well I went with your suggestion and picked the obama book. Emily is reading it and she said I should read it too. And it'll save me a couple of bucks seeing how emily already has it. Have you been watching/listening/reading any of obama speeches lately? What do you think?
Dad is kind of wondering what all the fuss is about. I mean the guy hasn't DONE anything.
I feel bad that he is stealing away the spotlight from Hillary. I really want to see her be the first woman president. But....I still keep seeing so much anti-Hillary stuff that I am left wondering if she really is electable.
When I was at my dad's last night I caught part of a Bill O'Reilly program where he was lambasting John Edwards for the two anti-Christian women he had hired to manage his internet image, and I am amazed that they can nit-pick about any little perceived weakness and turn it into a major news story. He indicated that this would be the end of John Edwards bid for the presidency.
The right are probably salivating at the thought of a Barak Obama presidential bid because he will be so vulnerable in so many inconsequential ways that they will be able to exploit.
Anyway, I welcome all of your insights. I haven't been reading my Newsweek and US News and World Report as much these days, and can probably be easily swayed.
Karl: Obama was the keynote speaker at the Call for Renewal Conference last year. It was a great speech about religion in politics, how it should and shouldn't be used. Really fantastic. You can download it free if you subscribe to Obama's podcast on iTunes, but if you google it, I'd wager that you'd get the text.
I like Obama. A lot. I think he's a lot more electable than Hillary. Don't get me wrong, I think Bill would be a fantastic First Husband, I just think that Hillary's character assassination has been nearly perfectly executed by the Right. That's sad, but it's a political fact of life.
In America today politics is about image. Nobody (except Dad apparantly) cares that Obama has only had two years as a senator. In fact, with the public perception of Washington tantamount to a steaming cess-pool of corruption, page molestation and back-scratching (check the 2006 exit polls) it might be a plus.
Obama is like Kennedy. He's asking for the best and the brightest and a lot of able young Americans are really going to be able to get behind a message like that.
As for how Obama has spent those last two years, it seems to me that he (correctly) made Illinois his top priority. He's crossed the aisle to side with Bob (?) Coburn on a bill to make governement spending more transparant. He's working on an initiative to practically impliment tighter cafe standards on automakers, allowing them tax-breaks if they comply and he also supports keeping the internet free from corporate control. And no, he hasn't cracked open the political world and bent it to his will, but for the past two years, he's been a freshman senator of the minority party. I'd say he's doing okay.
I recognize that he's not amazing. He's not the second coming. But I think he's center enough to draw voters and principled enough to take a stand and admit mistakes. Heck, he gaffed a few days ago in New Hampshire, said that the troops who've died in Iraq's lives were "wasted." What did he do? He immediatly stopped his speech and apologized. He said as he was saying it that he realized it was misspoken. He admitted his mistake. Cool.
good info rusty. i agree. you and i both know that his inexperience will probably big his biggest downfall with mainstream america (well, lets hope his drug use admission doesn't become an issue). his personality and willingness to be upfront and honest are big indicators that he will be the right man for the job. i tend to side with dad a bit though, while he may have the right personality for a future president, i don't want him learning on issues that need the right decision right now. even so, based on the field we have to choose from, he'll get my vote.
Yeah, he's especially weak on foreign policy, but he's got the backing of a great author and scholor on genocide Samantha Power, who wrote the forward to a book I read about Rwanda. She won a Pulitzer for her own book, and she's been instrumental in bringing Darfur to the international media's attention.
It's like Bush. With only five years as a governor, his foreign portfolio was slim too. So he chose to surround himself with, in his opinion, a team of knowledgable advisors. If Obama does the same, avoiding the pitfalls Bush fell into, namely picking a team with ideological blinders, he could really hold some clout.
That said, I'd be just as comfortable with Obama as Vice President, get some national and international exposure and take the presidency in 2016.
Where's Betsey on the blog? She's the smarty-pants on this subject, I wanna hear from her!
She's probably off doing some Relief Society President stuff. I'll tell you--it's like I never have a moment to myself anymore. There is always someone calling you, or always some task to do.
