I doubt you missed it, but in case you did--this week marked what amounts to a “shot across the bow” at the powers that be in the Democratic party. Some people (including Time Magazine) will suggest that it was nothing more than chum in the water as part of a book tour, but Barack Obama’s ever present face this week looks to me like the start of his campaign for President in 2008.
On the one hand this is a fantastic display of an orchestrated PR campaign (we had the Bob Woodward State of Denial one a couple weeks back). Senator Obama is on the cover of Time Magazine, is the topic of the lead story for Harper’s, and was the star guest on NBC’s Meet the Press this morning. It was clear to me from both articles and from the MTP appearance that Obama sees what he thinks is a wide open gap in the 2008 Democratic candidate race that he thinks he can fill.
The running assumption for many months has been that Hillary Clinton has had the Democratic nomination all but sewn up. Poll after poll has shown her as the “leader.” Of course, this far out from the election all those polls are nothing more than “filler” while we wait for the real show. Apparently, Senator Obama agrees with me, at least in the estimation that “Hillary is no Bill.” The Time article even takes a swipe at Hillary without saying so, “He’s a liberal, but not a screechy partisan.” Wow. Everyone knows who Joel Klein, the author, is talking about.
Maybe the Democratic Party is actually waking up to what it’s been doing wrong lately. It would seem that at least someone in this party has a new playbook, and its strategy is to position Barack Obama as the level-headed, objective, and “bi-partisan” liberal. Sometimes the PR campaign’s talking points aren’t as easy to pick out, but both articles and Tim Russet’s interview touched on Obama’s co-sponsorship of a bill with Okalahoma’s “arch-conservative” (oooh, scary) Tom Coburn, requiring federal contracts to be published in a public Internet database. I am all for making it easier to watch the government spend our money, but at the end of the day it sounds like a fairly innocuous piece of legislation. Who cares really? No, to me it seems more obvious that this bill (or at least all the banging on the drum about it) is a way of positioning Obama as the Democrat that “conservatives can work with.”
Okay, so maybe that was a bit of the cynical marketer in me trying to deconstruct their PR campaign. Now I’ll try to be a little more positive. There is clearly an enormous void in American politics today. Obama alluded to it in the Meet the Press interview this morning and I whole-heartedly agree. Where are the Lincoln’s, the FDR’s, the Ronald Reagan’s? Clearly, there is no single figure on the American political scene that truly helps us define how we look at ourselves as Americans. Yeah, I like “W” more or less. I agree with several of his ambitions for the country and stands that he’s taking. However, as they say, he’s “no Jack Kennedy (or more appropriately no Lincoln, no FDR, no RWR for that matter.)
So there are two questions here. One is can Senator Obama (or anyone else) wrest away control of the Democratic Party from the “we’ll never leave” Clintons? I thought it very interesting that Tim Russert quoted from Obama’s book about advice he received from George W. Bush, (paraphrasing) “Watch yourself. You have an incredible amount of potential, but with all this attention you’ll have everyone gunning for ya. And not just from my side, but from your side too.” It will be interesting to see if Hillary “strikes back” (yes, Empire reference intended), and how. Secondly, and much more interestingly, is the charismatic Barack Obama the person America is looking for to step up and fill our void? More than once in the above sited material (PR talking point?) the question was raised, “well, Senator Obama, you’ve only been a Senator for two years, is there danger that you’re reaching too high, too soon?” By raising it early and doing it themselves are they trying to take it off the table? Just interesting I think.
I like Barack Obama so far. I have no illusions; this guy is a total liberal. I doubt I would ever vote for him. However, he makes the political scene interesting. And I must admit, it is refreshing to hear someone from the liberal side of the isle who isn’t hurling insults, isn’t a conspiracy theorist, and is well, just plain less…screechy.
On the one hand this is a fantastic display of an orchestrated PR campaign (we had the Bob Woodward State of Denial one a couple weeks back). Senator Obama is on the cover of Time Magazine, is the topic of the lead story for Harper’s, and was the star guest on NBC’s Meet the Press this morning. It was clear to me from both articles and from the MTP appearance that Obama sees what he thinks is a wide open gap in the 2008 Democratic candidate race that he thinks he can fill.
The running assumption for many months has been that Hillary Clinton has had the Democratic nomination all but sewn up. Poll after poll has shown her as the “leader.” Of course, this far out from the election all those polls are nothing more than “filler” while we wait for the real show. Apparently, Senator Obama agrees with me, at least in the estimation that “Hillary is no Bill.” The Time article even takes a swipe at Hillary without saying so, “He’s a liberal, but not a screechy partisan.” Wow. Everyone knows who Joel Klein, the author, is talking about.
Maybe the Democratic Party is actually waking up to what it’s been doing wrong lately. It would seem that at least someone in this party has a new playbook, and its strategy is to position Barack Obama as the level-headed, objective, and “bi-partisan” liberal. Sometimes the PR campaign’s talking points aren’t as easy to pick out, but both articles and Tim Russet’s interview touched on Obama’s co-sponsorship of a bill with Okalahoma’s “arch-conservative” (oooh, scary) Tom Coburn, requiring federal contracts to be published in a public Internet database. I am all for making it easier to watch the government spend our money, but at the end of the day it sounds like a fairly innocuous piece of legislation. Who cares really? No, to me it seems more obvious that this bill (or at least all the banging on the drum about it) is a way of positioning Obama as the Democrat that “conservatives can work with.”
Okay, so maybe that was a bit of the cynical marketer in me trying to deconstruct their PR campaign. Now I’ll try to be a little more positive. There is clearly an enormous void in American politics today. Obama alluded to it in the Meet the Press interview this morning and I whole-heartedly agree. Where are the Lincoln’s, the FDR’s, the Ronald Reagan’s? Clearly, there is no single figure on the American political scene that truly helps us define how we look at ourselves as Americans. Yeah, I like “W” more or less. I agree with several of his ambitions for the country and stands that he’s taking. However, as they say, he’s “no Jack Kennedy (or more appropriately no Lincoln, no FDR, no RWR for that matter.)
So there are two questions here. One is can Senator Obama (or anyone else) wrest away control of the Democratic Party from the “we’ll never leave” Clintons? I thought it very interesting that Tim Russert quoted from Obama’s book about advice he received from George W. Bush, (paraphrasing) “Watch yourself. You have an incredible amount of potential, but with all this attention you’ll have everyone gunning for ya. And not just from my side, but from your side too.” It will be interesting to see if Hillary “strikes back” (yes, Empire reference intended), and how. Secondly, and much more interestingly, is the charismatic Barack Obama the person America is looking for to step up and fill our void? More than once in the above sited material (PR talking point?) the question was raised, “well, Senator Obama, you’ve only been a Senator for two years, is there danger that you’re reaching too high, too soon?” By raising it early and doing it themselves are they trying to take it off the table? Just interesting I think.
I like Barack Obama so far. I have no illusions; this guy is a total liberal. I doubt I would ever vote for him. However, he makes the political scene interesting. And I must admit, it is refreshing to hear someone from the liberal side of the isle who isn’t hurling insults, isn’t a conspiracy theorist, and is well, just plain less…screechy.
