Friday, November 09, 2007
Thatcher-Clinton-Obama
The ineffable CaptainB, with whom I shared some spectacular Japanese food last night, draws my attention to this splendid article. This is a great example of clear, non-partisan political analysis. Hillary Clinton's cynical use of her sex when it suits her is, indeed, disgraceful and the comparison with Thatcher is very shrewd indeed - though the gag with which it opens is not merely apocryphal, it's from Spitting Image. But what I really like is the hint that Obama is taking the lead. I've always had a good feeling about this man. He may be too intelligent for the job, but it's significant, as Peggy Noonan points out, that thinking Republicans are seeing him as a way out.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Good article. I don't like Hillary Clinton. She's just not likeable, is she? But is likeableness a necessary quality in a leader? Probably not. Nevertheless, I like Obama. I also think he has real substance despite his inexperience. He's smart. Of course, Hillary's smart too. Very smart. And Hillary has experience written all over her. But that shouldn't be the clincher for the Democrats. Sometimes too much experience can be a bad thing. Too much experience coupled with too much intelligence. Even worse.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Sullivan nailed it on Clinton's use of the sexism card.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how anyone can believe a word the woman utters any longer. In a sense, I see a parallel with Gordon Brown: both have spent years lurking just off the political centre stage, lusting after power until it consumed them. And this has corrupted both to the point where they will now say or do absolutely anything purely to attain it and retain it.
I like Obama, also. As the article suggests, America desperately needs someone to break the dynastic stranglehold of the Bushes and Clintons. And this refreshingly straightforward, decent and intelligent man seems to me, from the other side of the pond, to be by far the best option.
Power & the lust for power do odd things to people. Some people become hollowed out by it, made insubstantial at the same time as they become louder & shinier. It's as if what marginal existence they retain gathers wholly on the surface.
ReplyDeletei like Tolkien's presentation of power: Sauron is a disembodied thing lurking in a dark tower, his chief servants are likewise incorporeal shadows; the 'Mouth of Sauron', his emissary, doesn't even have a name anymore.
What defences are there against the allure of power? Humanity, i suppose, which tends to be a variegated & contrary thing. Because of this, humanity is not amenable to PR, it resists facile categorisation; whereas a nothing man like Blair was oddly polymorphous and insubstantial, more like a Photoshoppable image than a human being.
I watched the msnbc debate last week with the Democratic nominees. There was a disconect between the US media commentators and the polls. Despite Hillary's flip-flop over driving licences for illegal immigrants the media class thought she held her ground and Obama was not as combative towards her as he'd promised - they painted him as a bit of a wimp. But the viewers polls made Obama a clear winner in the debate. Some of the candidates were lightweight, but Obama speaks sonorously and with gravitas even when he's mouthing platitudes. This counts for a lot, it seems. Yesterday I saw David Cameron speak in Manchester. It was truly weird - there was a message to the audience in the room (we care about social cohesion), a different one to the idiot media (I'm on top of this you morons and stop asking stupid irrelevant questions), and yet another to the voters beyond the tv and radio (Labour's failing you - we can help). Politics is a sophisticated hall of mirrors.
ReplyDeleteI think it worth mentioning that a friend who is very much to the left of me politically went to see Obama speak last summer. He walked out before it was over, finding him utterly vacuous. This did not surprise me. I am at loss to determine what qualifications the man thinks he has to be President. Hillary may not be pleasant, but she does has some qualifications - though not enough to persuade me to vote for her. I actually think the Democratic lineup is remarkably weak when you consider that it is a national election they are expected to win. This is a big country.
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ReplyDeleteI'm interested to read the comments of Frank and Randy. Very often US politicians seem folksy and superficial to British ears - generally though they turn out to much tougher and shrewder than we give them credit for. Maybe in this case what you see is what you get.
ReplyDeletespongebob - My apologies. I didn't mean to delete that comment. I started to because of a couple of typos and thought I'd nixed the deletion, but I see it eventually went through anyway. I'll try to reconstruct it.
ReplyDeleteIf you look around, you may find mention of Obama never forgetting, or forgiving, a perceived slight, no matter how minor or unintended. At the same time, Obama has never been tested in a remotely competetive election, and the former does not auger well for his performance under the intense pressure of the latter. Despite being a serious contender for the Democratic nomination, he has thus far been shielded from any hard scrutiny. If he gains the nomination, that will not be the case. His performance in his campaign thus far is less than stellar, as his poll numbers show. (There is a huge number of people who would love to vote for anyone but Clinton, but not if the alternative is milquetoast or the reheated faux populism of a multi-millionaire.)
ReplyDeleteI know this is a horrible thing to say about anyone, but Obama reminds me of Tony Blair. Not the Blair who was recently harried from office, but the young Blair of the mid-nineties and Cool Brittania. A surprising number of Conservatives were willing to believe that Blair was the real deal, I doubt few would admit it now.
ReplyDeleteObama has the same ability to reach out to his political opponents but I can't work out what he stands for. Andrew Sullivan is a good example of this. He has essentially admitted his dislike of Clinton is personal and lauds Obama for his potential to "transform" American politics. When you look at why he believes this it comes down to personality and age - Obama isn't a boomer and his mixed-race heritage would send out a"message" to the world. What message?