UP@NIGHT

We remember Paul Newman today as a distinguished actor, philanthropist, committed progressive, and a truly decent soul.   And on this day of his passing, his unique career does us an additional service.  It helps us to understand why Obama won the debate and why he is going to win the election.  As everyone knows, Paul Newman had a one in million smile, and he would certainly be flashing one now if he knew that he had made this contribution.

All we need is one film to make the case.  While Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid may not be a great movie, it is a very good one, and perhaps more importantly, it was a timely one.  It was a zeitgeist film.  It connected with an audience that understood that time was out of joint in America, that we were adrift, that we were losing our collective soul, and that we needed to set things right.  When the “bad guys” become the good guys, and “the law” is viewed as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you know that the world has been turned topsy-turvy.  And when an audience feels so undermined that it can immediately connect with the line, “Who are those guys?” that is, those guys who can’t be stopped from chasing us (think here of the Vietnam War and a nation in turmoil back in 1969), you know that things have run amok.

Paul Newman’s films were often successful not only because of their success as works of art, but because they understood the importance of speaking to an audience, something which many of our pundits and commentators still do not seem to appreciate.  How so?  Last night I spent hours, UP@NIGHT, in true political junkie fashion, listening to commentators on the first debate between Obama and McCain.  I would listen to the first round of comments, and then since I couldn’t be in two virtual places at once, turn to reruns of earlier broadcasts.  I have also looked at many of the editorials in print today.

Time and time again, commentators insisted on using sports metaphors to describe the debate, primarily from boxing (points, knockouts) and baseball (home runs, strikes).  There were exceptions, but just turn to the print media today.  What’s the big headline?  “No Knockout.”  We hear about jabs that were thrown, and counter punches, etc.  We hear criticisms that Obama didn’t throw enough punches, and that he could have brought McCain down by going more on the offense   I am sure that you have heard this stuff.   I won’t belabor the point.

But Obama understands, like Newman did, that acting is about audience.  And presidential debates have more in common with acting than they do with sports contests.  Or let me put this another way.  Presidential debates are like auditions, and if you are going to be successful in an audition, you’ve got to be able to have a sense of what the director is looking for and the possibilities of a role.  In this case, the director is the American people and the role is president.  And the goal of the debater is not merely to score points, but to give a performance that resonates with the desires and hopes of the people. The debate is not an end.  It is a means, and it is not a means to merely “winning” the debate in terms of points, but of winning the election.

I am not surprised that polls and focus groups show that more people thought Obama won. (Two  examples, a USA Today/Gallop Poll, a CBS poll.)  Nor am I surprised by the internal numbers in the polls showing that Obama went a long way toward crossing the biggest hurdle that he needed to cross, making voters feel comfortable with whether he is ready to be president.  If you think about the debate in terms of an audition, then Obama was wildly successful.  Obama appears to have convinced a significant number of people that he is ready to lead, cool under fire, knowledgeable, not easily flustered (by a cranky old guy telling you that “you don’t understand”), and energetic.  Further, he reinforced his message that he understands “people like you and me,” which was already one of his strong suits.  It was actually a beautifully orchestrated event, right down to the ads Obama has started to run.

Obama won this debate in the only terms that he needed to win it.  He connected with a larger number of people in the audience than did McCain, and made them feel comfortable with his “playing the role” of president, while discussing a topic that was supposed to be McCain’s strong suit.  Obama is going to win the election.  And unlike Butch and Sundance, this story is going to have a happy ending.

Okay, here is my take about what has been going on in terms of Palin and McCain.  The writers for the Daily Show are actually trained undercover agents.  They have infiltrated the McCain/Palin campaign and have been writing speeches, talking points, and press releases.  How else can one account for Palin’s statements?  Seeing Russia from Alaska counts as evidence of foreign policy expertise.  Who can deny that this is a beautiful piece of writing?  And now there are the cows.

From The NY Times:

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.   The New York Times, Sunday, August 13th.  Link

Does it get better than this?  VP candidate appoints classmate, real estate agent and cow fancier, Franci Havemeister (is this a real name?), as head of State Division of Agriculture.  (Did I miss something here?  Agriculture=Cows.)  I mean, let’s suppose this was President Palin:  For Secretary of Defense: Bobby Have A’meister, friend, used car salesman, lover of Colt 45′s, and Moose hunter. Why not?

