Arcade Fire played at an Obama rally in Nelsonville, OH. My favorite band promoting my favorite candidate.
News and Politics
Marc Andreessen endorses Obama
Marc tells about meeting Barack Obama in 2007 before he started campaigning when he was still able to see the real Obama, not the candidate. He came away with four distinct impressions.
Obama is a normal guy
I’ve spent time with a lot of politicians in the last 15 years. Most of them talk at you. Listening is not their strong suit — in fact, many of them aren’t even very good at faking it.
Senator Obama, in contrast, comes across as a normal human being, with a normal interaction style, and a normal level of interest in the people he’s with and the world around him.
We were able to have an actual, honest-to-God conversation, back and forth, on a number of topics. In particular, the Senator was personally interested in the rise of social networking, Facebook, Youtube, and user-generated content, and casually but persistently grilled us on what we thought the next generation of social media would be and how social networking might affect politics — with no staff present, no prepared materials, no notes. He already knew a fair amount about the topic but was very curious to actually learn more. We also talked about a pretty wide range of other issues, including Silicon Valley and various political topics.
With most politicians, their curiosity ends once they find out how much money you can raise for them. Not so with Senator Obama — this is a normal guy.
Second, Obama is smart
I think he’s at or near the top of the scale of intelligence of anyone in political life today.
You can see how smart he is in his background — for example, lecturer in constitutional law at University of Chicago; before that, president of the Harvard Law Review.
But it’s also apparent when you interact with him that you’re dealing with one of the intellectually smartest national politicians in recent times, at least since Bill Clinton. He’s crisp, lucid, analytical, and clearly assimilates and synthesizes a very large amount of information — smart.
Obama is not a radical
This is not some kind of liberal revolutionary who is intent on throwing everything up in the air and starting over.
Put the primary campaign speeches aside; take a look at his policy positions on any number of issues and what strikes you is how reasonable, moderate, and thoughtful they are.
And in person, that’s exactly what he’s like. There’s no fire in the eyes to realize some utopian or revolutionary dream. Instead, what comes across — in both his questions and his answers — is calmness, reason, and judgment.
Obama is the first credible post-Baby Boomer presidential candidate
One of the reasons Senator Obama comes across as so fresh and different is that he’s the first serious presidential candidate who isn’t either from the World War II era (Reagan, Bush Sr, Dole, and even McCain, who was born in 1936) or from the Baby Boomer generation (Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He’s a post-Boomer.
Most Boomers are still fixated on the 1960’s in one way or another — generally in how they think about social change, politics, and the government.
It’s very clear when interacting with Senator Obama that he’s totally focused on the world as it has existed since after the 1960’s
Andreesen pinpoints the exact reason I like Obama:
He said — my father was Kenyan; I have close relatives in a small rural village in Kenya to this day; and I spent several years of my childhood living in Jakarta, Indonesia. Think about what it’s going to mean in many parts of the world — parts of the world that we really care about — when I show up as the President of the United States. I’ll be fundamentally changing the world’s perception of what the United States is all about.
We need a president who will change the world’s perception of the US by showing that we can think different and elect someone who isn’t an old white guy and who understands the world outside the US.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, represents everything I hate about the Democratic party.
Although I usually vote for Democrats, I despise the party. They don’t represent the people. The party is dominated by insiders (most of whom support Clinton) desperately trying to cling to the status quo, selling out to Republicans, and in the process losing elections.
The only way Democrats have won elections is by going against the party insiders. If Clinton is nominated, it will guarantee a McCain win, since her cronyism and toeing the party line is exactly what turns off most Democratic voters (including myself).
Obama, on the other hand, represents new thinking, post-partisan politics, and will attract more independent and crossover Republican voters. I think he will be the next president if he’s nominated.
Nice Timing
Yet another reason I want Obama to win.
Arianna Huffington (Via Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire):
“Should Barack Obama end up winning his party’s nomination, he will give his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on August 28 — 45 years to the day Martin Luther King delivered his âI Have a Dreamâ speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.â?
Actual vs. Perceived threats
Tartley.com, which I’ve never heard of until now, has posted this chart (originally by Susanna Hertrich) illustrating our disconnect between actual dangers and what we fear.
