Jack & Jill Politics

So apparently the verdict is in: Sen. Barack Obama, too confident to govern.

It all would be quite funny if many people didn't seem to be inhaling this multimedia stink bomb as if it were fragrant truth.

I've spent a few days on the campaign trail with Obama and know people who've traveled with him for months. I wouldn't argue that portrayals of the candidate as occasionally aloof, or a little professorial, are imagined.

But it's a long ways from, in the words of Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, acting like "the presumptuous nominee" whose "biggest challenger may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris."

Milbank, who is often wickedly revealing, last week seemed mostly wicked as he turned benign campaign tableau -- an Obama motorcade, a talk with the Treasury secretary, a "pep rally" with congressional Democrats -- into evidence that Obama thinks he's already the winner.

Milbank at least leavened his thesis with humor, unlike others piling on the campaign to turn Barack into Slick Barry.

Fox News host Sean Hannity told viewers last week how "presumptuous" Obama had become. Proof: The candidate told congressional Democrats that the world had been waiting for his hopeful message and that to some he had become a symbol of a "return to our best traditions."

That may not be humble pie, but doesn't even come close to breaking the narcissism barrier. Don't our politicians routinely boast about how essential they are to the republic?

Then came the stunning revelation that Obama had begun planning for a transition to the White House.

Fox News hostess E.D. Hill -- who dubbed Obama's playful knuckle bump with his wife a "terrorist fist jab" -- reminded viewers recently that the Democrat was "not commander in chief just yet, which is why some find his decision to start planning his transition into the White House a bit presumptuous."

Hill wondered whether Obama was "jumping the gun or just covering all the bases?"

Never mind that McCain advisors have acknowledged that they too were planning for a White House transition or the fact that history has rewarded those who looked ahead. Early transition planner Ronald Reagan hit the ground running in 1980. Bill Clinton initially struggled after dawdling on White House preparations in 1992.

So he appeared at ease with world leaders, talked animatedly with beaming American troops and drew huge civilian crowds. Then the pundits -- who had been taking a round of bashing for supposedly going easy on Obama -- told Obama he needed to beware of appearing too presidential.

Opponents would like to put the Democrat in another can't-win box over his "failure" to visit wounded troops at a military hospital in Germany. Obama canceled a visit to the Landstuhl hospital and was accused of being self-centered.

What if he had appeared at the hospital? David Kiley reported in BusinessWeek magazine how a Republican operative described plans to attack Obama for -- that's right -- using wounded troops as campaign props, if he had gone through with the visit.

These red herrings, a veritable school of 'em, are amusing for those who put them in perspective. But how many take the time to do that?

In 1992, George H.W. Bush reportedly was surprised to find a price scanner in a grocery store, which "proved" he was out of touch with the common man. In 2004, John F. Kerry windsurfed and knew how to speak French. He was pegged as an elitist snob.

McCain launched a television ad last week lumping Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton: just a trio of celebrities handed fame they haven't really earned.

"There's an interesting line building on Obama that somehow success and intelligence are a handicap," said Mark Sawyer, a UCLA political scientist. "If he wasn't extraordinary, he wouldn't be there. But then he is extraordinary and it becomes, 'He is just too good, too well spoken, too accomplished.' "

"Jennifer Garner gave the first speech supporting Obama, and she was very witty, clever and funny," says a source at SET. "She was followed by her husband Ben, then Matt Damon. The men gave serious political speeches on how the country needs change."

The Afflecks and Damons departed in a limo after about 90 minutes and headed for a private party at Anthony Kennedy Shriver's Miami Beach home.

Shriver is the founder and head of Best Buddies charity and first cousin of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who is a member of the Obama Vice Presidential Nominating Committee.

The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place.

Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black.

So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.

Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.

But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.

Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation.

Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades.

He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition.

Dare He Play the Winning Card!

[T]he exchange in St. Petersburg, Florida, yesterday between Obama and some African-American youths that stood up in the seats behind him and held up a banner that said "What About the Black Community, Obama?" was super interesting, because, reading between the lines, it wasn't really about race.

It was about tactics.

That protest, in fact, mirrored the FISA debate and some other matters (the latest being the silly and unproductive attempts to pressure Obama to put Wes Clark on his ticket as VP, just gag me, please) by white "progressives" (I put that word in quotes because so many that describe themselves as such are far more centrist, in ideology and style, than many of us that openly organize against a capitalist system; they lay a false claim to the word, in my opinion, boneheadedly false when they so often claim an upper hand or moral superiority in its use) when the real difference between them and Obama is not one of ideology or policy, but one of strategy and tactics, what the senator calls "framing."