Palin and her good friend Bobby Have A’meister:

Well, there is the, “but seriously folks,” to all of this.  The problem with Palin is not just that she places friendship over expertise, but that she also appears to be Nixon-like (remember his Enemies List) and Bush-like in the way in which she goes after perceived enemies.   The Times article goes on to make the following point, which we have seen made in other venues.

But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.

Wow….Opponents are haters!  Unfortunately this is not a corny reference to a group of aliens in a bad sci fi flick.  It is Palin unfiltered.  They are Haters because they are perceived to be her enemies.

What we have here is one of the oldest ethical failings in the book, and conservatives, as well as moderates and liberals, should be very concerned.  In the first book of Plato’s Republic various definitions of justice are offered.  All prove inadequate.  One of the earliest ones to be shot down is the following:

Justice is helping friends and injuring enemies.

While this definition is pretty common in gangster-land, it reflects a poor and limited understanding of justice.  Here are a few of the issues: 1) our friends may prove to be bad people; 2)  there may be good individuals amongst our enemies; 3) we need intelligence and knowledge to determine who are our real friends and who our real enemies; and 4) we can injure (or do an injustice to) our friends if we don’t understand what we are doing (for example, the incompetent physician who gives his friend the wrong medicine).

It’s simpleminded in the extreme to think that we can be just by merely helping those we take to be our friends and injuring our enemies. Those  who call themselves our friends may not worthy of our support.  Or to take this closer to home: they may not be competent to hold the positions to which we appoint them.  (From Real Estate to Agriculture Honcho via a love of cows….a friend is a friend is a friend.) It appears that Palin never considered that it might be unjust (as well as unwise) to appoint friends instead of those who have genuine expertise. After all she was climbing a ladder to break her own personal glass ceiling.  She is much like Bush.  And this is indeed no laughing matter.  So maybe the Daily Show people are not actually behind her words.

(Yes, there are times when we may have to hurt good people, for example, when we are in a war.  But we must not slip into the mentality that we are always at war or at war against our fellow Americans because they disagree with us or don’t share our values.)

One last point, the sort of mentality that I have been describing–let’s call it: loyalty fanaticism–is not confined to the head honcho.  It pervades the culture of the administrations of such people.  I leave you with one small example from Palin’s current administration in Alaska, which should make bloggers of all political stripes take to the barricades. (It’s from the NY Times article quoted above.)

And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

If you thought that the country might have a problem with McCain being too much like Bush, think again, and again….

Much of the attention regarding Palin has focused on her inexperience and duplicitous statements, e.g., about the Bridge to Nowhere. But as it turns out, Palin is not just your everyday inexperienced politician who happens to be a conservative. She is an ideologue and appears to be very Bush-like in her commitment to a loyalty culture. I can’t think of a worse combination for a president: ideologue and loyalty enforcer. And Palin is just a heartbeat away from the Oval Office if McCain becomes president. Obama and Biden, on the other hand, are moderately liberal pragmatists and their MO is compromise. I plan to write more about the contrast in the future, but I want to share here four striking “windows into Sarah” (directly quoted) from today’s (September 2nd) New York Times article, “Palin’s Start in Alaska: Not Politics as Usual.” Link to article

“Sarah comes in with all this ideological stuff, and I was like, ‘Whoa,’ ” said Mr. Stein [the previous mayor of Wassila-M.A.], who lost the election. “But that got her elected: abortion, gun rights, term limits and the religious born-again thing. I’m not a churchgoing guy, and that was another issue: ‘We will have our first Christian mayor.’ ”

Ms. Palin also upended the town’s traditional ways with a surprise edict: No employee was to talk to the news media without her permission.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said. The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

“Just as Ms. Palin terminated employees on her way into office, she also let some go on the way out, including Mr. Cramer. When Ms. Palin completed her second and final term, in 2002, her stepmother-in-law, Faye Palin, was running to succeed her. It seemed like a good idea, except that Faye Palin supported abortion rights and was registered as unaffiliated, not Republican, people who remember the race said. Sarah Palin sided instead with Dianne M. Keller, a religious conservative and an ally on the City Council. Ms. Keller won.”

