Being an Obama supporter this morning is a little like being Czechoslovakian in the summer of ‘68. You believe that peace, love, and transformation are possible… right up until the moment when the tanks start rolling in and let you know that while the “old ways” aren’t pretty, they sure as hell work.
Oh well. This is far from over. Forward, then. On to 1989!
Posted by Adam Felber and filed in 
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James
April 23, 2008 at 9:58 am
1Pennsylvania was a perfect state for Hillary, but she lost 2/3 of her margin and lost significant ground among her base, because Obama is gaining and she is sinking in debt. Hillary lost white voters, women, seniors, and the poor. Obama gained in all those demos, as well as with men and youth. He’s leading in NC and IN, the biggest states left. Hillary needs 71% of remaining delegates to win, but she’s far too broke and damaged to do that. Obama has won, but he’s a winner, not a miracle worker. She still has residual strength with her demo, and she’s milking that dry.
dee
April 23, 2008 at 10:27 am
2Cheer up! In another 20 years or so we get Vaclav Havel as President!
Dave von Ebers
April 23, 2008 at 10:35 am
3Yeah, but at least the Czechoslovakians had Olympic ice hockey to fall back on.
Grenoble, France, anyone? Czechoslovakia 5, USSR 4?
Who says the Olympics aren’t political …
siobhan
April 23, 2008 at 12:20 pm
4Hillary was ready on Day 1.
Then came Day 2, when she had been expecting the delegates to greet her with sweets and flowers. When that didn’t happen, it became clear that she had no Plan B, because she hadn’t thought that things could turn out differently. Since that point, she has been trying to play catch-up, using any number of methods that harm her opponent, but blow back on her as well.
This battle plan sounds depressingly familiar.
Steve
April 23, 2008 at 1:16 pm
5Another reason to cheer up: American Foxes still dig wild and crazy czech brothers. even as the tanks are rolling in.
ceolaf
April 23, 2008 at 2:05 pm
61) I know that many would like to think that Clinton once had a 20-point lead in PA, but it’s not at all clear that that was ever the case. Rather, one poll of all the polls taken showed a 20-point lead.
Knowledge of statistics, margins of error and confidence intervals would tell you that one out of every 20 polls is going to be outside the reported margins of error, and that’s if everything goes right.
So, it appears that Clinton lost 1/5 of her margin, not 2/3. And if Obama is a really strong candidate, one would expect him to close the margin as PA voters paid closer attention and as his campaign did more to bring him to their attention.
2) I’m disturbed by the likening of Hillary Clinton to the USSR or to Soviet tanks. Really? I guess that I’ll try to ignore that part of the analogy as being unintended.
3) What are these “old ways” that are so unattractive? I keep trying to find answers for why some people so hate her. I mean, why some Democrats so hate her. Presuming that it is not her gender, then what is it?
The latest round of outrage has been at her ad about how dangerous a world it is. Oh, how horrible it is — I hear — that she used Osamba bin Laden in an ad!
This as shows seven of the major crises that US presidents have faced in the last 100 years (i.e. depression, WWII, Cuban missile, gas shortage, falling of Berlin wall, 9/11, Katrina). Would anyone argue that 9/11 does not belong in that group? I don’t think that the ad pushes 9/11 especially hard. They are in chronological order, and 9/11 is one of two that only gets one image.
Are these the top seven? Off the top of my head, I’d say that I don’t know. Little Rock High School was a very big deal. Perhaps there’s something else obvious that I am missing.
But this ad, like her 3am ad, could be run by anyone. She’s saying that job of president is big deal, who do you want/trust on that wall? I mean “in that office.” “Who do you think has what it takes?” asks the narrator. If you think that the answer is Obama, then the ad works for him, and maybe he should have run it himself.
I particularly like this ad for two reasons. First, that idea that it is built on heightening perception of a candidate’s strengths without mentioning the candidate or the candidate’s opponent(s) by name (until the required “I approve this message). Second, it puts 9/11 in context, as just one major issue or crisis that this country has faced, rather the presenting it as the sole crisis or issue that matters.
So, what is so horrible about Hillary? What has she done in this campaign that is so bad? Hell, what has her campaign done that is so bad?
************
I suppose that it is possible that Adam means that it is not Hillary that is the Soviet Union, but rather that the status quo or politics of old that is the Soviet Union.
But then the rest of the analogy fails. Obama can be an inspiring speaker, no doubt. But he has not actually promised to change the system. His policies are pretty mainstream, especially in the Democratic party. John McCain, who scares the hell out of me, has done more to change the system than Obama has.
