Four years ago, Evan Thomas of Newsweek famously said:
The hidden subtext is already emerging: criticism of Obama is...whisper whisper....racism! Personally, I would have given a black candidate my vote all other things being equal. For their history, they need an extra shake of the dice and had Colin Powell run in 1992, he would have had mine, and everyone else's.
If Obama were a green man from the galaxy, he would never get my vote for many good reasons: he would be the most inexperienced US President in 100 years and is Jimmy Carter re-born, a quasi-religious figure who promises to talk to our enemies and ignore our friends. His international trade policies could set the world economy back "decades", and that is New Labour's Peter Mandelson talking over in Europe, no less. He firmly believes that judges should be left-wing and pre-empt democracy by making new laws from the bench, not interpreting the ones the people we elect actually draft and thinks anything that a citizen can do, government should tax you more to do it better themselves.
He has consorted with homegrown terrorists like Ayers and Dorn, the crackpot Rev Wright and the convicted racketeer Tony Rezko, for all his talk of "new politics" and his wife is an moaner who whines about how hard life is on $500,000 a year and thinks that "they" have always been out to get her and Obama. Who are "they"? Presumably the same typical Americans who arranged for her to get affirmed placements in Americaa's top universities as a black women from a modest background - the shamelessness of "them".
Obama would be the most left-wing President ever elected, a template of the radical "victimolgy" concept of modern identity politics. For all that he remains a supremely gifted and talented young man and perhaps the most perfect politician of the last 50 years - if oratory, sharpness and style over substance is everything, and maybe in 2008, it is.
He will probably win, for not only does he have the media breathlessly behind him (Oh, the new stories, the spins, the angles, the Big Narrative! How their sales will soar.) but Americans have come to believe that their economy is in a severe recession ( it isn't yet), everyone hates them ( they do, and that won't change unless the USA is prepared to give away the store and the keys to the safe) and that unconditional talks with our enemies will make everything fine again. In this, Obama resembles Chamberlain more than Churchill, Carter more than Reagan and blind wishful thinking over reality. Roll on 2012.
Let’s talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win… They’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and there’s going to be this glow about them… that’s going to be worth maybe 15 points.The attempts to polish the absurd flawed rhinestone that was John Kerry famously failed, but the media is wetting itself at the prospect of helping Obama win the 2008 Presidential race. McCain, once their hero when he seemed to be the anti-Bush in the 2000 primaries, is already being recast as an old, out-of-touch warmonger who is clueless on the economy. Every point McCain tries to make will be relentlessly skewered whilst St.Barry is given a completely free pass. If Kerry and the lizard-like Edwards were given a "glow" in 2004, expect Obama to receive the 1 gigawatt halo effect.
The hidden subtext is already emerging: criticism of Obama is...whisper whisper....racism! Personally, I would have given a black candidate my vote all other things being equal. For their history, they need an extra shake of the dice and had Colin Powell run in 1992, he would have had mine, and everyone else's.
If Obama were a green man from the galaxy, he would never get my vote for many good reasons: he would be the most inexperienced US President in 100 years and is Jimmy Carter re-born, a quasi-religious figure who promises to talk to our enemies and ignore our friends. His international trade policies could set the world economy back "decades", and that is New Labour's Peter Mandelson talking over in Europe, no less. He firmly believes that judges should be left-wing and pre-empt democracy by making new laws from the bench, not interpreting the ones the people we elect actually draft and thinks anything that a citizen can do, government should tax you more to do it better themselves.
He has consorted with homegrown terrorists like Ayers and Dorn, the crackpot Rev Wright and the convicted racketeer Tony Rezko, for all his talk of "new politics" and his wife is an moaner who whines about how hard life is on $500,000 a year and thinks that "they" have always been out to get her and Obama. Who are "they"? Presumably the same typical Americans who arranged for her to get affirmed placements in Americaa's top universities as a black women from a modest background - the shamelessness of "them".
Obama would be the most left-wing President ever elected, a template of the radical "victimolgy" concept of modern identity politics. For all that he remains a supremely gifted and talented young man and perhaps the most perfect politician of the last 50 years - if oratory, sharpness and style over substance is everything, and maybe in 2008, it is.
He will probably win, for not only does he have the media breathlessly behind him (Oh, the new stories, the spins, the angles, the Big Narrative! How their sales will soar.) but Americans have come to believe that their economy is in a severe recession ( it isn't yet), everyone hates them ( they do, and that won't change unless the USA is prepared to give away the store and the keys to the safe) and that unconditional talks with our enemies will make everything fine again. In this, Obama resembles Chamberlain more than Churchill, Carter more than Reagan and blind wishful thinking over reality. Roll on 2012.
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