Obama and The Audacity of Hope
There’s an excerpt from Barack Obama’s upcoming book The Audacity of Hope on his website. I really enjoyed Dreams from My Father, and I have a hunch I’ll enjoy this next book too. I also have a hunch that it’s going to aggravate a lot of people in the online liberal activist sphere. Obama’s approach is to try to appear above the fray, aiming to build consensus and do something different. As a result, in the excerpt, he talks about how he doesn’t share the view of many fellow Democrats that things are worse than they’ve ever been, and about how both sides in the partisan struggle have gotten caught up in their favored positions and stopped looking for either common ground or innovative solutions. Obama makes clear that he prefers the Democrats to the Republicans, but I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that the effort to appear evenhanded is going to be categorized by some folks as a form of selling out, diminishing the Democratic brand, and/or reinforcing right-wing talking points.
I can see where those critiques would be coming from, but from Obama’s last book and his keynote speech in 2004, it sure seems to me like this was always the kind of guy he is. (I have read some reports from folks who watched the Illinois primary more closely that Obama was more of a firebrand at that point.) I guess we will see if he maintains his popularity and high approval with the population at large.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.
Saturday, May 27th 2006 at 5:18 am |
I forget what magazine I was reading today while I was in a little coffee shop sucking down a strawberry-banana smoothie, but there was a guest editorial that says that the Democratic Party has to find a real platform that doesn’t just consist of knee-jerk reactions to the Republican right. That statement, I realized suddenly, neatly nailed what’s been fueling my feeling of being politically between the devil and the deep blue sea for the past several years. And I believe Obama gets that. (He’s not the only one, to be sure, but he may well be the most visible.)
Wednesday, June 7th 2006 at 1:29 pm |
Well, I’m one of those folks who think that the Democratic Party does have a platform, but no one pays any attention to it in favor of occasionally finding a Democrat who opposes the Republican right. (And on several occasions, I kinda wish there had been more knee-jerk opposition, but that’s neither here nor there.) The fact that Democrats can’t put any legislation on the floor in Congress and don’t have the White House as a bully pulpit means they’re pretty much stuck playing opposition politics. But Democrats including John Kerry, Jack Murtha, Wes Clark and Russ Feingold have offered different proposals for handling Iraq. Ted Kennedy has made proposals on the immigration issues (and John McCain has worked with him on those). I know Democrats have tried to get a minimum wage hike onto the floor for years. Even Obama’s proposal to assist American car manufacturers with their health care costs in exchange for increased inventment in fuel efficient vehicles hasn’t gotten much traction because Obama can’t do a whole lot to push it other than talk about it.