Spring Break
Barack Obama is a politician's politician
Roger McCain
Issue date: 2/1/08 Section: Ed-Op
Is it a bad thing for a politician to act like a politician? I suspect that politicians act the way they do because they have to act that way to achieve their objectives, even if the objectives are good ones. (I leave it to you to decide which objectives are good and which are not). "Straight talk," honesty, candor, good intentions and a nice personality may make a good friend, but I suspect they make a bad leader.
Keep that in mind when I say that Barack Obama seems to me to be a very capable, calculating politician. I don't mean that as a bad thing; just the contrary. Obama is charismatic, and a charismatic politician is (among other things) one who is able to seem to be expressing his honest commitments when in fact he is expressing a political position that is calculated for political advantage. That's one reason why charismatic politicians are often successful when other politicians are not.
If you look at the details of Obama's position on domestic policy, you will find that it is more conservative than that of the other democratic candidates. That's smart. Obama knows that he doesn't have to worry about losing the left wing of the party (as Gore did). People who would consider voting against Obama in the general election because he is too conservative on domestic issues are people who will vote for him anyway, because the election of a man of color will be a breakthrough away from America's racist history. On the other hand, his conservatism will be attractive to independents. On Iraq, Obama knows that he is one candidate who cannot have his vote on authorizing the invasion thrown up to him - because he wasn't in the senate then and so didn't vote. Thus he can call for withdrawal without having to answer questions about inconsistency. Good or bad, "genuine" or "fake," these are positions that make smart use of Obama's distinctive personal history.
What worries me is that Obama may be, in some ways, the candid straight talker that he seems to be. Obama has said that, if elected, he will sit down with corporate CEOs and collaborate with them in designing a health insurance reform. Hillary Clinton tried that in 1993, and after she gave the corporate CEOs what they demanded, they repudiated the plan anyway and defeated it with one of the worst lying political campaigns on record (but a very smart, effective one).
Keep that in mind when I say that Barack Obama seems to me to be a very capable, calculating politician. I don't mean that as a bad thing; just the contrary. Obama is charismatic, and a charismatic politician is (among other things) one who is able to seem to be expressing his honest commitments when in fact he is expressing a political position that is calculated for political advantage. That's one reason why charismatic politicians are often successful when other politicians are not.
If you look at the details of Obama's position on domestic policy, you will find that it is more conservative than that of the other democratic candidates. That's smart. Obama knows that he doesn't have to worry about losing the left wing of the party (as Gore did). People who would consider voting against Obama in the general election because he is too conservative on domestic issues are people who will vote for him anyway, because the election of a man of color will be a breakthrough away from America's racist history. On the other hand, his conservatism will be attractive to independents. On Iraq, Obama knows that he is one candidate who cannot have his vote on authorizing the invasion thrown up to him - because he wasn't in the senate then and so didn't vote. Thus he can call for withdrawal without having to answer questions about inconsistency. Good or bad, "genuine" or "fake," these are positions that make smart use of Obama's distinctive personal history.
What worries me is that Obama may be, in some ways, the candid straight talker that he seems to be. Obama has said that, if elected, he will sit down with corporate CEOs and collaborate with them in designing a health insurance reform. Hillary Clinton tried that in 1993, and after she gave the corporate CEOs what they demanded, they repudiated the plan anyway and defeated it with one of the worst lying political campaigns on record (but a very smart, effective one).
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