Don Quixote’s Thought for the Day: We underestimate Obama
Don Quixote on Feb 08 2010 at 9:20 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m afraid we in the Bookwormroom underestimate Obama. We believe he is hopeless away from his teleprompters, but he did quite well in an unscripted (if ever-so-polite) exchange with the Republicans. We think he can’t move to the middle, but he supported Bernanke, shifted his foreign policy away from the positions of his most extreme followers and is now furiously signalling his willingness to work with the Republicans (well, okay, we know he’s simply getting ready to shift, or at least share, blame, but it is a strong strategic move, nonetheless). We discount that he defeated McCain, because of how weak a candidate McCain was, but we forget he also beat Clinton, a seasoned campaigner with a big head start.
Anyway, we are rightly pleased that the country seems to be coming to its senses, but we shouldn’t take anything for granted. Obama has a bully pulpit (did you see his long pre-game interview yesterday, in which he said with a perfectly straight face that the best thing to do about the deficit was to pass health care reform; the one thing we haven’t underestimated is his ability to lie), and he will use it to full advantage.
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14 Responses to “Don Quixote’s Thought for the Day: We underestimate Obama”
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DQ, I think we must exist in parallel universes.
We have been told by the media that he did well with the GOP. Those are the same people who tell us what an eloquent orator he is. If you are turned on by a mechanical recitation from a teleprompter, e.g. look left, now look right; with the whole thing delivered in a monotone, then you would agree. But, did you watch that whole thing? I have only seen sound-bites and I did not see anything impressive.
Who would he endorse other than Bernanke? Come to think of it, who could he get to take the job at this point in our history?
How about his support for our Justice system? He and his lap dog have already told the world that we are going give KSM a fair trial that will certainly convict him and then we will execute him. Failing that, if he is exonerated (or the case is dismissed due to prejudice and numerous other mistakes) we will keep him locked up forever anyway. What a brilliant advertisement for our system of justice. Need we even mention that he is stubbornly refusing to give up the idea of a trial in NYC? A trial that will cost at least a Billion$$,.paralyze major portions of the city as it drags on for years, and wave a red cape at every terrorist.
Now that he has driven the country into unsustainable and likely disasterous debt, he proposes freezing spending at the current unsustainable level. People say the Federal Government is spending like drunken sailors. As a reformed drunken sailor, I object. We at least spent our own money. To compound the country’s economic problems, he intends to levy even more regulation on the engines of economic growth while taxing the hell out of any one, or any entity, that has any remaining $$. China owns us.
I am not going to get into health care. The situation speaks for itself.
His party has faced the electorate three times in major elections in the past four months; twice in very liberal states. They have lost all three times. He personally endorsed and campaigned for all three losing candidates.
Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela. They practically spit on us. His foreign policy is just wonderful. He has managed to dismantle that Special Relationship thing with Great Britain. And he has managed to make the French look resolute in comparison. We are in the process of losing Eastern Europe. Countries who looked to us for leadership and support are hung out to dry. At this moment, the EU is absolutely furious that they had to read in the newspaper that he did not have time to attend the Summit they intended to host in May. Intentional or incompetence? Who knows? The effect is the same either way; and it is bad, very bad.
Yep, I won’t underestimate him. I won’t underestimate his capacity for mischief. I just hope we can run a bunch of his Congressional henchpersons out of town in 2010 and neuter him enough to survive until 2012.
Just my thoughts.
DQ, I don’t underestimate Obama as a campaigner. He can say anything to anyone to their face and make them believe it. In the last election, that belief lasted. I don’t think that belief will last as long when he tries it again leading into to the 2010 elections.
The man has proven himself to be a rigid idealogue. And things will simply keep slipping out, things that expose the mask, that drop the mask. His handlers can’t keep him from it, not continually. He will keep selling green energy, not energy independence. He’ll keep selling cap and trade. He’ll keep selling ONLY the big government solutions, and that will be the undoing.
People will see that his words about cutting the deficit – requiring cuts in the size of government, not a steady expansion of it month by month – are just hollow words.
The question is, will the Republicans take advantage of it? THEY to this point have been woefully inept in framing a consistent message that refutes the Obama spin. That’s why I see the end result for 2010 as being up in the air.
I think Obama beat Hillary because of the innate racism of the left, not because of any real abilities he has. White Demos were looking for cheap grace—”I voted black! I’m not a racist!” which was marginally more attractive than voting for a woman. Most Demos are either women or married to them, so there was no really derring-do factor there voting for Hillary.
realclearpolitics.com has an article from the Weekly Standard examining Obama’s drop in popularity. It’s a compelling analysis and one I haven’t even heard a breath of before! (Examining Democrat primary results against many recent anti-Obama election events. Check it out; it indicates we still have our work ahead of us.
http://weeklystandard.com/articles/clinton-voters-jump-ship
(And may foretell a Hillary re-challenge to Obama in 2012!)
DQ, whereas I agree that an opponent should never be underestimated, it is also important to properly define your opponent.