Obama is a hell of a lot of charisma, and that matters in this job where good use of the bully pulpit is a major responsibility. But what actual change is he talking about. I mean, he might try to remind you of Prague ‘68. But what is the substantive resemblance?
It's Pat!
April 23, 2008 at 2:17 pm
7I had seen similar info James uses - HRC needs to win every remaining primary by 61% just to tie. That ain’t happening.
And BHO has $34M more than her (but that doesn’t count Bill’s money - funny, are they digging into their own pockets like Mitt did?).
Ah who cares. It’s a beautiful day in Minne-so-green-ta. As least on the ground - there are no leaves yet. But boy the daffodils are going crazy!
Jim (OJNTNJ)
April 23, 2008 at 2:59 pm
8Osamba bin Ladin!!??? What, now we have to worry about pissed off dancing Brazilian fanatics as well?!!! (Sorry ceolaf, I couldn’t resist).
Harold
April 23, 2008 at 3:58 pm
9I’ve said it before, in different words: I am not afraid of a President Obama, and I will support him if he is the nominee. What I am afraid of is what will happen when his legions of devout followers discover that he is not a messiah, not a demigod, but a human being - and a politician, too. How will they react when he has to start backing away from his campaign promises?
Hillary won by a slim but respectable margin (or “overwhelming mandate” if you’re a Republican). But I’m wondering if what might have made the difference with her was this: Pennsylvania is a state of hard workers, and we appreciate hard workers. Hillary worked damn hard for Pennsylvania’s votes, even though all the polls up front seemed to suggest she had us in her pocket already. She pounded the bricks and barnstormed across the state for three weeks while Obama played a game of anywhere-but-Pennsylvania. And then when he finally did show up he seemed to be coasting along, taking a bus cruise to tickets-only events, acting like it was a fait accompli that since he was the candidate in the lead, we should just vote for him and stop thinking so hard about it already.
Hillary won here, but she earned it. Will Obama learn a lesson from that?
Pope Benny 16
April 23, 2008 at 6:40 pm
10Now, you must be throughly convinced that a body double did indeed stand in for me in America. Proof? Sure, I’ll give you proof. They liked “me”! How’s that for proof? This Pope did not lecture, chide, or admonish Americans on their War in Iraq, their materialism, their penchant for homosexual activity, their egocentric view of the world, their thousands of hours each year wasted staring into their plasma TVs instead of doing God’s work. Not one person in the media was the least bit sceptical about how humble, caring and forgiving Gott’s Rottweiler had become.
Hello!!! What else could explain such aberrant behavior? It simply wasn’t me! So, this is a problem that Cardianl Bernard Law and Cardinal Anselmo did not foresee. You probably guessed that I’m now “in zee cooler” under the Vatican. I may never see the light of day again. They could at least feed me some Rindsbraten or Braunschweiger to help ease my adjustment to this new realty. But nein! They feed me lasagna so thick with ground beef, it’s more like a meatloaf. Maybe I can talk them into Moon Pies…
Since I seem to have all the time in the world, I’ll rehash my trip back to Italy next time. It all seems like a bad nightmare now.
Chris Harlan
April 23, 2008 at 7:17 pm
11Prague? Really? Oh, my. Please say it ain’t so.
I do agree with Harold that poor BHO has been
pedestaled (I love makin’ verbs) and will duly suffer for it.
My wanderings, recently, have led me to a very interesting site. Eleanor Roosevelt’s autobiography is online at George Washington University. Chapter 42 is about the Democratic Convention of 1960.
http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/mep/displaydoc.cfm?docid=jfk40
It reverberates with her honest appraisal of events that seem to me particularly current. It is very frank. Here’s a tidbit:
“Another outmoded piece of machinery in the selection of the President is the presidential primary as it now functions. The chief trouble here is that the candidates spend their time running down their rivals in the same party. The net result is to furnish a large amount of ammunition to the opposition party in the campaign. An example is the Republican use, in 1960 campaign propaganda, of everything Senator Johnson had said about Senator Kennedy in the preconvention days.”
I have always thought that I would have been a Stevenson man, and he is actually who Obama reminds me of. I think that comparison is a far greater compliment then to compare him with JFK. I wonder, had Stevenson gotten the nomination, how different our world would have been. I also wonder, had Stevenson become President, how well he would have been able to keep his promises, and how satisfied his acolytes would have been.
