The Brits get Obama quicker than we do

At least the progressive Brits do, as a raft of Guardian articles show.

Follow me over the fold for their lead article by Gary Younge who reflects on how Obama has transformed Democratic Party politics.

Gary Younge in The Guardian:

Obama's win was the result not of mobilizing the Democratic base but transforming it. More than a third of his support was from the under-30s and most of those who backed him had never been to a caucus before. A large number of independents also flocked to him, helping to boost Democratic caucus goers to almost double the number four years ago.

In so doing he not only helped remould the electoral landscape of the Democratic party, he also refashioned the racial expectations of America's electoral politics.

Isn't that what we've been trying to do, here at dailykos? Shouldn't we be ecstatic? Yes, Edwards' rhetoric has been more populist. But doesn't actually mobilizing a huge new base count for more than words?

Not to mention that the whole arc of Obama's life has been as a grass-roots organizer. Think of an unknown college graduate moving to the South Side of Chicago in the Harold Washington years (long before Harvard Law School). That's the kind of evidence of intent we ought to expect from our leaders. His history, like his cadences, draws more from MLK's example than any other candidate does.

Nor are Obama's words in any way shabby. Personally, if he wins I look forward to hearing the first inaugural since JFK's that has any immortality in it. I'm dating myself now, but these words thrilled me when I heard them live as a ten-year-old:

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans

Even though he was speaking about my father's generation, the ones who fought World War II, I felt they spoke for me too. No less than Dylan did later.

The ensuing long political tragedy of my lifetime is sometimes almost enough to make you stop hoping. Think of what might have been, absent a few bullets in the 1960s that started a tradition of dirty deeds at critical junctures practiced ever since, and it chills your soul. A part of me fears to rest my hopes in any one man; I fear for Obama in this violent America, truly No Country for Old Men. Then I remember another part of that inaugural speech, poignant for what it acknowledged and what it could not know was to come:

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days; nor in the life of this Administration; nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

Again.

•  Oh great it's 1960 again

  Vietnam ahead.

  by Salo on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:20:14 PM PDT

  •  Actually, it is not 1960 again

    I think Obama is able to move past those old baby boomer debates that I myself am too young for.

    by v2aggie2 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:52:19 PM PDT

    •  Yes and no.

      He can change the terms of debate in a very good way, but we musn't think it saves us from learning the lessons of history.

      Idiot Bush didn't learn and made all the mistakes of Vietnam plus new ones. It's important to read books, articles and see documentaries on historical time periods and learn from them.

      by doinaheckuvanutjob on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 07:27:49 PM PDT

      •  I do agree with your statement

        regarding learning from the lessons of history.

        I was referring to the old 60's culture debates only.

        by v2aggie2 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 07:53:22 PM PDT

  •  Don"t blame JFK for Vietnam.

    The blood of those American's is clearly on LBJ and Nixon.

    by Templar on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:04:58 PM PDT

    •  JFK was going

      to do what LBJ did.

      by Salo on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 08:18:12 PM PDT

      •  Kindly supply proof for your statement.

        I was in college and draft age at that time and fully remember who stepped up that war and it sure as hell wasn't Kennedy!!

        by Templar on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 05:00:18 PM PDT

    •  actually, Nixon got us into that mess

      In the late 1950s, Eisenhower was under heavy pressure to give his "heir apparent" (who he disliked) some foreign policy experience. So he looked for an area where the US had no particular strategic interests.

      He sent Nixon as the US observer to the peace talks between the Viet Minh and the French colonialists in French Indochina.   Due to Nixon's cleverness and negotiating skills, America wound up as the treaty guarantor power. The rest is history.

      Source: out of print The Running of Richard Nixon, a decidedly unauthorized biography... Amazon might have a copy.

      by alizard on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 01:47:06 AM PDT

      •  As I stated...

