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October 24, 2006

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Obama burst upon the national scene with the Dem convention in 2004. There is little doubt about his communicating skills.

Since then, he has been a darling of the media because he is young, dynamic, a counterpoint to Hillary and, he is African-American. The last point isn't mentionred too often, but it has a lot to do with his popularity.

Some of his votes have cost him support at places like Kos, mainly because the firebrands over there don't like his willingness to work with the enemy.

No Democrat, at this point, is likely to have muchof a legislative record. To be honest, although he i my senator, I m not sure I would, at this point in time see him as President. Things can change in 2 years, an like you, this is way premature.

I think he finally said he was thinking about running just to avoid the question at every stop he made.

He voted the Lieberman way on the bankruptcy bill and I think a few others, he seems to have something of the Lieberman/McCain I'm-bucking-my-party, I'm-so-independent, service-me-now-centrist-media disease, and his Liebermanesque lecturing of someliberals for being anti-religion is really tiresome. I used to be really excited about his wonkish aspects and affect, but it's back to just Clark for me.

rilkefan: in the sense that both he and Lieberman voted against the bill, yes. In the sense that he, like Lieberman, voted for cloture -- no. He voted against cloture (for a filibuster.)

Where did this pervasive idea come from?

Oops - probably misremembering some laundry list of complaints about him from DailyKos, of which one sees a fair number I think (and also a fair number of adulatory diaries).

Ezra Klein's recent comment.

I'm inclined to agree with the moody Rilkefan here, but Hilzoy has assembled a pretty good resume for Obama. The guy has a plan; the deal is we won't know the plan until the Presidential career strategy is fully successful.

One of two things happen in 2006: the Republican Party loses the House (at least) and realizes that Obama rhymes with Osama in 2008 may be a strategy with diminishing returns; or the Republican Party maintains the House and the Senate, and Redstate and Mehlman and Rove convince the frightened, dumb-ass 51% of the American people that swarthiness outside the confines of the Christian Right and the Kudlowian Ayn Randian bad dentistry libertarian clown show (generalizing; I make exceptions and you know who you are) is a cue for bad rhyming poetry.

Hillary, of course, is Stalin. If they run together, they have my vote.

Representative Stoller.

Well, I read Rilkefan's link and I see the point.

So now we can deduce that Obama has a sort of hooded ambition for the Presidency. And he lays low and does a sort of Clinton-esque playing the middle against both sides.

So far, a cipher. With visible calculation.
Not a good thing as so many seek sincerity .... an overvalued trait, in my estimation, or at least unrealistic.

A Mcmanus-like darkness comes over me; I fear for charismatic, liberal leaders in America, especially a black liberal seeking the Presidency.

Someone always shoots them. Colin Powell's wife agrees with me.

hilzoy: I wish he'd spoken up earlier about the torture bill. (Though the speech he gave on the Senate floor was excellent.)

In its way. Which was to go at it with entirely pragmatic arguments, not moral ones.

Now, I'm fine with any truthful argument that works. But here's the man who has lectured other Democrats for being uncomfortable with talking about how faith informs their votes, and he's talking as if his position on torture has nothing to do with belief in the dignity and worth of the person, God's creation.

That spoke volumes to me.

I'm glad he's working on good things, and I hope he gets a Senate on Nov. 7 that will give him much more scope to work, and to reach across the aisle where possible.

But he needs to win an election against a real opponent before he goes anywhere near a national campaign.

I don't particularly have a brief for Obama; I just like that he does good stuff on obscure issues. That said, I dislike the quote on the censure resolution; I would like to read the speeches on religion in their entirety (since the tiny bits pulled out could be almost anything, given the right context); I have heard the "I don't think George Bush is a bad man" quote, and it was at the beginning of a long and detailed criticism of the Bush administration (the point of this was that for Obama it wasn't about personalities); and I think he's right in the Nagourney piece and about filibusters.

I would take a completely different view of the filibuster quote if I didn't know that he actually votes against cloture on the important issues -- at least, all the ones I know about. If this was an excuse not to support filibusters, it would be pathetic. But given that he does vote for them, it has to be a comment on whether filibusters are the best way to get our message across; and I think that the only thing to be said for the answer 'yes' is the absence of an alternative. I mean: obviously it would be better to have some way of doing things that didn't lend itself to caricaturing Democrats as taking advantage of peculiar features of the Senate rules to obstruct the will of the majority. Wouldn't it?

That last comment of mine was about rilkefan's link to Stoller.

"a Mcmanus-like darkness comes over me"

sure; isn't that what they call "Mcmanic depression"?

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