David
April 23, 2008 at 7:32 pm
12Who are the old guard? The Democrats who counseled voting for the authorization for war so as not to seem weak on national defense, that’s who they are. And they do hang over the Democratic Party in rather unsavory ways. They certainly crush forward-thinking whenever they can. They tried to crush Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, and they likely hate the speech Obama gave challenging the authorization for war on Iraq. The franchise that has opposed that misbegotten war crime is the Kennedy franchise. The franchise that failed on that critical point is the Clinton franchise. And now, in attempt to win the primary, Team Clinton is trying to crush Obama like the Soviets crushed the Czechs, and why, because he represents a bold new direction for the Democratic Party and the country. Hillary, whose past stature and genuinely noteworthy and noble efforts in the public arena on behalf of the commonweal make what she is doing in this primary quite sad, has allied herself rhetorically with John McCain over Barack Obama. You cannot get any more regressive than that.
I will judge the Hillary of this era by how effectively she works and brings in the votes of women for Obama if he is the nominee. If she is the nominee, which is mathematically quite unlikely at this point, I will vote for her, and then I will judge her for what she does as president. But as it stands now, Obama represents the future, Hillary the past, and McCain the same old Bush/Cheney/Lieberman war-as-an-eternal-enterprise madness
While Adam’s take might seem a bit hard, the man is once again on target. The only reason I feel less distressed than Adam is that I think Obama will still win the nomination, and I think he will significantly outperform McCain as a campaigner in the general election.
Harold, you are there on the ground and I am not, so I owe some deference to your perspective, especially since you are in the reality-based world FAers pretty much to a person prefer. But Obama won his Illinois senate seat by doing exactly what you recommend, and he did it in southern Illinois. He was swimming upstream in Pennsylvania against a popular governor and against a media that thought making fun of the fact that he wasn’t a very good bowler (how effed up is the media - let me count the ways), and still he did not get blown out. I don’t know what his strategy was, except that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were where he had to go to mine votes. I’m not sure there was a lot of point in going hard in small town Pennsylvania, even though he understands them much better than this “he’s an elitist” horseshit would suggest. But I think that to some extent candidates really do have to decide where their time is best spent, all the while trying not to offend anyone and wondering what the next silly-assed media story of the day will be.
SallyMutant
April 23, 2008 at 10:09 pm
13Dubcek trumps the French strikers, the futile Pigasus and the Thunderclap Newman hit single! I was a Jr. Hi kid liberal in 1968, so I well remember liberal girl sleepovers that summer, calling in requests to the late nite AM DJ for the Rascals’ “People Gotta be Free.” We’d dedicate it to Prague. Remember when you could call in dedications?
So, Adam, were you a politcally aware tiny child, zygote, gleam in the eye? Did you have extremely cool parents, older sibs, a hip Aunt or Uncle? (Probably all of the above.) Or are you trying to prevent repeating history by actually knowing it? I don’t mean to sound like a patronizing boomer but it’s unusual to have young guys use 60’s historical references.
And, kids, as angry as Shrill Hill gets us, if she wangles the nomination, hold your nose. My husband’s 1968 vote for Pigasus did nothing good for the Supreme court.
MUST NOT HAVE MCBUSH!
SallyMutant
April 23, 2008 at 10:33 pm
14Thanks Chris H., great link.
Eleanor Roosevelt trumps all! I can only add historical celebrity gossip: autobiographies of both Myrna Loy and Lauren Bacall mention that they had crushes on Stevenson. Size matters, when it’s a brain.
Dave von Ebers
April 24, 2008 at 7:25 am
15Chris H., although I prefer Obama I have to thank you for a very reasoned analysis. I also think the Obama-Stevenson analogy is a good one, with one crucial exception. Stevenson was a good man, but was really uncomfortable dealing different groups of people. Whereas Eleanor Roosevelt went directly into the areas most affected by the nascent civil rights movement and engaged people from vastly different backgrounds — most notably, poor, Southern African Americans — Stevenson, who had great sympathy for the cause, could hardly bring himself to engage those folks. Eleanor Roosevelt was deeply disappointed in this.
Obama, to his credit, seems to move effortlessly among every group of people whom he encounters. He’s about the farthest thing from an elitist, in truth; he’s very comfortable in his own skin and he seems to genuinely like other people, no matter what they look like or where the come from. And he seems to “get” people, no matter who they are.
That quality reminds me of Bill Clinton back in the day. He could walk into any room, anywhere, and talk to anyone without the slightest sense of discomfort. As cliche as it was, he really did “feel” other people’s pain. I’d like to think Hillary Clinton has that quality, too, at least to some extent. I am fairly certain Obama does, and I think empathy matters.
In the end, I’m voting for whoever has the “D” next to their name come the first Tuesday in November.