        The blood of those American's is clearly on LBJ and Nixon.

        by Templar on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 05:01:55 PM PDT

  •  and a lot of great music!

    by memofromturner on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:40:53 PM PDT

•  You're too close to hero worship for me.

  Talking about the "arc of his life" can be said of any of the candidates. Because some people like to hear that stuff they all have to say it and try to sell their life story.

  But it doesn't sell me unless the person's positions on the substantive issues prove that there is a there there.

  Saying that Obama's live story is special and better than the other candidates is just too much hero worship for my taste.

  by Gregory Wonderwheel on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:23:27 PM PDT

  •  Face it: Obama is GOD

    and you are a cynic if you disagree.

    by catfish on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:29:54 PM PDT

  •  Obama is a hero

    To a liberal.  How many politicians do you know that started their working life helping build institutions for the inhabitants of any place like the South side of Chicago?  How many world class law students - and that objectively classifies Obama's record at Harvard - turn down becoming immensely wealthy in the corporate or other big law spheres to work as a teacher and a Civl Rights pro-bono attorney.  How many with How many with this record of legislation  It realy is unfair to point out the other candidates haven't made the kind of difference Obama made thfrough those laws. I know no legislator anywhere with that kind of accomplishments in any chamber.  

    The problem many of us have is we can't admit there realy are heroic people left in this world that is too often run by and for the greedy and the grasping.  This is a hero for this age.    

    by SmithsLastWord on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:36:17 PM PDT

    •  If I had the money

      I'd buy a FP ad and just post this quotation from Eugene V. Debs:

      I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I lead you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.

      by Pesto on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:45:06 PM PDT

      •  Debs also asked people to vote him President

        Which is a difficult line to balence.  Debs of course detested the great man in history school of explaining the worlds events. But he had to prove himself the best candidate for the socialists and the country - accomplishing only th first recognition of his greatness.

        Obama started as a community organizer.  His win last week was because of an organization of millions of ordinary that formed as a response to his candiadcy. Community organization is not to be taken lightly as some dynastic candidates might. One of the first community organizers grew sickened with part of what the people he helped organize in Chicago's meat packing tenements dod with the power he helped them to organize.  But he knew he didn't on the organization he only helped start.  No one owns an institution but the people who are involved in it - and all of them have a stake.  This is not a top down sort of campaign.  It's not a leader of a vanguard.  community organizers ask that you organize to solve your own problems - like electing a community organizer to the Presidency.  

        by SmithsLastWord on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:53:32 PM PDT

        •  "Debs also asked people to vote him President...

          while he was imprisoned for his political beliefs.

          (if memory serves me correctly)

          by IamLorax on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:19:09 PM PDT

          •  correct

            my grandmother was a campaign worker

            by parryander on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:33:09 PM PDT

        •  Obama isn't building an IAF chapter

          he's the candidate in a presidential primary campaign.

          One of the best signs of this is that no Alinskian organizer would ever put him or herself at the center of attention the way that a candidate has to.  This isn't Obama's fault -- it's just the nature of the enterprise.

          And there's another very key difference between an electoral campaign and an Alinskian community organization:  an electoral campaign has a very clear, unambiguous goal:  winning the election.  Obama's campaign can be open to ideas and input and suggestions, but it's not open to thousands of Obama volunteers saying, "We've decided to drop this whole Presidential campaign -- we're going to fight for better public transit to our neighborhoods.  With your money."  

          I think Obama has been very vague so far about exactly what kind of "change" he wants to achieve.  Alinsky built organizations so that communities could deal with external institutions of power -- City Hall, the companies that owned the livestock yards and slaughterhouses, etc -- that were screwing them over.

          Democratically negotiating priorities within the community was a part of this.  But it wasn't the only point of the enterprise.  The point, in the end, was to help ordinary people fight back against people who were messing with their lives.  I fully agree that Alinsky believed strongly in letting community/organization members figure out who to go after in that effort, but he certainly had his own ideas about how society actually worked -- he just thought the most effective thing in the end was to ask people, rather than tell them.