August 29, Immediate reaction to Palin: McCain has officially lost it, in more ways than one. He is now taking the phrase, “Hail Mary,” to mean “Hail Any Woman.”

According to the much used Wikipedia, “A Hail Mary pass or Hail Mary play in American football is a forward pass made in desperation, with only a small chance of success. The typical Hail Mary is a very long forward pass thrown near the end of a half or end of a game where there is no possibility for any other play to score points. This play is unlikely to be successful, because of the general inaccuracy of the pass and the defensive team’s preparedness for the play makes it likely that it can intercept or knock down the ball” (italics added). “Hail Mary” article from Wikipedia here

The choice of Palin reveals McCain’s historic tin ear. He is seeking to put an inexperienced politician a heartbeat away from the presidency because he believes that it will help him with the women’s vote and his base. This is after he has made experience the mantra of his campaign, and we are all aware of his age and health history. He had promised to be extraordinarily careful in his selection of a VP due to these factors. (I mean she really is inexperienced, both in domestic and foreign affairs: 21 months as a governor of a state that has a population 1/3 that of the Borough of Manhattan, and service as a small town major.) Country First, John? Not this time.

Palin’s choice is insulting to women, and especially to Clinton’s women supporters, because it assumes that they would vote for any old (or young) woman. Hell, it’s insulting to men. To think that anyone who really supported Hillary would take (oh my, I just forgot her name) Palin as a substitute is astounding. Is it possible that McCain is so desperate and befuddled that he believes being a runner up in a beauty pageant is somehow going to compensate for political stands inimical to women’s welfare? (Okay, Palin might be strong among Evangelicals and right wingers–Palin’s position, no abortions even in cases of rape and incest–but is McCain really worried about the Evangelicals? Looks like he might be. And if he is indeed still worried about his base, given the incredible shrinking Republican Party, this is not so good for John.)

For a picture of beautiful Wasilla, the town Palin was mayor of, and the scoop on the ethics violations for which Palin is under investigation, see Mudflats. It’s quite a read.

Another reason must now be added to the list of:

“A (baker’s) Dozen Reasons Why McCain Won’t Win: Money-Back Guarantee”

#14. Palin will prove to be an unbelievably bad choice for VP, especially after McCain promised to be very careful in his selection due to his age. Given the sheer political nature of this choice, he will have to give up his slogan, Country First. Can you imagine Palin eyeball to eyeball with Putin? How about eyeball to eyeball with any senator, except for Ted Stevens, in the Senate? ( Just think for a moment about how the debate with Biden is going to go.) Hey, John, your answer to every problem is not to pick a pretty woman. Just because Cindy helped put expensive shoes on your feet….

UPDATE: Breaking News. According to Steve Doocy of Fox News, “She does know about international relations because she’s right up there in Alaska right next door to Russia.” YouTube Link.

UPDATE, 8.30.2008 Wow. This is going to be some ride. It seems that Palin is immature and quite willing to laugh while a radio host calls another woman, Alaska Senate President Lydia Green (who is a cancer survivor), a cancer and a bitch. See article here. A tape of the broadcast appears to exist. I am sure we will hear it soon. (According to the article, Palin laughed several times at tasteless comments about Green.)

UPDATE, 8.30.2008 Okay, here is a Link to the interview. Btw, the crack about the seat refers to Green’s weight.

UPDATE: After Republican convention, September 5, 2008. In spite of the initial positive reaction to Palin because: 1) she gave a reasonably well delivered speech (written by professional speech writers) at the convention; 2) sympathy for what many in the public perceive as a piling on by the Press; 3) hunger for reform and change (which her positions do not actually represent); and 4) the apparent progress for women in a woman VP pick (in spite of the fact that her policies and convictions are inimical to women’s welfare), I am holding to my initial reaction in this blog. It is clear that the McCain people will try to keep her away from the Press for as long as they can. But there will be a debate with Biden and at some point there will be questions about her unavailability for questions. Also, most people simply don’t know about her stands on the issues, for example, no abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and that she has lied about her record, for example, regarding the Bridge to Nowhere. Let’s see how all of this looks six weeks from now as McCain/Palin tries to push themselves as the change team in an economy still on the ropes and for which they are only offering traditional Bush/Republican bromides. (The flip from the experience team to the change team at this stage in the game is a Hail Mary. The Dems are just waiting for them. Wait till you see all of the ads with McCain saying just what Bush has said about the economy.) And let’s see how people feel about Palin being a heartbeat away from the presidency after they see how little knowledge she has of the world.