6 comments:
well I went with your suggestion and picked the obama book. Emily is reading it and she said I should read it too. And it'll save me a couple of bucks seeing how emily already has it. Have you been watching/listening/reading any of obama speeches lately? What do you think?
Dad is kind of wondering what all the fuss is about. I mean the guy hasn't DONE anything.
I feel bad that he is stealing away the spotlight from Hillary. I really want to see her be the first woman president. But....I still keep seeing so much anti-Hillary stuff that I am left wondering if she really is electable.
When I was at my dad's last night I caught part of a Bill O'Reilly program where he was lambasting John Edwards for the two anti-Christian women he had hired to manage his internet image, and I am amazed that they can nit-pick about any little perceived weakness and turn it into a major news story. He indicated that this would be the end of John Edwards bid for the presidency.
The right are probably salivating at the thought of a Barak Obama presidential bid because he will be so vulnerable in so many inconsequential ways that they will be able to exploit.
Anyway, I welcome all of your insights. I haven't been reading my Newsweek and US News and World Report as much these days, and can probably be easily swayed.
Love you all,
Claudia
Karl: Obama was the keynote speaker at the Call for Renewal Conference last year. It was a great speech about religion in politics, how it should and shouldn't be used. Really fantastic. You can download it free if you subscribe to Obama's podcast on iTunes, but if you google it, I'd wager that you'd get the text.
I like Obama. A lot. I think he's a lot more electable than Hillary. Don't get me wrong, I think Bill would be a fantastic First Husband, I just think that Hillary's character assassination has been nearly perfectly executed by the Right. That's sad, but it's a political fact of life.
In America today politics is about image. Nobody (except Dad apparantly) cares that Obama has only had two years as a senator. In fact, with the public perception of Washington tantamount to a steaming cess-pool of corruption, page molestation and back-scratching (check the 2006 exit polls) it might be a plus.
Obama is like Kennedy. He's asking for the best and the brightest and a lot of able young Americans are really going to be able to get behind a message like that.
As for how Obama has spent those last two years, it seems to me that he (correctly) made Illinois his top priority. He's crossed the aisle to side with Bob (?) Coburn on a bill to make governement spending more transparant. He's working on an initiative to practically impliment tighter cafe standards on automakers, allowing them tax-breaks if they comply and he also supports keeping the internet free from corporate control. And no, he hasn't cracked open the political world and bent it to his will, but for the past two years, he's been a freshman senator of the minority party. I'd say he's doing okay.
I recognize that he's not amazing. He's not the second coming. But I think he's center enough to draw voters and principled enough to take a stand and admit mistakes. Heck, he gaffed a few days ago in New Hampshire, said that the troops who've died in Iraq's lives were "wasted." What did he do? He immediatly stopped his speech and apologized. He said as he was saying it that he realized it was misspoken. He admitted his mistake. Cool.
good info rusty. i agree. you and i both know that his inexperience will probably big his biggest downfall with mainstream america (well, lets hope his drug use admission doesn't become an issue). his personality and willingness to be upfront and honest are big indicators that he will be the right man for the job. i tend to side with dad a bit though, while he may have the right personality for a future president, i don't want him learning on issues that need the right decision right now. even so, based on the field we have to choose from, he'll get my vote.
-ryan
Yeah, he's especially weak on foreign policy, but he's got the backing of a great author and scholor on genocide Samantha Power, who wrote the forward to a book I read about Rwanda. She won a Pulitzer for her own book, and she's been instrumental in bringing Darfur to the international media's attention.
It's like Bush. With only five years as a governor, his foreign portfolio was slim too. So he chose to surround himself with, in his opinion, a team of knowledgable advisors. If Obama does the same, avoiding the pitfalls Bush fell into, namely picking a team with ideological blinders, he could really hold some clout.
That said, I'd be just as comfortable with Obama as Vice President, get some national and international exposure and take the presidency in 2016.
Where's Betsey on the blog? She's the smarty-pants on this subject, I wanna hear from her!
-Rusty
She's probably off doing some Relief Society President stuff. I'll tell you--it's like I never have a moment to myself anymore. There is always someone calling you, or always some task to do.
Claudia
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