At some level, [Barack] Obama seems to say that the problem [causing people anger] is merely the politicians. Their failures have gotten in the way of solving the problems of the American people. He'll nod to the problem of corporate lobbyists but he usually won't straight out identify the actors OUTSIDE GOVERNMENT, namely corporate power, as a significant target for change.The problem with many Republicans is they operate according to the business=good / government=bad dichotomy, while I see both as equally prone to bad even as we expect that they be good. Money is simply the business counterpart to government power.
Ultimately, [John] Edwards is more willing to try to build a message of where the source of problems are. Politicians may not be acting to solve them, but Obama needs to talk more about that source of the problem, not just his vaguer blame of politicians failure to act, to convince me he can turn his organizational prowess into deeper ideological realignment of the populace.
How I vote in February will have less to do with who has won the other primaries to that point and more to do with whether I can resolve the question of whether Obama sees the ills of corporations as readily as he sees the ills of government.
You seem to misunderstand Senator Obama's message. His value proposition for the White House is to remove barriers to finding real solutions. He's not going to point a finger at a corporate individual and declare them America's problem. George Bush did that on an international level and look where it got us.
ReplyDeleteObama's value is also that he is incredibly sincere in his desire to make this effort. Edwards doesn't come close to representing what his words describe.
And you've misunderstood George Bush's problem. His primary problem was not "pointing a finger." It was ignoring and excluding anyone who didn't agree with him, and either rushing to judgment or misleading those who did agree with him.
ReplyDeleteI actually want a president who will stand up to the real troublemakers both at home and abroad. Standing up to some of those who are your own corporate donors seems to me a profile in courage. Obama talks tough about politicians (which is safe and easy and popular), but I don't see him dropping the hammer on any corporate wrong-doers like Edwards has the insurance companies that wait until someone is dead to say they'll cover a life-saving procedure.
And unless you know Obama's heart as well as Obama himself, anonymous, it is a leap of faith to describe him as "incredibly sincere." I'm even more critical of politicans than Obama is at this point: no politician gets to the halls of superpower by being "incredibly sincere." If s/he does, then sincerity in incidental. But you desire to see him as sincere, obviously, and you are entitled to your opinion; however, your entitlement does not make your opinion fact.