Chris Harlan
April 24, 2008 at 9:33 am
16The elitism thing is something I don’t understand, nor do I think I should. It’s just more talking-head mud. I think its meant to be the opposite of “who would you most like to have a beer with,” but oddly, the choice of the word–with all of its Latin baggage–makes the user/accuser sound a little, well, elitist. “Smarmy, foam-lipped, know-it-all A**hole,” is probably a little closer to the vernacular, and a little more precise in terms of what someone tossing the elitist stone actually wants to convey, but since the user/accuser is generally part of the elite themselves, they won’t talk that way.
By nearly all viable definitions, all three candidates are among the elite. They consort almost exclusively with other elites, and hopefully, whoever wins, will seek out advisors from among the elite of all fields they need advice in. With luck, they will choose people among the elite who have arrived there by merit, and not by cronyism. No one gets freaky when Olympic medalists are referred to as being among the elite. [Heck, we make them even more god-like and turn them into “Olympians.”] No one coughs a hair ball when you use “elite” in regards to a Special Forces unit. If the elite are determined by merit, we should pray for elitism. If I get stuck on the side of a mountain, I want to be rescued by an elite team of mountaineers, not by drinking buddies.
“Effete,” which sounds much like “elite,” and carries a related meaning, is probably what people want to be throwing around, but is not used since it is clearly an insult, and cannot be couched as an neutral observation.
Of course, these are all rather elitist observations, but what the hey.
Dave von Ebers
April 24, 2008 at 12:18 pm
17Chris … I’ll drink to that!
David
April 24, 2008 at 6:21 pm
18And a glass of the foamy raised down here on the edge
of the Green Swamp, Chris and Dave.
Pope Benny 16
April 24, 2008 at 6:25 pm
19I think, that if I could have shaved while I was in the bunker all those days, the flight back might have gone differently. But I must have seemed despondent, because they hid all the razors.
When Roger helped me out of the back of the van at Dulles Airport for my flight home, I had a week old growth of gray stubble and was dressed in a flannel shirt, threadbare denim overalls, a Red Man ball cap and of course my Gucci brown loafers, badly caked with mud and missing a tassel. Trent gave me my airline ticket, pulled out his wallet and he and Roger scraped together about $35.00, which they gave to me for traveling money. ($35.00? With the current exchange rate between dollars and Euros, you can’t buy a hamburger in Orly for less than $50.00 these days!) They meant well and before they left, I gave them a blessing, which Trent really seemed to take to heart. Trent removed my Papal ring and stuffed it into my watch pocket - after all, I was traveling with Russians - and they were off.
The Aeroflot plane stopped in every airport going up the East coast. I think fuel mileage was an issue, and with each stop, a crew of mechanics were driven out to the plane. The mechanics seemed to be particularly interested in the #3 engine and spent up to two hours at each stop changing out parts.
In the middle of the first night we landed at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland. I think we were lost; they thought we were spies. I spent another night in a bunker….
hedera
April 24, 2008 at 9:26 pm
20This discussion of Obama has got me thinking. One of the criticisms which has been aimed at him, which isn’t really true if you look at the details on his web site, is that he has no specific proposals; he’s just offering “hope.” (Why is that bad? We could all use some hope about now.)
Think about this: no new president is ever able to fulfill all his campaign promises. There are always compromises, and things nobody would tell him before he was elected, and things that happen after he’s elected. And sometimes, he never intended to keep the promises anyhow - think about Dubya’s campaign rhetoric of “uniter not divider.” A clear lie, as a recent interview with Lincoln Chafee on NPR made clear. I read a book once in which a character commented that her father “adored Teddy Roosevelt, but after a while he got simply purple in the face at the mention of his name.”
So Barack Obama has been campaigning on such broad proposals that, if elected, he’ll have a wide range of possible actions he can take and still be fulfilling some, if not all, of his campaign “promises.” But I think we should all keep in mind that a hypothetical President Obama will not be able to avoid making at least some of the electorate very angry at him indeed. And I think the measure of his presidency will be the size of that group of people, and whether his astonishing eloquence can actually persuade them to change their minds.
just plain Jack
April 25, 2008 at 3:58 am
21hedera, I know Bush is quoted as having said he was a “uniter, not a divider”, but what he really meant to say, in his mush-mouth Texas patois, was that he was an “untie-er, not a diviner”. His diction is not what it should be.
dee
April 25, 2008 at 4:09 am
22Well put, hedera. That’s why I disregard any “policy positions” — it’s not like once either is elected he or she can wave a magic wand and everything will fall into place just like he or she envisioned it. For me, a more legitimate question is how would either of them deal with the opposition? Hillary is tough, no doubt, but would that toughness be construed as stubborness and obstructionist? Barack is more of a coalition builder, but would that be construed as weakness and naivete? There is nothing inherently wrong with either approach. I guess you just have to decide which you believe would work better, and since we don’t know what Congress will look like after the elections, it’s a crapshoot either way.