          What would it mean to try to organize the entire US as an Alinskian community organization?  Or is Obama only trying to include as subset of America in the "unity" (that doesn't seem likely, or in keeping with his rhetoric)?

          Back to Debs:  he had a very clear sense of what workers had to do to "lead themselves out of the capitalist wilderness": organize unions (or one big union), take control of industrial capacity, and organize the economy and society on democratic lines.  

          Debs was an ideological socialist, and in that sense incredibly and unapologetically partisan.  I'm having trouble bridging the gap between Obama's rhetoric of change and his calls for post-partisan, general unity.

          by Pesto on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:26:13 PM PDT

          •  thanks

            I am having the same problem with his rhetoric...
            I asked my 19 yr old nephew - he says Obama 'just connects'. Okay...and?

            by parryander on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:34:56 PM PDT

    •  I'd bet he got paid just fine

      at his firm.  The choice was between being obscenely rich or just really well-paid but doing good work, and he opted for the latter.  I'd do the same, and a lot of people would, too.  It doesn't make him a fucking saint.

      by burrow owl on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:25:53 PM PDT

    •  Heroic

      Any version of heroic is admirable and worth encouraging these days (i.e., the last 7+ years).

      by greengemini on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:55:44 PM PDT

    •  Who's a hero? MLK, FDR, Ghandi etc.

      Or somebody's dad or mom.

      Obama may be your hero for some weird reason, but until he slays the Rethug dragon, gets our govt. straightened out, and gets universal health care, I am not calling him a hero.

      Your standards may be as low as hearing a few speeches that warm your heart, I think most people's standards are a bit higher.

      by doinaheckuvanutjob on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 07:33:10 PM PDT

  •  Hero Worship?

    "Saying that Obama's live story is special and better than the other candidates is just too much hero worship for my taste."

    ___________

    How is that hero worship?
    Isn't it OK to appreciate that?

    Personal connection does matter in politics, along with substance.

    by v2aggie2 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:55:12 PM PDT

    •  Anyone want their kid

      To wind up with the integrity and abilities that Obama has -with his sensibilities and his accomplishments.  Obama is extraordinarily admirable in what he set out to do and what he has done.  That should makes him heroic to liberals except for those who dont think anyone is heroic.  for this latter group there is no better epithet for the graveyard of human expectations they keep except to call it cynicism.  

      by SmithsLastWord on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:04:18 PM PDT

      •  I agree with your sentiments

        I myself don't believe in hero worship (or even "heroes"), but I think admiring somebody does not fall in that category.

        by v2aggie2 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:10:04 PM PDT

        •  There are worse things

          When youi find people are better than you imagine then you might become less cynical and develop heroes of your own. If all we had was examples from our leadership over the last years we would all be cynics.  But there is much good in humans when they are allowed to nurture their better angels.  

          by SmithsLastWord on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:21:32 PM PDT

          •  Hero worship can get ugly.

            When Obama fails to live up to his preposterously built-up image, that hero worship will collapse on itself and he'll become a traitor.  I can see it from a mile away.

            by burrow owl on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:30:07 PM PDT

            •  I think

              a lot of people like Obama not because he is superhuman, but because he is human.

              His book, Dreams From My Father, sold me on him from a personal level.  But believe me, he is not superhuman in that book.  What sold me was that I could relate to his experiences.

              But that's just me.

              by v2aggie2 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 06:28:30 PM PDT

•  Well, the Guardian is on board.

  Is the Telegraph?  The Times?  The Mail? The Independent?   The Guardian will write hopeful articles about lots of stuff.  They're also sort of the Dem-allied paper in the UK.   They aren't "The Brits", they're the Guardian.

  by Rolfyboy6 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:24:10 PM PDT

  •  No, "Dem-allied" is not an accurate

    characterization of The Guardian.  The Guardian is much, much further left than the American Democratic party.

