Barack Obama in The Contenders
On Crime:
Legislated protecting police detainees during interrogation
[Obama’s] record as a state senator, especially on civil liberties, is strong. Obama sponsored successful legislation to combat racial profiling and to protect police detainees during interrogation.
He sponsored an unsuccessful bill banning discrimination against lesbians and gays.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 22
Nov 11, 2007
On Health Care:
Cautious incremental plan offers choice & subsidy
[Obama’s record] leads to the conclusion that caution and synthesis would be his standard operating procedure.You can see these tendencies in Obama’s healthcare plan, which bars insurers from refusing coverage to anyone, lets people choose between
private plans and a public one, and offers subsidies to those who cannot afford the rates. This approach borrows heavily from John Edward’s much-praised scheme, but it falls short of his call for universal coverage. At any rate,
The New Republic estimates that Obama’s plan would leave about fifteen million American uninsured.
It can be argued that an incremental attitude is the best way to pass liberal legislation these days.
Obama has said as much. “For a political leader to get things done, he or she ideally should be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead.”
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 72
Nov 11, 2007
On Homeland Security:
Don’t allow our politics to be driven by fear of terrorism
A statement most Democrats will make only in progressive precincts, the one he couldn’t quite get out when asked what he would do if
American cities were attacked: “The threat that we face now is nowhere near as dire as it was in the Cold War. We shouldn’t allow our politics to be driven by the fear of terrorism.”
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 82
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Resounds with American theme of overcoming burden of history
Obama’s every quest is part of the artfully woven tale he calls his “journey.” Call it packaging, call it hype. But that saga of personal and political discovery is the most exciting narrative to emerge from the Democratic repertoire in many years.
It is not a drama of rising from the meager expectations or a romance of courage under fire. Those are tropes of presidential theater, but Obama’s story is a more like an epic that resounds with a root American theme: overcoming the burden of history.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 48
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Cultivates comparison to Jack Kennedy
Obama cultivates the comparison with JFK (another member of a formerly stigmatized group: Irish Catholics). It is possible that such a magical leader will signify a change in society broader than his platform would indicate. What
Kennedy actually achieved was much less important than the forces he unleashed, and the same may be true of Obama. He is an icon of so many American dreams that he has only to move his long, lithe body and all eyes are on him.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 53-54
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Campaigns assiduously in black churches
Obama is comfortable sounding churched, though that is something he had to learn. He grew up with a broad skeptical streak, but when he discovered that it was hard to organize poor people without sharing their faith he joined a congregation. Now he
campaigns assiduously in black churches, delivering speeches that often focus on fatherhood & family. The black ministers he praises are not the likes of Jesse Jackson (who has been much kinder to him than Sharpton has), but preachers of personal uplift.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 61
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Won Grammy for recording “Dreams from My Father”
No politician of our time has a more compelling identity resume, as delineated in “Dreams from My Father.” If nothing else, this deeply affecting book, published in 1995, when he was beginning to consider running for office, positions
Obama as the most literary politician since... since when? (He is also the first presidential candidate to win a Grammy, for his recording of the book).As an image-building tool, “Dreams from My Father” has been remarkably effective.
But it is too unorthodox to serve as a press release. Not only are there damning references to coke sniffing and dope smoking, but the book also offers a detailed account of his gnawing ambivalence as a young man growing up in a double bind.
When he embarks for Kenya to meet his African family he sees himself as “a Westerner not entirely at home in the West, an African on his way to a land full of strangers... I felt as if I were living out someone else’s romance.”
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 63
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Ran for Congress in 2000 & lost
He certainly is not a man of the Left. Obama gave money to Joseph Lieberman during his battle with progressive Ned Lamont (though, when Lamont won the Democratic primary, Obama endorsed him). He has a penchant for turning his back on progressives, and in
2000 he ran for the Congress against a former Black Panther--and lost.As a US senator, he supported tort reform, voted against filibustering the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and backed the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorizatio
Act. He favors capital punishment (though only in cases of “heinous” crime). He calls himself a strong supporter of reproductive rights, but in the
Illinois legislature he voted present instead of yea on a number of bills concerning parental notification and late-term abortion.
On the stump now, he shies away from “social issues” unless he is speaking to a crowd that expects him to comment.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 65
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Viral video “I Got a Crush on Obama” by Obama Girl
Ronnie Spector calls herself “Obama Girl.” Her You Tube video “I Got a Crush on Obama” has made her a true fifteen-minute sensation--and that might have been the point, since she told one interviewer that she hadn’t actually decided whether to vote for
her man. It may be that she was retained by the same whiz kids in Obama’s camp who designed the viral that placed Hillary Clinton in a grim 1984 setting. Who can say? But whatever her provenance, Obama Girl has her laminate nails on the pulse of
America, as she gleefully sings, “You’re into border security/Let’s break this border between you and me.” Inserting herself into a pec-ful photo of the
O-Man in his swimming trunks, she declares: “You’re a lover who can fight/You can roar with me tonight.”
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 68
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Gave away all Rezko “boneheaded” donations to charity
Obama’s longtime relationship with a Syrian-born realtor, Antoin Rezko, has dented his image. Rezko, now under federal indictment for favor-trading and fraud, was one of Obama’s first funders, and over the years he contributed about $150,000 to Obama’s
various campaigns. Obama’s law firm represented Rezko, and as a state legislator he recommended the developer for state housing grants that netted Rezko and a partner $855,000 in fees. Obama didn’t seem to notice that a number of Rezko buildings in his
low-income district failed. Obama has given all the Rezko money currently in his larder to charity, and he has called the land deal [he made with Rezko for Obama’s personal home] “boneheaded,” putting it down to anxieties about purchasing a first home
(though his family had previously lived in a Hyde Park condo). No one has alleged that Obama did anything illegal, but his slip-sliding response to questions about Rezko suggests that, should he succeed, he will not drive every pig from the trough.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 74-76
Nov 11, 2007
On Principles & Values:
2 years older than JFK when JFK ran for president
First and foremost, his detractors see him as a kid, which he is not. At forty-five, Obama is two years older than JFK when he ran for president, but he is widely regarded as too inexperienced to play the crucial role of commander in chief.
The conservative commentator George Will writes that Obama would make the presidency an “entry level position.” To which he has replied: “Nobody had better Washington experience than Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld.
If the criterion is how long you’ve been in Washington, then we should just go ahead and assign Joe Biden or Chris Dodd the nomination.“Obama does give a youthful impression.
Every time Obama advances a conciliatory idea it conspires with his juvenile appearance, and his deliberative streak can seem like indecisiveness.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 77-78
Nov 11, 2007
On War & Peace:
Introduced bill to redeploy troops in May 2007; it failed
Obama introduced a bill to begin troop redeployment in May of 2007 (it failed, as he must have known it would), but he has been critical of Rep. John Murtha’s calls for a quick withdrawal. Again, that strategy: tacking slightly to the left while attackin
the Left to make his position seem centrist. He was an early critic of the Iraq invasion, and in the most recent vote to cut off funding for the war he voted yes, but only at the last minute and without comment, following Hillary’s lead.]
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 73
Nov 11, 2007