And the winner of the poison pill is of course Obama. While he didn't take the crown quite as decisively as Reagan against Mondale he certainly did not suffer the fate of the last two elections going down to the wire... hell past the wire. Unlike 'W' Obama can now claim a decent mandate from the people without qualifying for a straight jacket. Considering that, I think it is very important to consider that one of the first points made in his victory speech was not one of vindication. It was to reach out to those who did not vote for him and to promise to be their president too. Here is hoping that statement was not so much pandering and was a sincere statement indicative of how he will act once sworn in. It would be a welcome change.
So much is being said about the Obama campaign effort and the folks that ran it I cannot resist a few comments. One... the Obama campaign was not 'new'. It was the epitome of a campaign. At least that dewy eyed idealistic view to which most subscribe at some point or other in the course of learning about how our democracy works. I wrote a post about "The Audacity of Hope" which I somewhat snidely referred to alternatively as "Mr. Obama goes to Washington". Well I stand corrected. Occams Razor says the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. To explain the success of the Obama campaign one must subscribe to one of two theories. One, they were that savvy and that good at reading the tea leaves and called all the right shots.... or that there was something fundamentally different about them from typical campaigns. Namely that they were not trying to 'create an image'. They were campaigning for a candidate who knew where he stood and who was not searching for what to say to make people more likely to vote for him... but was instead searching for better ways to say what it was he believed in so that people could decide to vote for him. And they did that.... they didn't do it where they were 'supposed to' according to the 'book'. They did it EVERYWHERE. If the Obama camp actually did pull off creating 'the image' of Obama... well frankly they should go work for Madame Cleo and be banned from Vegas. I have had my doubts about Obama... and many remain. But of one thing I am fairly certain at this point. He is a new breed. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing remains to be seen. Whether or not he even would have won a more typical election will be a discussion for years to come. Bush, Iraq and a number of other factors had the deck stacked pretty hard against the Republicans.
The Obama campaign is Amazon when it first came on the scene. Before Amazon nobody had really figured out how to make 'online' business work. After it the game is different. Nobody will win a national election from this point forward without harnessing the internet at least as effectively as Obama. This was what gave them the ability to pull in small money on a scale simply not believed possible before just as Amazon was able to deliver 'wholesale' to the public in a way previously thought impossible. It is what allowed them to reach out and touch so many people.
So what about the massive turnout? Well it didn't really happen. More ballots were cast than in any other election... but as a percentage of registered voters the turn out was effectively the same as for 2004. The big story of the Obama campaign in history books is most likely to be the money... not who it put in the voting booth. The story regarding turnout and the difference in the campaign is the defeat of Hillary in the Primaries... not as much the presidential win vrs McCain.
Obama's first moves:
Obama continues to show a mix of old school vrs new school. Campaign team ? New. VP ? Old. Chief of Staff? Old. His first major staff appointment is a 7 year vet of the white house in the same roll circa Slick Willie. Has a nasty history of partisan dealing. A lot of Obama's image is riding on how he allows his chief of staff to operate. I do not immediately assume that his past history in the Clinton White House is an indication of how he will operate in an Obama White House. He will take his lead from Obama just as he did from Clinton in the past.
As for fears of how Obama would treat with shall we say 'questionable' leaders of the world? I think Obama should be putting some fears to rest based on his initial response to Iran. Granted the true test is yet to come.
The decision to create a national CTO (not to mention the campaign in general) gives me hope that this administration will a hell of a lot more technically savvy and might just push at least some aspects of US Bureaucracy into the 21st century.
No comments:
Post a Comment