WARNING: This post may be hazardous to members of the Media who are distorting the implications of recent polls in exchange for improved ratings.

Just a few months ago, as Clinton and Obama were locked in mortal combat, one heard over and over again in the Media that if Clinton won, the race with McCain was going to be incredibly close. This was a given. You could take it to the bank.

A funny thing happened on the way to the election. Have you noticed how often T.V. reporters, pundits, and newspaper people are now saying the following: In terms of the national polls, isn’t it surprising, amazing in fact, just how close the race is between Obama and McCain? Given all of the cards that Obama appears to hold–for example, that the Republicans have been in charge while the economy has tanked–he should have a double-digit lead. (Why wouldn’t this have applied to Hillary? Don’t ask.) The impression that is being fostered is that there must be something wrong with Obama and his campaign because he is not galloping ahead in the polls. But Obama is actually doing quite well at this stage in the game. Four quick points: 1) Obama is the new kid on the block and one would expect a certain degree of reticence about casting one’s lot with him this early in the election; 2) the contest with Hillary left a good deal of disinformation floating around about Obama, which will be addressed in the next few months; 3) Obama’s organization is going to register many new voters, who are of course not included in polls of currently registered voters; and 4) by historical standards Obama is in very good shape for a non-incumbent, both in terms of resources and the enthusiasm that he is generating.

While one should be skeptical about the predictive capacity of head to head polls at this stage of the campaign, especially national ones, in terms of the latter Obama is doing just fine, thank you. The recent NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll (July 18th-21st) has Obama 6% ahead of McCain, 47%-41%. RealClear Politics (July 25th) has him 4.8% ahead in its average of recent polls. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/ Gallop daily tracking on July 25th has Obama with a 6% lead, and Rasmussen’s daily poll has him by 5%.

Perhaps most significantly, when third party candidates are factored in, as they were in the NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll, Obama turns out to be 13% ahead of McCain, 48% to 35% (with Nader at 5%, Barr at 2%, and a 4.4% margin of error). In a four way match up Obama’s share of the vote hardly changes (he moves up from 47% to 48%), while McCain drops (from 41% to 35%). Although the margin of error in the four way race is greater than in the two way race, the difference between Obama and McCain is significant, and outside of the margin of error. Notice that Obama retains support while McCain loses support.

It’s worth mentioning that half of the last ten elections have been won by less than 6%. Also, when third party candidates are a significant factor (1968, 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000), the margin of victory has been below 13% in every case. If Obama won by 13%, it would be a landslide, and the third highest popular vote total in the last ten elections. See Dave Leip’s Atlas U.S. Presidential Elections <http://uselectionatlas.org/>

We don’t know how accurate the current polls will be in predicting the winner in November. What we do know is that if one were to translate recent polls into election returns, Obama would win, and possibly in a landslide. But then again, national head to head polls are going to fluctuate, especially this far out and in the middle of the summer. One has to examine them more closely, for example, regarding enthusiasm of supporters, to catch what may be strengths and weaknesses that will translate into votes.

The Media should provide more historical perspective about the “unexpected” terribly close race between Obama and McCain. For example, it should tell the public that a 4% lead in the popular vote will almost certainly translate into a win in the electoral college. But then again, providing such information might just undermine ratings (and profits).

UPDATE: Readers may want to follow up on the poll question by taking a look at the comments of a respected political scientist, Larry Sabato, in The New York Observer, July 24th. “Sabato: Obama’s ‘Risky’ Trip Has a Big Payoff” http://www.observer.com/2008/politics/obamas-risky-trip-has-paid-big-time-polls#comment-897630

UPDATE: July 27.  I don’t believe that McCain has the electoral college sewn up, as comments to this posting have suggested. The polls are too fluid and the general trends still favor Obama. (It’s the economy….) The Obama people have a good plan and an organization to carry it out.

