The Obama Phenomenon and the 2008 Presidential Campaign

[Cerin]

'This Week with George Stephanopoulos' ends their show with squibs from the late night comedians. They showed one today from the Daily Show which I thought perfectly captured the dynamic of the Obama buzz.

Unfortunately, it isn't really something that I can convey verbally, but it was typically astute.

[Angbasdil]

Here it is, Cerin.

ain't youtube great

[Primula Baggins]

YouTube is fannnntastic.

And, as usual, Jon Stewart's bit was cogent and funny.

[yovargas]

"I'm...AWESOME!!"

[Túrin Turambar]

Fox News doesn't seem to like Obama very much.

I can't quite get my head around showing pictures of him while running a story about a sex offender.

[Alatar]

That is more than a little scary...

[tinwë]

Par for the course for Fox, if you ask me. Keith Olberman covered part of this on his program last night. The Washington Times magazine Insight printed the story about Obama attending a Muslim Madrassa, which turned out, of course, to be a complete lie. Fox then took the story and claimed that it was Clinton who was spreading the lie. Which, of course, was a lie.

Keith Olberman

Personally, I’d vote for Olberman for president.

[Primula Baggins]

I wouldn't. I think we need him in his present job—no matter who's president.

He has done a lot to stir the mainstream media out of their cowardly paralysis, simply by reporting realities about the war and the president's handling of it and not immediately being snuffed out by the finger of God (and in fact getting better ratings—that always gets their attention).

[axordil]

There's been an interesting exchange of essays over at salon.com this week on the question of whether Obama is "really" black.

I will see if I can link...if not I will cut and paste. I think they have an ad preview for material if you're not a subscriber.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/20 ... index.html
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/200 ... n_america/

[vison]

Articles like that make me very sad. It's hard to articulate why it saddens me.

However.

I do agree that Mr. Obama is too young and inexperienced.

If I was an American, and this is one of the times I'm thankful that I'm not, I would think I was between a rock and a hard place.

And, quite frankly, no matter what colour I might be, I would loathe Jesse Jackson from the bottom of my phony-hating heart. He comes across, to me, as the most insincere person I've ever seen. Insincere and totally, absolutely, utterly devoted to being a "star".

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I found both of those articles to be helpfully thought-provoking.

[Faramond]

You know what? This is stupid! It's way too early for this.

No, not the thread. The thread only reflects the media reality. No, it's way too early for all this presidential talk.

Oh, and the Patriots lost, so maybe H. Clinton can be taken down. Obama has to make sure he avoids throwing easy picks, though.

[Angbasdil]

I agree, Faramond. And so does Eric Boehlert at mediamatters.org.

The man says what I've been thinking much better than I could.

[Frelga]

You know what? This is stupid! It's way too early for this.

No, not the thread. The thread only reflects the media reality. No, it's way too early for all this presidential talk.

I agree, in a way, but I think the media reality reflects the reality of the nation where at least half the population can't wait to replace the current Administration with anyone. It also reflects the perception that the Democrats lost the last two elections largely because their candidates lacked charisma. That may go some way to explain the excitement over a candiate who is, finally, nothing if not charismatic.

[baby tuckoo]

Charisma be damned. What fair citizen of the world can fail to be impressed by a woman and a black man making a serious try for the top slot of a major party ticket? (Both will have automatic constituencies, though they'll overlap in some states.)


Let there be color!!!! And light! And clean fruity white wine!!!

[Primula Baggins]

Clean fruity reds aren't bad, either.

[baby tuckoo]

Viva la Rose!!!!!!!

[axordil]

I have no problem with acknowledging that Obama should not expect automatic support from the black community, no matter how that community is construed. I do have a problem with the reasons the first author provides, which smack of identity politics of the worst kind. Would a descendant of West African slaves be OK for expecting automatic support from the black community? That's the implication.

The second article is more subtly problematic. I think there are a lot of things that have to happen before the "quotes" come off, to use the author's parlance, and those mileposts are both personal AND societal.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I have no problem with acknowledging that Obama should not expect automatic support from the black community, no matter how that community is construed. I do have a problem with the reasons the first author provides, which smack of identity politics of the worst kind. Would a descendant of West African slaves be OK for expecting automatic support from the black community? That's the implication.

The second article is more subtly problematic. I think there are a lot of things that have to happen before the "quotes" come off, to use the author's parlance, and those mileposts are both personal AND societal.

I didn't say that I necessarily agreed with the articles, Ax, just that I thought that they were helpfully thought-provoking. I don't think the author of the first piece was saying that a descendent of West African slaves would automatically earn support from the black community; I would doubt very much that she is a big fan of someone like Clarence Thomas or Ward Connerly. But I do think that her main point -- that being a descendent of West African slaves is distinctly different background then being an African immigrant, or a child of an African immigrant. Forget for a moment that Obama's mother is white, and that his father is from East Africa. Because I know from experience that the same point is valid when dealing with immigrants from West Africa. They have a very different perspective about things then most African-Americans do.

Does any of this mean that Obama can not be an effective advocate for the African-American community? Of course not. It just means that he does not have the automatic connection to the African-American community that some people might think he has, based on the color of his skin.

As for the second article, I agree with you completely.

[nerdanel]

Well said, Voronwë. In total agreement. I am very interested to see how the differences between Obama's background and the majority of the black American demographic will shape things in this race.