    And for what it's worth, my mother (a Brit, like me) says Obama would be her choice; she likes Big Personality politics.  

    And she is a lifelong Conservative voter and Daily Mail reader (wince), so make of that what you will.

    by Loquatrix on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:55:11 PM PDT

  •  Actually

    I've just been reading them today. The telegraph had something like 5 different News and opinion pieces all focused on Obama and the shift in American politics - all positive (and a little bit shocked). It had one for Huckabee.

    The Times also focused on Obama, not Huckabee, but wasn't quite so positive. It certainly highlighted his ability to change the Democratic base and to energise it, but it wasn't quite as enthusiastic. It had one opinion peace disparaging the lack of public policy debate and how Obama is going to create socialistic change ala the Labour government in 1945-51, which made me laugh considering all the attacks on Obama being anti union, anti UHC etc. The Times response was a bit predictable since it's owned by Murdoch.

    Oh, and every time the Telegraph has had a bit on the American elections (every other day or more) it's almost always had a big photo of Obama and a heap of praise (also on other democratic candidates, the republicans are almost ignored totally). Biased? Maybe, but not like it matters in the UK - what's certain is that the UK press is amazed and indeed pleased (mostly) that Obama is in with a shot.  

    Oh, I haven't got the papers in front of me so I might be wrong on the details.

    by Grass on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:06:13 PM PDT

•  We are just waking up

  From another long national nightmare.

  How long will we keep electing people fooled by the complex of liars that promote our endless wars.

  Of those running Obama is demonstrably the hardest for those liars to fool.  

  Cheer up - we might insure an end to Vietnam's for 8 years.

  by SmithsLastWord on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:26:01 PM PDT

•  Short answer, no.

  Yes, Edwards' rhetoric has been more populist. But doesn't actually mobilizing a huge new base count for more than words?

  Mobilizing a huge new base to do what?  The same old thing?  Change actually means a change in the direction of the country.  Bush has aimed the ship of state at the rocks.  We need someone to turn it around, not just throttle back.

  by Grannus on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:27:38 PM PDT

  •  Mobilizing a large base with vague promises

    can only mean that Obama will be bland and cautious in his policies, to keep the support.

    by BoringDem on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:30:43 PM PDT

    •  Thus Spake the Humdrum One

      by bumblebums on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 06:19:22 PM PDT

  •  Ending a war for starters

    Establishing health care availability for everyone in his first 4 years,  in case you don't know the program Obama has pledged to champion it;s here:  here
    If your looking for a bigger agenda you won't find it among any of these candidates.  His plan for the nations bankers is theboldest end to their powers in ages- they can no longer loan to whomever they please - their are limits under Obama's plans that create a new break on their powers.  Others rail against abuses like those of the loan industry but only Obama will continue taking his plans to change them over the head of DC and to the people.  You can make a lot of claims about Obama but not that he isn't making plans to benefit his supporters and end their abuse by the elite.  His plans might not be bellowed with raage as likely - but they are clearer than the others plans and they also benefit average people and not the massively unscupulous corporations both his main opponents have worked for.  

    by SmithsLastWord on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:17:38 PM PDT

    •  And Bush pledged

      to have a humble foreign policy.  Don't look at the pledges, look at the votes.  Talk is cheap.  If someone pledges to end the war, but votes to continue funding it, don't listen to the words.  If someone puts out positions on UHC, but says that they hope that more people are able to afford health care in a few years, don't listen to the words.

      Politicians, ALL OF THEM, will promise anything to get elected.  You have to look at the record they leave once in office to determine if it's a trail of accomplishments or a trail of slime.

      by Grannus on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 07:48:33 PM PDT

•  Obama is a gate crasher

  HE had to crash the gates to get into the Illinois legislature.

  He tried to crash the gates to get into the United States House of Representatives, but the establishment Chicago Democratic PArty Machine would ahve nothing to do with that.

