Aside from Barak Obama's missteps and associations his biggest problem is the same as other Democratic predecessors who ran for top office and that is his political principles.
National campaigns, unlike the primaries, must appeal to the undecided vote, a group that is apolitical with an open mind that would vote for either party. The problem with Democratic presidential candidates is that they don't seem to have a handle on what it is middle America wants in a president and liberal policies are not it. They at least recognize that the word “liberal” is an albatross so they stay clear of the label but not the ideals. Never will it be heard in a general election, or even in the primaries, a candidate say that he or she is a liberal standard bearer. Republicans have the opposite problem in that everyone says they're a conservative when running but seldom are in governing. Democrats never say they're liberals but almost always are when in office.
When it comes to the electorate anti-conservative are liberals but anti-liberals are not always conservative. The reason being is that liberalism is expensive. Certainly a centrist could be apprehensive about conservative tax policy citing deficits in government ledgers but thats government ledgers, not their own. which is more immediate. Another problem with liberalism is the propensity to come up with government run solutions to big problems. All one has to do is run over a pot hole to distrust government to solve big problems. For Democrats to have broad appeal as a governing party it's going to have to retool. Since a liberal message doesn't get them to the white house they must rely on bad news in order to win.
Which leads us to Barak Obama. Would he even have a chance if it were not for bad news? Note how as the war becomes more and more successful with lowering gas prices and 3% growth in the economy his star seems to be fading. He's certainly is not helping matters in his recent tactic of defining his opposition as racist, a much overused liberal devise. No popular conservative has ever escaped this charge. With the current run up in oil his response has been 1. higher prices are okay only it happened too quickly. 2. replacing oil with “green” energy and other technologies that don't exist 3. inflate your tires. 4. confiscate money from oil producing companies put it all in an airplane and dump it out over populated areas (well not quite but not that much different). You don't have to be conservative to recognize that none of these so-called solutions will lower the price of gas anytime soon. Add to this is his high sense of himself. He seems to believe all the hype saying that he is what the world has been waiting for. This is a bit much. This is not to say that Obama cannot still win. McCain is not only running a hapless campaign but he is unable to coordinate a message that resonates with the voters mostly because he doesn't have one. McCain is a typical senator in that his line of work is to compromise and see different sides to an issue, a virtue important in legislating but out of place in leading or formulating a message. Only two senators have ever been elected president.
Its been said countless times before but it is worth repeating. The election is a referendum on Barak Obama. But not Obama only but the political philosophy of liberalism. A much unreported story in the campaign is the defection of Joe Lieberman the former Democrat vice presidential candidate in supporting McCain. Most Americans would like to see a black president. If Obama loses it will be because of his politics and if that happens liberalism is all but finished.
4 comments:
When Marxist began to invade the political system in the U.S. they recognized that they could not hope to be successful if they called themselves Marxists or even socialist. They chose to call themselves 'progressives'. It worked for a time but Americans soon caught on to this 'buzz' word and they began to call themselves 'liberals'. Americans soon caught on to this label as well. For a brief period in the 1990's the libs tried, with the help of their willing partners in the media, to portray liberals as 'normal' and conservatives as 'extremists'. That dog didn't hunt at all.
The problem is that socialism is not an ideology as much as it is a theology. We will forever be fighting the cancer of Marxism.
Good point. I think what drives people to that side of the political spectrum is that it carries with it intellectual cache, you really have to think hard to come up with ideas on how peoples lives ought to be arraigned and how to do it.
Regarding what you said about compromise being good for legislation but not for formulating a message: It seems to me that those who formulate a message with too much vigor, but then compromise with legislation, look like sell-outs. I think that's what will happen with Barack Obama. He's doing as well as he is because of he is creating high expectations of his future administration. If he is elected, and he fails to bring the "change" he promised, people will likely loathe him about as much as Bush, if not more so.
But even if he delivers on his message doesn't mean he will be successful. It will be far better if he fails to deliver on bad policies, in fact the economy will be much better off. Clinton didn't deliver one piece of legislation that he could call his own the last six years in office. The economy did well and he reaped the benefits of it.
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