You may think that I support Obama because of his policies and character. Yes, it’s (mostly) true. But these are really trivial reasons compared with the deeper reason.

You see, I know Obama. Okay, well, maybe I don’t know him. Let’s say that I understand him. Or better, I understand something very important about him. It’s a name thing. This may not seem like much, but I can tell you that for those of us who grew up with names that are three or more syllables, and with at least as many vowels as consonants, Obama’s arrival portends a new day. Just his name will change the lives of millions of Americans. Let me explain.

My last name is Aboulafia. (It is pronounced the way that it looks: A boo la fe a.) A little autobiography will be helpful here. I was born in the U.S. As a matter of fact, my ancestors on one side have been in the U.S. for about a hundred years, and close to a hundred and fifty on the other. I know, not the Mayflower crowd, but I can assure you that I don’t speak English with a foreign accent. (Please bear with me. This will prove important.) Here is some further information. I am 6’4″, fair complected, with a short reddish beard. When I went to college in Denmark for a term, I was sometimes taken for a Dane.

During my time in Denmark, I took a trip to Morocco. The kids on the streets in Moroccan cities would often ask tourists for money, and they could do so in many languages. They would always ask me in English. Not having much money myself, I tried playfully to trick them by telling them that I didn’t understand. I was Danish. I even threw in a few Danish words. But the kids wouldn’t buy it. They laughed, giggled, and said, “No, no, American. You American, American.” So somehow these young Moroccan kids were able to spot me as an American, not a Dane or an Englishman, a German or an Italian, etc. (And I ended up with a few less bucks in my pocket.)

Okay, why do I bring this up? My last name is Sephardic, a name that Spanish Jews took a millennium ago when they lived in Spain with the Arabic Moors. It is not a “typical” Western European name. It sounds, well, just plain weird to a lot of people in America. As a matter of fact, the name itself sounds so exotic that in spite of the way that I appear and speak, Americans have often asked me where I was born, that is, in what country other than America. All they had to do was discover my last name. This would happen at check-out counters or in stores, for example, when I produced a credit card. “Aboulafia, Aboulafia? Hmm, so what country were you born in?” I would reply, often rather defensively, “Here, in America. Uh, my mother and father were born here also.” (Why I felt I had to tell a perfect stranger about my parents is part of the weird name inferiority syndrome.) When I was younger, sometimes even teachers would ask where I was from. My name, and just my name, mind you, put my nationality into question. And this would happen in spite of the evidence (me) standing and staring the questioner in the face.

So now along comes Barack Obama. And I am waiting. I figure, okay, this guy is really good, but they are going to say that he isn’t a real American. He won’t have to open his mouth. People will just look at his name. “Obama? Obama? Where was he born? Bet he’s not a real American.” He’s going to be O-U-T before he gets a chance at bat.

And then it happened. He manages to get over enough hurdles, including his name, to win the Democratic nomination. And I am thinking, “Obama, the name–three syllables, with as many vowels as consonants–is going to transform life here in the good old U.S. of A. for multi-syllabled, funny named persons.” You may think that this is a small matter. It isn’t. There are a lot of us. And we are growing in numbers every year. With the rise in immigration, strange names from all over the world have increased in America in the last decades, including ones with only one syllable.

So, three cheers for Obama, a man with a handle who as president would make many of us feel more at home in our own country. And if enough of us funny named folks vote for him, he will get a chance to do so.

Dear Senator Clinton,

After a difficult and long campaign, I want to thank you for supporting Senator Obama and for your efforts on behalf of the Democratic Party, past and future. We all know that a divided Party will simply set the stage for a John McCain victory. We can all agree with Reverend King.

“Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we’ve got to stay together. We’ve got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh’s court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that’s the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.” Martin Luther King, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” April 3rd, 1968. [Italics added]

Perhaps you have heard that your supporters, or those claiming to be your supporters, have formed groups and begun web sites in order to undermine Obama’s chances in November. These sites are using your name. Let me give you one example, “Ex-Hillary Supporters for John McCain” <http://www.hcsfjm.com/comments5.html>. Here is an excerpt from one of the first postings (June 9th, 11:30 PM) on this site. [Italics added. Grammatical and spelling errors not corrected.]

“The belief that Hillary Clinton and Obama are alike or even close is just ludicrous.
1/ Mrs. Clinton is someone who has served this country with honor for some 35 years

2/ Mrs. Clinton has integrity OBAMA has none

3/ Jonh McCain respects Mrs. Clinton unlike Obama.

4/ Mrs. Clinton is not a racist or calls racist friends, unlike Mr. Obama whose friends are terrorist and anti semites

I could go on and on…….but the best thing about Mrs. Clinton that she will be there to clean out the barn after OBAMA gets soundly rejected by the American people”

Here is currently (June 9th, 11:30 PM) the third posting on the site:

“A lot of Americans have become so
insulated from reality that they imagine that
America can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves.

Pause a moment, reflect back.
These events are actual events from history.
They really happened!!!
Do you remember?

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and
killed by a Muslim male extremist between the age of 17 and 40.

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics,
athletes were kidnapped and massacred by Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40.

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was
taken over by Muslim male extremists between the
ages of 17 and 40.”

After enumerating more points about Muslims, here is how the post ends:

“Have the American People completely
lost their Minds, or just their Power of Reason???
I’m sorry but I refuse to take a
chance on the ‘unknown’ candidate Obama . . .”

Here is a third example from the same web page:

“I am disappointed that Hillary will not be the Democratic candidate, but there is no way I would ever vote for BHO, even if Hillary is VP. I would not vote for him simply for the reason that the man that represents the U.S., and should love our country more than any other, will not wear the most recognizable symbol of our country – the American flag on his chest. Oh, now he wears it..anything for a vote!
This man is dangerous to our democracy!
Please spread the word and encourage your friends to cast their vote against BHO!”

How many individuals on these sites are actually your supporters? I don’t know. I do know that many are speaking as if they are your supporters. I also know that John McCain is asking your supporters for their votes.

These outrageous and scurrilous attacks must be undermined. There is no one in a better position to do so than you. I ask that you denounce these attacks on Senator Obama and distance yourself immediately from web sites and organizations that engage in them. You promised that you would do everything in your power to help elect a Democrat to the White House in November. Here is one way that you can make a significant difference. Please don’t pass up the opportunity. Act now.

You will laugh. You will scoff. You will be befuddled. But I have finally figured out why Obama is so familiar. At first I thought it might just be his politics. In my day job as a political philosopher, I recognize deep similarities between Obama’s political orientation and a tradition of American progressivism that had its heyday in the early 20^th century. This form of progressivism had roots in the Midwest and was linked to the Social Gospel Movement. In some ways Obama is reviving this tradition.

But there was something more familiar about Obama, and about how his campaign has managed to galvanize so many young people. Well, maybe it was simply a flash from the past, the political organizing that many of us engaged in to stop the Vietnam War and for Civil Rights. He is leading a movement in which people of color and whites are linked once again. Perhaps this was the source of the deep familiarity.

Yes, certainly, his campaign has brought back memories. But it somehow didn’t get to another level of familiarity. And then it hit me. Obama is Mr. Spock and his campaign the Star Ship Enterprise, that is, if you allow for the vicarious presence of millions of fans aboard the ship. Consider Spock and Obama: cool, logical, trustworthy, a great deal of presence of mind, etc. Further, Leonard Nimoy, the actor who plays Spock, is Jewish. Obama went to Harvard Law and taught at the University of Chicago Law School, which makes him an honorary Jew. (Being Jewish, I can say this.) And what have we heard about Obama’s blood pressure, 90/60; not that of an ordinary mortal, just like Spock. But don’t consider character traits, or arguments, gaze on their images.