  Then, in 2004, he crashed the gates overcoming overwhelming opposition from a millionaire who pumped millions into his own campaign before imploding and, more importantly, the favorite son of the establishment Chicago Democratic PArty Machine to take the Democratic PArty nomination for the United States Senate.

  He now wants to open up the gates and give everybody a seat at the table. He can only do that by crashing this one last gate.

  - Albert Einstein

  by Walt starr on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:31:19 PM PDT

•  Nice diary

  Iowa really seems to be the beginning of something huge.  I think it will be very interesting to follow the reactions of other nations to Obama's trajectory, wherever it takes him (and us).

  by johnsloan on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:44:53 PM PDT

•  Another one from the Grauniad

  Martin Kettle wrote this the day after the results came out:

  In the Iowa caucuses, Obama beat Clinton by nine points overall. But this masks some truly spectacular detailed figures. Obama captured the votes of the under-35s in Iowa by a ratio of more than five to one over Clinton. Among independents, he won by nearly two-and-a-half to one. And since young voters and independents are the people whom the Democrats most want to come to the polls - and the turnout in Iowa doubled this week compared with 2004 because they did - it would be strange indeed if these voters did not prefer a candidate who so often positively attracts new voters, rather than one who in many instances positively deters them.

  Behind all of this there surely lies something else. Many mainly middle-aged and elderly Democrats see the 2008 election in almost Manichean terms. They don't merely want to send a Democrat to the White House. They want to get their own back on the Republicans for eight years of George Bush. They want to be vindicated at last for their past sufferings. And although not unaware of the Clintons' failings, they find it all too easy to set these failings to one side and are ready to rally behind Hillary as their generational avenging angel.

  The problem for these Democrats is that so many of their potential voters don't actually think this way. These other voters - younger and more independent, and indeed more female - approve of bipartisanship and less polarised politics, but they see Hillary as a barrier to such an approach. They cannot wait for Bush to go, but they do not want to spend the next four or eight years refighting the battles of the Nineties or the Noughties. They are less invested in the Clintons. They are ready, in short, to move beyond not just the Bush years but the Clinton years as well. For them, Obama's relentless message of change and a new start - banal at times but eloquently expressed in his victory speech in Des Moines - resonates far more than another call to arms against the old enemy.

  Hillary is the candidate of retribution, not of hope

  (My emphasis.)

  As I (and others) have been saying since the beginning, why on earth would the democrats want to run somebody so polarizing and stale? I have yet to receive any decent response.

  by Paolo on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:45:26 PM PDT

•  Excellent Diary

  Of course, I'm an Obama supporter, so I am biased.

  Seriously, good work!

  by v2aggie2 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 04:51:16 PM PDT

•  Why no comments or tip jar??

  rhetoric has been more populist. But doesn't actually mobilizing a huge new base count for more than words?

   to that, the answer is no.  I don't want a huge new base.  I want the base that belongs to the Democrats.  And no, we have been trying to elect new Democrats, we have been trying to elect "real" Democrats.  

  I don't care about a base that is taking my party to the right and up a creek.  That's why I oppose Clinton.  

  by dkmich on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:18:02 PM PDT

  •  And how do we get

    a "base that belongs to the Democrats" if we don't reach out and invite young people and independents in?  My candidate isn't in this anymore and I am not an Obama groupie.  I just cannot see where getting more people into the process is harmful.  In fact, leaving people out there hanging is the surest way to lose.  We used to be really good at getting folks involved, registered, and out to vote.  I believe that a big majority of the citizens of this country mostly agree with us.  They want to be invited in and encouraged to participate. Opening up is a winning strategy.

    by luckylizard on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:47:43 PM PDT

    •  Not harmful in the general....

      but this is the Democratic primary.  How many thousands of Democrats have had no say, yet "obama" is getting crowned.  By the time some Democrats get a chance to speak, there will be nothing left to say; and I'm stuck with another right leaning Democrat beholden to the Independents and with no regard for the base.  If that's what you want, why are any of us here?  Might as well be on facebook.

