A little late on this. You’ll have to forgive me. But on election night, Obama for America campaign photographer David Katz shot some wonderful behind the scenes photos of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their families watching the election results come in from their hotel room in Chicago.
The Big Picture also has some amazing photos of Obama on the campaign trail. It’s hard not to crystalize that night, that singular moment in time for what it was. I hope that feeling is not forgotten soon, because unlike dead rockstars, Obama actually has to deliver. That is, he’s become the inverse of dead rockstars. We mythologize Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, et. al. because they never had the opportunity to suck. The same goes for JFK and his brother RFK.
The easy part for Obama is over. He’s won; his “now what moment” a la Dustin Hoffman at the end of The Graduate has already occurred, or if it hasn’t then he has very little time to actually have that kind of moment. The only downside to giving people hope and running on a campaign of positive change is that there is the pressure to actually deliver it. Most historians wouldn’t revere James K. Polk if he hadn’t accomplished what he said he would during his one and only term as US President. That is the reality Obama is facing.
Will everyone who supported Obama still be dreamy-eyed if he doesn’t deliver the change we need and want? And furthermore how is he going to drown out the buzz of advice from know-it-alls like Al Gore on climate change, Mark Cuban on entrepreneurs, or the American food policy. It’s probably not the end of people trying to advise him as he ushers America into the promise of it’s fourth republic.
Pretty much all anyone could talk about last night during the debate was Joe the Plumber. McCain mentioned him like 50 billion times. Seriously, Joe, after last night with the business you’re going to get you better be able to buy your business.
Here’s the original exchange between Senator Obama and Joe the Plumber, which prompted many of the exchanges last night. Also, Obama is a Miles Davis cucumber. Cool as cool can be. Never once got rattled and deftly handled the Bill Ayers/ACORN landmines.
Why isn’t there video of this? C’mon people with cellphone cameras and Flip Video Recorders? When P. Diddy goes bowling does he drink PBRs like everyone else in Wisconsin or does he drink Crystal?
How about those speaches last night though? Shit, Hillary was good and Mark Warner was okay as the keynote and Brian Schweitzer brought a certain yee-haw rowdiness to the Democratic party (god he sounds exactly like a happy Lewis Black). Though the best zingers of the night belonged to Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA) and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland.
Casey, and I’m paraphrasing here, said “McCain calls himself a maverick but he’s voted with President Bush over 95% of the time. That’s not a maverick, that’s a sidekick.”
And Strickland, who seemed nervous and not a polished speaker, stumbled through his speech only to deliver this bon mot: “It was said the first President Bush was born on third base and he thought hit a triple. Well after the prosperity of the Clinton administration, the second President Bush started his presidency on third base and ended up stealing second.”
What’s funny is you can tell which Democrat Governors come from predominantly Republican states in the way they speak. Strickland spoke using baseball metaphors, which while seeming hokey certainly resonated not only with me, a baseball nutso, but I’m also guessing a large portion of people. Yeah Obama’s a great orator, but he comes off as unrelatable (don’t shoot me!) at times. You would never hear him use a good zinger to deliver a point or baseball metaphors while speaking.
I’m curious what Bill Clinton and Joe Biden do tonight, but from the speeches last night it’s clear there are three themes that are getting lobbed to Obama for the alley oop: we can’t afford four more years of the same policies, challenging the American people to rise up and meet the problems of the country and McCain is not a maverick.
But seriously, Pete Wentz and P. Diddy are bowling partners. What do you think their bowling team name is?
At a certain point it seems like John McCain has just lost it. We know he has anger management issues, and heretofore they have been sadly absent from the campaign. Until know. It’s not something he did, per say, but his new ad equating Barack Obama with the shallowness of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton is the equivalent of John McCain blowing a gasket.
Obama is getting showered with love from the people (even if he’s not as popular as Britney or Paris), not necessarily the media, and McCain can’t stand it. It also doesn’t help that Obama has largely ignored McCain on the campaign. He acts as if McCain is inconsequential to his march to the White House. Nothing more than a pesky mosquito, who only needs to be dealt with when said mosquito annoying tries to suck some blood.
Obama, by largely ignoring McCain, is in his head.
Newsweek has an interesting article (7.19) written by Fareed Zakaria, in which the author claims that Obama is the conservative foreign-policy candidate in this election and John McCain is the idealist. It’s an interesting take on the usual assumptions about the two. “In the end, the difference between Obama and McCain might come down to something beyond ideology—temperament. McCain is a pessimist about the world, seeing it as a dark, dangerous place where, without the constant and vigorous application of American force, evil will triumph. Obama sees a world that is in many ways going our way. As nations develop, they become more modern and enmeshed in the international economic and political system. To him, countries like Iran and North Korea are holdouts against the tide of history. America’s job is to push these progressive forces forward, using soft power more than hard, and to try to get the world’s major powers to solve the world’s major problems.”
NY Times reporter Steve Heller asked various designers to rethink Sen. Barack Obama’s flag lapel pin, since he’s now wearing one after he realized that idiot hicks really do think a lapel pin is tied into a person’s patriotism.