We must broaden our horizons. It is not merely the similarity to Spock. Star Trek ran during a war that most of us could do little to stop. Here we are, once again. (And there is a Texan in the White House, again. Don’t get me wrong. I lived in Texas. I am fond of Texans. I married one. But let’s just keep them out of the White House for the Next Generation.) Star Trek was a fantasy refuge, before the Internet. But Star Trek was going to be canceled by NBC. What saved it? According to William Shatner, Captain Kirk, in Chapter Three of his book, Up Till Now (don’t ask how I know this), a letter writing campaign was launched to save the show. Here is what Shatner tells us about the campaign.

“As a result of this campaign, NBC received, trumpets blare here, more than 1,000,000 letters urging the network not to cancel the show….[It was not cancelled] Perhaps more important the people who wrote the letters suddenly had an emotional attachment to a television program unlike any viewers ever before. They had actually influenced a network’s programming decision. They had ownership. Star Trek really had become their show. This marked the beginning of the most unusual relationship between viewers and a TV series in history.” [emphasis added]

Okay, you will accuse me of trivializing one of the most important recent movements in American politics. But Obama the community organizer would understand the connection. Star Trek was a collective experience mediated by a visual medium. It also expressed utopian ideals at a time when young people felt impotent about changing the course of a war and the world. (Star Trek began before the full impact of demonstrations against the war became apparent.) Obama and his people have harnessed the Internet to allow people to feel that they are not mere bystanders but full participants. They have provided a sense of “ownership” (although I am not crazy about the term). Most importantly, and here the analogy begins to break down, Obama and his team are providing not only a fantasy utopian moment, but the possibility of actually changing things. Live Long and Prosper.

P.S. Leonard Nimoy is an Obama supporter.

I was hoping that I would not find myself wasting time, energy, and pixels on another article criticizing Hilary Clinton. It’s enough already. I wanted to enjoy last night’s historic outcome of the Democratic presidential contest; a talented, African-American, progressive will now be heading the ticket of a major American Party. Wonderful Earth rocking news. It seems that America can still send a meaningful political “shot” around the world. But instead my excitement had to be mixed with disappointment and outrage. Hillary, there she goes again. Not only did she fail to concede graciously in order to help bring the Party together, but she invited comments from her supporters to her web site to tell her how to proceed. Of course she knows how they will respond. What extraordinary bad faith. And for what, two bits to pay off her bills or perhaps have some leverage for herself in the coming months. Further, she continued to make the same misleading claims about the popular vote that she has been making for weeks, namely, that she has won it. The fact is that there is no national popular vote. Or better still, there are hundreds of possible permutations in figuring out what the national popular vote might be. You simply can’t combine the apples and oranges of caucuses and primaries, as well as all of the different sorts of state primaries, including two that were considered non-contests, to come up with a solid figure. But I will let this one go. Hillary will say what she needs to say, especially that people should go to Hillary.com.

But I decided to write not only to vent. I want to see a solution to the Hillary problem, as does every Democrat who wants to win in November. I got a lead this morning (June 4th) from a blog on the Daily Kos, “A Dream Team?” by georgia 10. The writer quotes at length from an article that appeared in the on-line version of the Telegraph. Here are the passages quoted directly from the June 1st Telegraph.

The Obama camp, however, remains nervous about Mrs Clinton’s intentions and ambitions, and is preparing a face-saving package that will allow her to continue to play a role in health care reform, which has been her signature issue for more than a decade. Despite pressure from some Clinton allies, Mr Obama and his advisers do not wish to ask her to be his vice-presidential running mate. “They will talk to her,” one Democrat strategist close to senior figures in the Obama camp told The Sunday Telegraph. “They will give her the respect she deserves. She will get something to do with health care, a cabinet post or the chance to lead the legislation through the Senate.”

Another Democrat who has discussed strategy with friends in the Obama inner circle said that Mr Obama was openly considering asking Mrs Clinton to join his cabinet, alongside two other former presidential rivals: John Edwards, who is seen as a likely attorney general; and Joe Biden, who is a leading contender to become Secretary of State.

