how that feels, ("It's flattering to get a lot of attention, although I must say it's baffling, particularly to my wife.") then you could have a longevity problem.
As these things go, there will likely be a morning at some point in the next six months to a year when Barack Obama will wake up, look at a headline in the Washington Post or the New York Times and know that the "phenomenon" part of his political education is over and that he is up against a cabal more ruthless, more politically sophisticated, more bent on winning than anything he ever ran across at Harvard Law School.
It will be the Clintons' way of saying, "Welcome to the major leagues." It will also be the real sign that the race is on.
Lisa Van Dusen, a former international news editor in Washington, D.C. and international news writer at ABC News in New York, now lives in Montreal.
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/story.html?id=a0cedaaf-825f-4151-9061-02c7f3766ab5&p=1
Published: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 Of all the things Barack Obama can say to himself this week that the rest of us needn't, "Thank God I wasn't named Time magazine's Person of the Year," may be the most important.
What with all the other hype fuelling the current Obamarama, the last thing the junior senator from Illinois and presumptive candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for president needed was to be lionized on the cover of Time for the second time in two months, and this time with inevitable comparisons to Martin Luther King's Time cover as the man of 1963.
Instead, he and the current Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, are squaring off on the cover of Newsweek under the headline, "The Race is On," to advertise an early exploration of which prospect Americans might be less balky about: a woman president or an African-American one. In Newsweek's poll, 86 per cent of registered voters say they'd vote for a qualified female candidate for president if their party nominated one, and 93 per cent say the same for a qualified African-American.
Although those numbers are much higher than they were a generation ago or even a decade ago, they drop precipitously when respondents are asked about whether they think everyone else is as open-minded as they are. When asked whether "America is ready to elect a woman president," only 55 per cent said yes, with 56 per cent answering in the affirmative for an African-American presidential candidate. Most interestingly, women are more skeptical about Clinton's prospects and blacks about Obama's.
There is more than a year to go before the January 2008 New Hampshire primary that will officially launch the presidential campaign that will, barring a last-minute turnabout from Jeb, end the Bush era that has so dramatically redefined the United States since 2000.
But there in New Hampshire last week was Obama, single-handedly if fleetingly raising the black population of the state close to one per cent with his 24-hour pre-primary speed date with the most relentlessly courted ornery white people on Earth.
The Manchester Union-Leader, arguably the most powerful newspaper per reader pound in the world, breathlessly called it "Obama mania," reporting as to how 150 reporters were following the non-candidate and, "Fox News was airing live reports from the Merrimack Restaurant on Elm Street more than 24 hours before Obama was scheduled to speak."
Eight states down the I-95, in Washington, pundits were tripping all over themselves and each other to come up with new ways to describe the Obama mystique. Is he the black Bobby Kennedy or the white Bill Clinton, as Newsweek's Howard Fineman says: a man whose appeal transcends not just race but prejudice itself to make him, politically speaking, colourless?
Whatever he has, it is not the reverse, uncharismatic charisma of a Stephane Dion. Obama has genuine, unfettered, crowd-hushing charisma that is closer to Bobby Kennedy than Bill Clinton because of the way he talks about the United States, and that was apparent about three minutes into his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention.
Unlike the current president, who talks about the United States like a bouncer, or Clinton, who talked about the United States like either a wonk or a Southern Baptist preacher, Obama talks about the United States, as Robert Kennedy did, like someone who knows it has to change and loves it anyway.
More than anything, Barack Obama is the walking reflection of Americans' projected wishes for something more hopeful, less cynical and less treacherous than what has been going on with their country. Part black, part white, part Christian, part Muslim, born in Hawaii and raised in Jakarta, Obama is about as far from the George W. Bush model of inherited white American privilege as you can get. But if people can't articulate what it is they like about him beyond that he's "new," "fresh" and "different," then it's not about him, it's still about another guy, and being nothing but not-the-other-guy might give you a great first trip to New Hampshire but if every reporter quotes 10 people on what it's like to look at you, and quotes the same line from you about how that feels, ("It's flattering to get a lot of attention, although I must say it's baffling, particularly to my wife.") then you could have a longevity problem.
As these things go, there will likely be a morning at some point in the next six months to a year when Barack Obama will wake up, look at a headline in the Washington Post or the New York Times and know that the "phenomenon" part of his political education is over and that he is up against a cabal more ruthless, more politically sophisticated, more bent on winning than anything he ever ran across at Harvard Law School.
It will be the Clintons' way of saying, "Welcome to the major leagues." It will also be the real sign that the race is on.
Lisa Van Dusen, a former international news editor in Washington, D.C. and international news writer at ABC News in New York, now lives in Montreal.
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/story.html?id=a0cedaaf-825f-4151-9061-02c7f3766ab5&p=1
posted by presgore19 at 6:44 PM
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