It isn’t of course. But politics is as much about symbolism and knee-jerk reactions and being slippery enough to not get caught and ultimately to convince other people that you represent their hopes and dreams and the safety of their children and Obama does all of this better than most. In many ways, Obama has become a symbol himself, ceasing to be an actual person.
Much of that is his own doing, but a lot of that is the doing of his passionate supporters and that Shep Fairey “Obama Hope” poster that is itself like propaganda.
So if people think a politician’s patriotism is inversely proportionate to the pin they wear, then what would be an appropriate pin for Obama?
Heller got a slurry of opinions, some good, some bad, some comically outlandish. The one we liked best came from Tamara Shopshin, who created an Abe Lincoln pin seen above.
“The flag pin has for the time lost its meaning because it has become part of a politician’s uniform,” she says. For her, Lincoln represents America at its best.
Other ideas suggested included wearing many pins, a la Jennifer Aniston in Office Space so Obama could show his “flare” for America; ripping off the lapels of his jacket so he doesn’t have to wear a pin; creating a series of Obama pins that would become the new American Flag pin; and, one even suggested created a scary Bald Eagle necklace so it would look like the bird was flying out of Obama’s chest. [via]
The old maxim about not judging a book by its cover somehow seems succinct here.
What everyone has lost sight of in the madness of the New Yorker’s satirical cartoon of Sen. Obama dressed as Osama and Michelle Obama dressed as a member of the Black Panther Party is the actual article about Obama’s swift rise to power.
It’s a long article, almost 18-pages, which is enough to think that no one commenting on the <sarcasm> insane reprehensibleness </sarcasm> of the magazine’s cover won’t actually read the damn thing. Which is a shame, for it’s a thoroughly researched and enlightening portrait of an ambitious/ruthless politician knocking on the door to the nation’s highest political office.
As Nate from FiveThirtyEight put it, “Well, no shit he’s ambitious. For any American to go from a relatively unprivileged childhood (or a privileged one for that matter) to be on the doorstep of the Preisdency by the time he’s age 46 requires a perfect storm of luck, intelligence, and ambition. Obama has ample amounts of each.”
He goes on to say that after finishing the article, it’s more notable for what it doesn’t say about Obama. In that he’s sort of a boring politician - not driven to ascend to the White House by some Oedipal complex (like Dubya) or the desire to get blow jobs (like Clinton). He’s just. Sort of. Ambitious. And unafraid of tossing those aside whom he has no use for anymore.
The upside is that he is intelligent, without being an academic; he’s not radical by any means (hence the irony of the cover); and finally, he is in no way corrupt. Something of a bonus considering how utterly corruptible and morally bankrupt the last president has been. Though I suppose Dubya’s legacy shouldn’t enter into this article.
As for the cover, yeah it’s provocative and certainly makes for easy water-cooling fodder. But its downside is that the discussion seems to end at the cover and not what’s on the inside of the magazine. Which is a shame because Ryan Lizza has really done his homework. Can’t wait to dive into this one again on my lunch break.
The actor portrayed fictional President David Palmer on FOX’s 24, and he thinks that role helped pave the way for current Democratic Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama.
Said Haysbert, to whomever would listen, “If anything, my portrayal of David Palmer, I think, may have helped open the eyes of the American people. And I mean the American people from across the board — from the poorest to the richest, every color and creed, every religious base — to prove the possibility there could be an African-American president, a female president, any type of president that puts the people first.” Meanwhile, Keifer Sutherland scoffed, and was forced to remind the actor that 24 is a television show by torturing him with a ball-peen hammer.
Update: This is the best I could find. I was hoping to find the entire speech, but it’s possible it was nothing more than “I’m Al Gore, you might remember me from the election in 2000 or my Nobel Peace Prize or my Oscar or my general pimpness. I want you to vote for Sen. Obama” In which case … that’s be just like Mr. Gore to be boring.
Nice to see Al Gore climb out of his cave and hike up his boots for Obama. Though we’re guessing if Sen. Clinton won the nomination he would have endorsed her as well. Seems a bit, I don’t know. Cowardly isn’t the word and maybe his reluctance to get involved until the general election was intentional.
Either way Al Gore has endorsed Sen. Obama in a speech in Detroit, Mich. So now that’s two major endorsements that have taken place in Michigan. Anyone wonder if this will be a heavily contested state? It’s obvious that Sen. Obama is pushing hard there.
Obama wrapped up the Democratic nomination last night and with his speech he tried to look towards John McCain and praise Hillary Clinton for a hard fought race.
But Sen. Clinton refused to accept the obvious and go quietly into the night. MORE »
Sen. Barack Obama’s speech from Philadelphia yesterday. Impressively nuanced speech on race relations in America. The gist: not as terrible as some would have you believe, but we’ve still got a long way to go. For those that like to read, here is the full text of his speech.
Overall the reception to this speech has been well received. It’s almost like people have been waiting for this type of nuanced discussion of race relations in America. And yes, this only reconfirms my notion that Sen. Obama is seizing his moment in history. It’s odd watching history play out before your eyes, so that in 20 or 30 years time I’ll be able to tell my children that I lived through this all.
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