Mr Obama hinted at the plan last week. “One of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln,” he said. “Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his cabinet because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was ‘how can we get this country through this time of crisis?’ And I think that has to be the approach that one takes.” [Emphasis added]

“Hillary Clinton to be offered dignified exit” By Tim Shipman http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/democrats/2058907/US-Elections-Hillary-Clinton-to-be-offered-dignified-exit.html

In some ways, of course, this is not news. The cabinet solution has been around for a while. But I was struck by Obama’s citing Lincoln. This article was written on June 1^st. One could argue that Hillary has put herself further into the dog house with the Obama camp after last night’s speech. But Obama, in a Lincolnesque sort of way, might only see this as more reason for the cabinet option. She is a piece of work alright. But all the more reasons to give it a whirl and put her in a cabinet slot. It shows that 1) Obama is strong enough to deal with her and 2) magnanimous enough to extend a hand.

I will swallow hard. The logic is there. I hope Obama goes for it and finally ends the Hillmail. If she won’t settle for this, then Obama needs to methodically work around her. Most of those who voted for Hillary will not put up with her undermining the Party.

The DNC reached a compromise today (May 31st) on Florida and Michigan. It is fair and prudent. The Clinton camp appears satisfied with 50/50 split in Florida, but unhappy about the resolution in Michigan. From the Clinton camp:

“We strongly object to the Committee’s decision to undercut its own rules in seating Michigan’s delegates without reflecting the votes of the people of Michigan.

The Committee awarded to Senator Obama not only the delegates won by Uncommitted, but four of the delegates won by Senator Clinton. This decision violates the bedrock principles of our democracy and our Party.

We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the Credentials Committee and appeal for a fair allocation of Michigan’s delegates that actually reflect the votes as they were cast.” [emphasis added] http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/

Are we really supposed to believe that Hillary Clinton, after stating publicly that the election in Michigan would not count–an election in which her opponent was not on the ballot–is now in a position to claim that the decision of the DNC has undermined democracy? Does she really believe this? Is she actually outraged?

I believe that there is outrage in Hillary’s Camp, as irrational as it may seem at first. Just listen to some of the reports about what went on at the DNC meeting. And I also believe that Bill and Hillary may actually be outraged. The DNC’s decision results in four more delegates for Obama than Hillary would have awarded him. In terms of the delegate count, four delegates can’t be the source of the outrage. The practical consequences are nil and genuine outrage over principle is suspect. So if there is outrage, what is its source? Here is my hypothesis.

Hillary’s Camp has been playing the metrics game for several months now, inventing new metrics at every turn. But the one that she has grown most attached to is the so-called “popular vote.” The fact that this is mythical is irrelevant to the Clintons. (Any statistician or pollster worth his or her salt will tell you that you can’t combine votes from caucus and primary states, for the former simply have many fewer “voters” involved. It is a classic case of apples and oranges. If you did combine them, the citizens of the caucus states could claim that they were being disenfranchised. Further, the primaries had different rules, some allowed independents to participate, some even allowed Republicans to cross over, while others were solely for Democrats.)

The problem with the DNC’s Michigan decision is that it undermines the plausibility of counting Michigan’s votes in a popular vote total. According to the DNC, giving Obama the “uncommitted” votes is an inadequate solution to the Michigan problem. No one knows for sure how the vote would have gone. So it simply took the request of the Clinton Camp, and the request of the Obama Camp, and split the difference, awarding Obama four “additional” delegates. This is meant to make a statement. It shows that the state’s popular vote is not to be construed as decisive or legitimate, for the delegate count does not match the “popular vote” (which in fact is non-existent since Obama wasn’t on the ballot). The compromise was one over delegates, and the way that the delegates were handled signaled that Michigan’s popular vote should not be counted.

The outrage from the Clinton Camp is real, but to be more exact, it is really fury at the DNC for undermining its case about the popular vote. It is not clear how she wants to use the latter at this point, but whether it is for posterity, for the VP slot, or for her next run for the presidency, the popular vote total remains very important to the Clintons. The problem, however, is obvious. By insisting on this false metric, they are undermining Obama. They are making it appear that she somehow won the election, as did Gore, and then had it taken away from her by an unfair system. But the analogy to Florida in 2000 is specious. Hillary and her Camp will have to take responsibility for any damage done to Obama’s chances by continuing to “strongly object” to the DNC’s reasonable compromise.