      I want a Democratic primary that gives all the Democrats a voice.  I support the party for 30 years, and my voice is shut out for someone whose been voting for bush.  When we've picked our candidate, then they can vote for him/her or not.  We don't have any real opposition Democrats because Independence keep picking people who most agree, except.  

      Whether they (I) flock to the Republicans or we appeal and attract them in the primaries or court them in the general, real Democrats always end up with no voice and less important to this Party than I and disaffected Republicans.   We need another Party called Republican Lite .

      by dkmich on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 04:27:06 AM PDT

      •  I guess

        we don't agree but I respect your passionate opinion.  Let's work to get people into the real Democratic party.

        by luckylizard on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 10:50:57 AM PDT

  •  Because standards are low for an Obama diary

    Outside of Geekesque and icebergslim, who often write great diaries, many of the Obama diaries contain barely any paragraphs or substance, sadly.

    This one would be nice if it were more factual and gave us more substance on the foreign view, instead it's more focused on a speech with nice rhetoric and little substance.

    by doinaheckuvanutjob on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 07:37:47 PM PDT

    •  This place has so turned me off to Obama,

      I can't even listen to him.  I tune him out like I do Bush and the Republican debates.  I use to think he was my second choice - not Hillary.  After this place, I'm beginning to think Hillary may not be so bad.  If I have Obama and Hillary, both free traders, and a choice between the first black or the first woman, I'm female, I'll take Hillary. At least she's honest about who she is.  I call them the annointed and the appointed.  

      by dkmich on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 04:31:16 AM PDT

      •  It's part of the secret to Obama's success

        is his Reaganesque ability to make people feel good without engaging critical thought processes and policy details.

        That's not to say the man has no substance, he has some good proposals, but his method of discourse is the kind that Americans love because it appeals to emotion and not to a harsh realistic assessment of the truth which most Americans hate being presented with.

        Many Obama folks argue that will make him successful in the general, that he's our Reagan. Perhaps they're right and smarter than me, but like you I find it a turn off.

        by doinaheckuvanutjob on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 03:20:34 PM PDT

•  This a pro-Edwards site, in general

  I mean, most of the people here are pro-Edwards.

  Isn't that what we've been trying to do, here at dailykos? Shouldn't we be ecstatic? Yes, Edwards' rhetoric has been more populist. But doesn't actually mobilizing a huge new base count for more than words?

  So that answers this question, I think. Most of the non-front page posts and diaries are going to be from the Edwards perspective.

  by jj32 on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:59:21 PM PDT

•  I don't think "get" is the appropriate word

  First of all, candidates shouldn't need "getting". They're not calculus.

  Second, "getting" implies that if the candidate is not your favorite, then it's because you don't understand him/her - it's a failing on your part that will be corrected when you see the light.

  I hope that neither of these is what you meant to imply.

  by denise b on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 08:07:02 PM PDT

•  Since you mention JFK,

  his main appeal was based on his youth, style, good looks, beautiful wife, self-assurance, and occasional inspiring speech. Policy-wise he was not very different from Nixon.

  Yes, he inspired people with his inaugural address. He was very smart man and his handling of the Cuban missile crisis was masterful. I was 11 years old at the time and wore Kennedy buttons. But what could I have possibly been reacting to, except that he had charisma and that Jackie was cooler than Mamie?

  This is not to denigrate being able to inspire people. It's one of the things we want from a leader. But we can also step back and have some perspective. Glamor and charm are not good reasons to vote for someone. JFK engaged in very risky personal behavior. He was infatuated with gangsters. He concealed the dire state of his health from everyone. And there is some question of whether his razor-thin victory was entirely legitimate. Style doesn't always match substance.

  by denise b on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 08:27:02 PM PDT