Note the actual danger of a terrorist attack vs. what the media is trying to make us fear. We have a much greater chance of being injured or killed in a traffic accident, yet there’s never any public concern and the effort spent on improving traffic safety is a fraction of what we spend on ineffective security theater meant to feed our unrealistic fear of terrorists.
The pompous windbag has died
William F. Buckley, Jr. died today. Dylan Matthews says:
He was an important figure, no doubt, but he wasn’t a good man, he wasn’t a sensible or fair opponent, and it’d be a shame if he’s remembered as such.
Despite his charming image, Buckley was a nasty racist who supported segregation & apartheid and defended Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts. He brought conservatism to the mainstream, laying the groundwork for Bush and his ilk. Hopefully his ideas will die with him.
Obama on Israel
This is why I like Obama:
“I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you’re anti-Israel, and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel,” leading Democratic presidential contender Illinois Senator Barack Obama said Sunday.
“If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress,” he said.
He also criticized the notion that anyone who asks tough questions about advancing the peace process or tries to secure Israel by anyway other than “just crushing the opposition” is being “soft or anti-Israel.”
It’s like he took Gershom Gorenberg’s piece in The American Prospect from a month or so ago and transformed it into a sound bite. It’s so true, so refreshing to hear from a major Democratic presidential candidate, and something that Hillary Clinton would never utter to save her life. If you want an example of why Obama would be the first president to pursue an actually progressive foreign policy since, I don’t know, FDR, then just read those quotes. (via Dylan Matthews)
Barack Obama: a leader, not a boss
Via Craig Newmark:
Recently, I’ve developed the unfortunate habit of reading history,
seeing that now and then there’ve been people who moved entire nations.
They’re usually competent managers, but have some elusive additional
ability that makes then what we call leaders.
That includes JFK, Lincoln, Elizabeth I, Victoria, Gandhi, Churchill, and a short list of others that you know.
We need to restore American values to the White House, and to enlist
all Americans in that effort; we want to be the good guys again. That
takes a leader, and that means Barack Obama.
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Florida joins the modern world
Florida’s State Board of Education has voted to use the term “scientific theory of evolution” in new science standards, the first time the word “evolution” has been included.
Castro Resigns
Wow… just wow! I didn’t expect this. Castro has been in power longer than I’ve been alive. Nothing is going to change, however, since his brother Raul Castro is in charge now.
Raul isn’t as strong and charismatic as Fidel, so his rule probably won’t be popular and is more likely to be overthrown.
Armando Garcia, 67, of Miami, said replacing Fidel Castro with his brother, Raul, probably won’t result in the kind of sweeping changes urged by those who have fled Cuba since the revolution that swept Castro into power.
“It’s the same dog with a different collar,” said Garcia, a retired electrician. For change to happen, he said, “my people have to change The young people, they are the hope.”
Adriano Manduca, 79, said he suspected Castro was close to stepping down when he heard the ailing dictator say recently the revolution had been “inflexible” in some respects. Change on the island, he said, will be gradual and only come when a new generation of leadership takes over.
“There will be more food and a little bit more freedom,” he said.
Orlando Gonzalez, 80, was selling Cuban flags for $3 each on the corner of Southwest 8th Street and 36th Avenue. He said he’s had the flags for a long time, waiting for this day to sell them.
“It’s the desire of all the world that this tyranny end,” he said, referring to the Castro regime.
Repeated rumors of Castro’s death over the years helped prepare residents and officials for this day that all knew would eventually come. So far, the reactions were calm, peaceful and not as boisterous as when thousands took to the streets after Castro temporarily handed power to his brother Raul in July 2006.
Romney drops out
Mitt Romney dropped out of the race for president, which most likely means McCain will be the most likely Republican nominee. Despite his social conservatism, Romney bothered me a lot less than either McCain or Huckabee.
Despite his “maverick” image, McCain is a Bush follower who will maintain the same disastrous foreign policy. He’ll continue the move to a police state that Bush started and will escalate the war in Iraq and most likely attack Iran.