Enough of all this silly political talk — we want baby pictures!!!!!!!
Chris Harlan
April 25, 2008 at 9:44 am
23Oh, Dee. I disagree. Policy positions do matter. In fact, they are essential. They might not be able to be carried out, but at least they offer definition of the candidate’s mindset. These days party affiliation isn’t nearly as defining as it used to be. “Liberal” isn’t as defining as it used to be, either. I have friends who define themselves as liberal and are registered Democrats but are about as Libertarian as you can get. To them “The Great Society” concept is as much an anathema as it was to Ronald Reagan, and they are “liberal” because they believe drugs should be legalized, and that everyone has the right to build a twenty-foot phallus in their front yard if they want to. I think I’m a liberal because I believe deeply in the tenets of The Great Society. I believe that Libertarianism is misguided and potentially dangerous, and that the folks at the Cato Institute are, well, misguided.
Back in 2000, George Bush seemed to be a moderate Republican cast in the mold of his father. If a few more of his actual policy positions had been visible, maybe history would have been different.
Ron Paul, technically a Republican, puts his policy positions right out there for people to see, and I respect him for doing that, though the majority of his very Libertarian positions scare the poop out of me.
Now, there are recent rumors–which are completely inaccurate or based on intentional lies–that BHO’s chief advising economist is affiliated with and philosophically attuned to the Cato Institute. Strong policy statements on economics would make immediately clear that those rumors are ridiculous.
Here, by the way, is a recent Goolsbee interview in US News that outlines many of Obama’s economic policies.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2008/04/11/goolsbee-sp eaks-obama-economic-adviser-resurfaces.html?PageNr=1
I found it a very pleasing read.
Harold
April 25, 2008 at 3:25 pm
24dee, cooper, and anyone who lives in the next wave of states (including Guam): your turn now. Please keep us up-to-date on the state of the campaigns where you are. Who is showing up where, what sort of events are they doing, and so on. If you can, please try to go to events by both candidates - I missed an opportunity to see Obama last Sunday, but I only found out about it at the last moment, and I believe it was tickets-only. I really wish I had gotten to see him.
Pope Benny 16
April 25, 2008 at 6:39 pm
25Few things in life are more memorable than beating an espionage rap.
When we landed in Thule, we were surrounded by Air Force security and ordered to deplane with our hands up. Father Quint, my valet, safeguards all my paper work, keeps track of my many security badges and pays me my allowance each Friday. Of course, he was on the Alitalia flight, along with the fake Pope and all his hangers on that had landed in Italy several hours after leaving New York. The only ID I had was an old passport for Joseph Ratzinger.
The security force was primarily made up of Southern Baptists, Four Square Free Will Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, a smattering of other Anti-Papist cults. I know this because after I gave them my passport and mentioned in passing that I was the Pope, dozens of military issue hand guns were pulled from their holsters and cocked in unison. I guess you have to see it from their point of view - I was pretty gamey, dressed like a bum, in bad need of a shave and tooth brushing and I was claiming to be God’s messenger on Earth. In the end, I think they believed I was just an old coot suffering from dementia and therefore regarded me as far less dangerous than if I had convinced them that I really was the Holy Father.
The Russian pilot coughed from the other side of the room, conspicuously dropped a wad of hundred dollar bills on the floor and walked away. Soon, we were back on the plane and accelerating down the ice packed runway.
Next: Flight into Tuzla!!!!
SallyMutant
April 27, 2008 at 12:29 am
26Must echo Dee… Want baby pix…. Strength waning without cuteness…
Jon
April 28, 2008 at 12:35 pm
27Pope Benny, no offense, but let it go. I suspect everyone is, like me, skimming over your posts to read the on-topic comments. Sorry (since you are working so hard at this).
Pope Benny Fan Club
April 28, 2008 at 5:00 pm
28Don´t listen to Jon, Benny–they told Jesus to be quiet too!
Dee
April 28, 2008 at 6:28 pm
29This is for Harold:
Obama is here for a big event tomorrow, but tickets went faster than I could get downtown to get one. I could have gone to a private meeting with Chelsea Clinton last night, but that would have been rather hypocritical of me. Actually, the only reason I would vote for Hillary is because, after everything this country put her through, Chelsea deserves a White House wedding.
just plain Jack
April 29, 2008 at 8:09 am
30Jon, I think you have the right idea. If it offends you, just skip right over it. Problem solved. You’re welcome.