Once defined, his strengths (oratory, rhetoric) and weaknesses (narcissism, ideology, intellectual shallowness, reflexive anger, etc.) become clear. Then it becomes a matter of minimizing his strengths while maximizing his weaknesses, even in little ways.
I suspect, for example, that little things like the laughter that greeted his SOTU comment about the “overwhelming evidence” of man-made global warming cut deep into his narcissistic self-image. Now that his ideological rigidity has been exposed for all to see, it can be used against him. Alinsky understood this all too well, but conservatives are learning fast.
Perhaps the above comments are pointing out the same thing: Obama is wily. He has several advisors who are similarly attuned to the aggregation of political power. Whatever ignorance they may have of economics, the military, etc., and however much we may laugh at Obama’s narcissism, we ignore those strengths at our own and our country’s peril
Here is an updated link for the Weekly Standard article that Mike cited.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/clinton-voters-jump-ship
DQ…
You didn’t finish the sentence…
It should read “We underestimate Obama AT OUR OWN RISK”…
Don’t know, DQ, but I think I have to go with Oldflyer: I don’t seem to be observing the same rocket scientist you are.
I don’t think he did that well with the Republicans. The best measure of how well he might have done is to take a look at the result – and it seems most of them are either laughing at him, or hold him in contempt beneath laughter. At any rate, he certainly cannot claim to have moved them, or reached much anything that could be referred to as an “understanding” with them.
I don’t think – again to agree with Oldflyer – that “endorsing” Bernanke is indicative of much of anything. Who else was he going to “endorse?” Not many people seem to want the job at the moment, and I certainly never heard any other name being floated by him.
And beating Hillary Clinton – well, don’t know about that one, either. She may be many things, but I don’t actually consider her a seasoned campaigner. The Clinton machine may be seasoned campaigners, but I’m uncertain what her contribution to that might have been. In NY the reptile Schumer turned out his lockstep idiots and she had no opposition, so how much of your actual “campaigning” did that require? Indeed, every time she opened her mouth her numbers dropped, so that was purely a machine-run and boosted-by-Schumer deal. I think the boys in the back room – and Clinton himself – were astounded by what a lousy candidate she turned out to be.
And of course her black dialect was much worse than Obama’s. Which proves my assertion: the very fact that she was idiot enough to try that – even once – in public is a pretty clear indication of how awful her campaigning instincts are.
I think things are falling apart fast on young Barry, and watching his reactions thus far I don’t see that he – or the people around him – have much of a clue what to do about it. He has squandered an enormous amount of political capital and trust in a year – the modern record – and nobody believes a damn word he says that seems to indicate a tack to the center or any attempt at conciliation. He is an ideologue so rigid as to be set in concrete, and that doesn’t strike me as exemplifying a supple mind.
He isn’t furiously signaling his willingness to work with Republicans, he’s furiously signaling that he doesn’t want to lose control of everything in November, and doesn’t want to be a one-term bomb two years from November. Regrettably everybody knows this, nobody trusts him, and he’s encountering zero cooperation. The Republicans, up until Brown was elected in Mass. had absolutely no say in anything – not a word. They were ignored, and not even invited into the back room. So at this point none of them at this point believe a word of this nonsense – and why should they?
No, sorry. Many a dope has been graduated from an Ivy League school; here’s another one.
CM is right in saying that the racist charge is far more dynamic and deadly than the misogynist charge.
Btw, Obama’s not just an ideologue. He’s a megalomaniac.
<B>And of course her black dialect was much worse than Obama’s. Which proves my assertion: the very fact that she was idiot enough to try that – even once – in public is a pretty clear indication of how awful her campaigning instincts are.</b>
There’s an layer of artificiality on Senator Clinton. Even though she tries to connect with grassroots, she attempts to mirror their views and prejudices. Slightly different from Obama the blank state technique.
Bill clinton also did that with the First Black President thing. And his feel the pain thing.
Clinton also seemed to have gotten better ratings from progressives, while Obama got votes from the middle independents and other slightly clueless individuals on the right (the obvious network of good old boys). It was the delegate system Obama fixed, most likely with his foreign donations turned into liquid bribe cash.
<B>I’m afraid we in the Bookwormroom underestimate Obama.</b>
There you go with the nebulous, ambiguous, and unprovable “we” again, DQ. That’s not really an argument to begin with. Just a statement of your opinion. Whenever you use that word, DQ, it’s like when Obama uses the word “I” or “we are the ones we have been waiting for”. It doesn’t really mean anything substantive.
I think our biggest mistake will be to overestimate the Republicans’ ability to benefit from the mistakes Obama has already made, and the mistakes he will continue to make. I too rank Obama medium high as a campaigner (he was helped by two awful opposing candidates and a completely complicit media, which ran interference and led the cheer-leading for him), but I think his governance has proven to be mediocre to bad. He’s never risen to good and, with two wars and a recession, we need good.
But back to those Republicans, think of Lincoln’s famous words: “That’s just like [General Ambrose] Burnside. Wringing yet another remarkable defeat out of the jaws of victory.” That should be what we fear most.
Oldflyer & JJ, I hope you’re right.