Obama: Right From the Start
Posted by lizdavies on January 18th, 2007
Here he is, the dreamy candidate.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePBBmDr2j_w]
Those of you who are fans of The West Wing (or, rather, those of you who are as obsessed with a fictional TV show as I am and probably in need of some psychiatric help) may remember the Season 7 episode (called ‘The Cold’, in case anyone cares) where Matthew Santos was in dire need of a new campaign slogan and the diminuitive Annabeth offered up the gem “Santos: Right From the Start” to emphasise his steadiness of character. As Senator Barack Obama yesterday declared his intentions to declare his intentions on February 10th (one of the slightly more amusing features of Presidential primary campaigns) I can’t help but think it would be rather appropriate for him. Even next to former Senator John Edwards, who wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying “It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002″, Obama has the clearest anti-war position of anyone in US Presidential politics – he didn’t vote for it, and he’s never supported it. Therefore there will be no awkward backpedalling about his views. Obama’s biggest handicap as a Presidential candidate is clearly his lack of experience (never mind his unfortunate middle name), having only served in the Senate for 2 years. But maybe in this Presidential election people will look past that and consider it irrelevant in the face of his possession of, arguably, better judgement.
Obama Jumps Into Presidential Fray [Washington Post]
There’s Something About Barack… [The Independent]
Filed under: election2008, uspolitics on January 18th, 2007
I thought I’d give myself the thrill of being the first person to comment on a Clare Politics post. As lovely as Barack does seem, the discouraging thing is that the Democrats are so devoid of ideas that an inexperienced and relatively unknown figure is their most hopeful prospect, without having said all that much himself. Not being the Republicans might have been enough in the Congressional elections but I doubt it will be enough in 2008.
And it’s not only his middle name that causes trouble, as you can see at http://mediamatters.org/items/200507120008. I doubt they’ll ever let that one go.
The link wouldn’t take me to a page, but I’m guessing the issue you were pointing out was the possibly-shady housing deal thing? You’re right, it could be a problem (assuming that’s what you were talking about - if not I’m just going to ramble for a bit and feel free to ignore me), especially since he’s never been exposed to any particularly vicious background-uncovering. On the other hand, Whitewater didn’t kill Clinton. And I am I too much of an idealist to hope that at some point it’s going to turn out there’s a candidate out there who actually has nothing to hide? (not that it turned out there was actually any substance to Whitewater anyway).
I apologise for my shocking writing style…I appear to have lost the ability to form sentences.
I think Barack Obama’s appeal does run the risk of disappearing once the campaigns start to become serious. After all, now he’s kind of a novelty who has the ability to make all women in the vicinity hang on his every word. It’ll be interesting when it comes to a showdown between him and Hillary - one has extensive experience and has been in the public eye for years, while the other has suddenly appeared on the scene. And what I think will be even more interesting is who the women actually go for – the possibility of having the first female President, or the hot and charismatic guy (I myself am attempting to resist the admittedly irresistable charm of Sen. Obama…)
[...] tip to Liz Davies of Clare Politics for pointing out the exact episode, “The Cold.”) posted 03/10/07 at 1:49 am View [...]
When I read this blog post from The Politico and read the slogan Ted Sorensen offered to Obama, I knew exactly where it was from, but not the episode title. Thanks for being a bigger TWW nerd than I. =)
No problem. Although I hadn’t read The Politico recently, so I hadn’t seen that the slogan has actually been suggested!
Doesn’t Ted Sorensen realise that may make the Obama campaign a bit of a laughing stock?
I do not even know if Sorensen knows about that episode. Even so, I like it. It’s true and it goes to the heart of the biggest issue facing 2008 candidates: Iraq. He was right, and they were wrong.
[...] tip to Liz Davies of Clare Politics for pointing out the exact episode, “The Cold.â€) These icons link to social bookmarking sites [...]