With no track record to prove it, they somehow think that they know better how to win a presidential election than, well, the guy who's been winning it all year.

The scene in St. Pete also provided a lesson in community organizing: Obama didn't send the cops in to taze those protesters. He included them, while utilizing them as props to make his own points. He told them, "You'll have a chance to make a statement."

Here's the money quote from Obama's response:

"I may not have spoken out in the way that you would have wanted me to speak out, which is fine... What I'm suggesting is that on each of these issues that you mention I have spoken out and I have spoken out forcefully. Listen, I was a civil rights lawyer. I passed the first racial profiling legislation in Illinois... some of the toughest death penalty reform legislation in Illinois... now, that doesn't mean that I'm always going to satisfy the way that you guys want these issues framed, and I understand. Which gives you the option of voting for somebody else. It gives you the option to run for office yourself. Those are all options. But the one thing that I think is important is that we're respectful toward each other. And what is true is I believe that the only way we're gonna solve our problems in this country is if all of us come together: black, white, Hispanic, Asian-American, Native American, young, old, disabled, gay, straight, that, I think has got to be our agenda. Alright. Next question."

Baratunde Thurston at Jack & Jill Politics offers cogent analysis:

"First observation: for the scared white folks who think Obama is going to lead the return of the Nubian Empire, the visual of him getting heckled by young black men for not addressing the problems of black America enough, should do much to settle those fears. Ludacris reminded them he was black. These brothers push him the other way! It might actually help him with those voters."

Next. I'm used to, and have respect for, those who informedly criticize Obama because they think he's not progressive enought (see: Black Agenda Report.) But the dudes in the video showed an incredible lack of knowledge when they said Obama's not talking about these issues, "not once." As his answer began to prove, he has been speaking and acting out on issues that face black Americans, but he's not running for president of black America alone. To actually frame these issues in a way that will result in positive change, you need to have more than just angry black America. You need a coalition that sees all our our problems and solutions bound together."

One of the comments under Baratunde's post accused that "Nobody could ever make me believe that he would use that tone and tell somebody White to you have the option of voting for somebody else."

Bzzzt. In fact, Obama did essentially say the same thing to the (overwhelmingly white and college educated) critics of his vote on FISA:

"...some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That's ok."

[S]uddenly, along comes a political candidate inside the United States - a category of person from the last place I expected this to come from - giving a nationwide teach-in and lesson-in-civics about how to effectively organize for change.

Here's an unspoken little secret: The success of Obama's campaign challenges those that still subscribe to broken patterns of activism - whether the zombie-like attempt to repeat the completely coopted street protest tactics of 1968 (or of 1999) or the academic purity troll approach that complains without even attempting to organize real people - and is driving various of them absolutely crazy with envy.

To every fellow and sister of the left that, practically on automatic pilot, bemoans that Obama has taken center stage when it comes to organizing for change in the United States (I've heard your whispers about "We can't wait to see Al disillusioned in 2009! That'll show him!" as if you're actually hoping for bad news), I say: Show me the better plan.

Show me how you are effectively organizing real people. Show me how you stopped the Clinton machine in the 1990s from auctioning off the Democratic Party (oops, too late!). Show me how you stopped the war in Iraq. Show me a single political battle you that have won with your tired old tactics and "framing" of "issues." Then I'll take your complaining more seriously.

The skinny kid with the big ears that don't look like the men on dollar bills is doing, right here, right now, what none of you complaining about him have accomplished: He's built a nationwide grassroots organization - and trained thousands in the nuts and bolts of how to do it on the local level - in a way that facilitates simultaneous horizontal organization and that can sustain the kind of pluralism that says: hey, you don't like the way I'm doing it? Do it yourself then!

Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black.

Obama was asked if he, too, isn’t engaging in negative campaigning, and how is his negative talk different from McCain’s negative talk.

“This is the classic dilemma of politics,’’ Obama replied. “We get four or five shots in a row (assertions by McCain), that I would rather lose a war so that I can win a campaign, that I am not willing to visit the troops, that I somehow am full of myself, that I’m an empty-headed celebrity, whatever repeated attacks have been launched this week, so when I say, boy those are kind of silly arguments, the press says, isn’t that being negative. Well no, I’m describing what their strategy has been for the last week… I’m just stating the facts….

“Ultimately, what I think we’ve got to do is keep driving home the essential message of this campaign, that we’ve got to change business as usual… What we’ve seen this week ahs been politics as usual… This is the same thing that was done four years or eight years ago… You guys are all familiar with this. You’ve seen this before. We’ve seen this movie before.’‘