Much Ado About Politics As Ususal
Kevin Holsapple
Posted: 03.23.2008 / 12:10 PM EDT
The tendency to concentrate on what might or would be bad about a particular candidate becoming president brings people down, I think. The best that can be said about it is that it does provide opportunity for a candidate to try to re-seize the initiative to talk about what is important to them and what they stand for. The events of the last week or two have me thinking about that.
The Clinton campaign seems to have increasingly shifted to talking about “what’s wrong with Obama.” Obama’s campaign seems to have stayed more closely on “what’s right with Obama,” although this certainly hasn’t been 100%. McCain’s campaign seems to have stayed away from the negative and I perceive that McCain has even intervened to shut down a loudmouthed attack or two by people in his party.
I don’t know if these are fair perceptions, but I think less favorably of the Clinton candidacy as a result. Meanwhile I think that Obama took advantage and made an excellent speech and response to the Jeremiah Wright flap — the content of his remarks are the main “not politics as usual” feature of the past couple of weeks. As far as I can tell, McCain has stayed away from picking up on this as a negative tool to try to exploit for political gain … I have not been hearing much yet either way about McCain.
The disappointment is that if anything, the “what’s wrong with Obama” piece of all this seems to have some slight traction nationally from what I perceive from listening to and reading what the pundits have to say about it. There seems to be more of a divide around the question of race than had been the case prior to the Wright flap as well. It would be heartening if the “what’s right about ….” discussions were the ones getting traction, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Here in Los Alamos I don’t sense that the politics as usual drama makes that big of an impression on people yet. There is no buzz about the Wright flap that I can perceive. Clinton’s pointing out Obama’s lack of experience is taken as a valid point, but not necessarily a positive point in her favor because although she is a smart person and good politician, it is not clear that her track record gives legitimacy to the argument that she would be a seasoned presence. McCain seems to be smartly biding his time and letting all this take its toll on the Democratic side without needing any particular intervention from him at this point.
In all, the current discussion seems to be largely politics as usual, which is a bad sign for people getting jazzed about the potential for the future.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Jeremiah Wright wasn’t that big a surprise; I have friends who believe what the reverend believes, and parts of what he said were just true, if presented badly. His body language when he spoke about President Clinton turned me way off, though.
I used to be with an executive search firm. One morning we got a call from a manufacturing company whose CEO had died unexpectedly. As I filled out the order, the spokesman told me flatly to get “Someone with all the experience you can find, outside of the graveyard.” It would have been nice if some of the governors had made it to the conventions.
For me, this all reminds me of why I dread election years. It’s like the basketball tournaments, only with talking heads. It never ends, and when it ends, half the people are furious and stand around for four years saying horrible things. A monarchy might be less of a downer.