Obama draws 100,000 to rally in St. Louis
 

http://s.wsj.net/media/obamastlouis_...1018135311.jpg
Whoa...
As the thread title sez: 100,000 people attended an Obama rally at the Arch in St. Louis
What could be going through the mind of Republican strategists when they see stuff like this? In a 'red' state such as Missouri no less. According to an article on the Wall Street Journal, Obama is leading McCain 52% to 46%.

But that picture, wow...just wow. I'm actually speechless when I look at that, it's just mind-boggling.

This is interesting...

Personally, I don't think this tidbit has anything to do with him being black so much as he has such a strong image, while McCain has a poor public image with always coming off as angry. People may be entirely ignorant of their policies but caught up in the image they project. It's entirely crazy that people will actually bend their beliefs just because the pony they picked says so. That's a cult of personality for you.

About drawing so many people, again, I'm sure it's his image and personality that got most people to come. I'm hoping he's able to educate the people he sees about politics.

I know I've garnered a bit of a reputation as a former Republican who is considering voting for Barack Obama, but even so, one thing that does concern me about Obama is the whole unrealistic nature of expectations that (some, certainly not all or even most) folks have in regards to Obama's candidacy.

I don't buy into the demonization that Republicans have played that everyone who's voting for Obama believes him to actually be The Messiah Mark II, or anything, but I do think a lot of voters are attaching fantasies to him that Obama simply cannot realistically fulfill.

What I worry about is severalfold:

1. After becoming President, Obama is going to, at one point or another, during his first or second term, screw something up.
Every President does. Hell, even Lincoln did, and he was (in my opinion) the Best President Ever. (See: habeas corpus.)
What worries me a bit is that the cult of personality around Obama may react in several different ways to his shortcoming, whether it's a personal moral failure (see: Bill Clinton and Lewinsky) or a rescinding of a presumed-critical campaign promise (see: H.W. Bush and taxes.)

People could respond with resentment; Obama betrayed them -- and that could bite the African American community or divide America racially like the OJ Simpson trial -- ie, Black Americans won't concede that Obama will ever do anything wrong, whereas white Americans, even Democrats, criticize the presumed shortcoming. I think this would be particularly likely with a moral shortcoming like the accusation of an affair. I'm not saying Obama will necessarily cheat -- he seems like an alright guy, but then again I didn't think Bill Clinton would either -- and it happens to men in positions of power all the time. And I think the reactions among whites is going to be disappointment exacerbated because of all the hopes and fantasies they've pinned into an Obama Presidency, whereas blacks will see it as racist and the whole thing could very well implode.

Alternatively, if it's a policy issue, like Obama rescinds on a promise or just makes a universally maligned decision, it could be even worse. Best case scenairo is Obama is just accused of being overly partisan with a controversial decision; if only the Republicans hate Obama, his Presidency will most likely survive. The partisan shenangians are typical, and Obama will have the capital to spend and thrust in Republicans' faces.
A far worse case scenairo is an Obama policy designed to help the economy fails, and we end up in The Next Great Depression. Or, arguably even worse, we have another 9/11, and everyone begins questioning why we were so (relatively) safe under Dubya and whether Obama's reforms (whether there even were any reforms or not) ended up crippling intelligence agencies.

(You think I'm making up the Dubya line as it seems so impossible today but it could, thoretically, happen. Not saying it will. But if a nuclear detonation goes off or some other seemingly unthinkable event happens on Obama's watch?)

I think it'd be such a devastating political event -- either a depression or a terrorist attack -- for new generations of voters, young people, minorities, women, and African Americans who invested so much in Obama. I mean think about it -- in a certain sense 9/11 was so absolutely shocking that we couldn't really pin blame on anybody for months after the fact. In this post 9/11 era I think the week after an attack people will be crying for blood -- the government will be held to some degree lax or accountable. In the event of a serious economic depression, if Obama is seen as even partially responsible, it will be a hugely demoralizing blow.

In a sense right now the economy crumbling on Bush hasn't really had a huge impact because everyone hates Bush these days so bad times are almost to be expected; we're all pessimistic. I mean even most Republicans these days don't care much for Dubya, so they don't feel particularly shocked or betrayed. It's the sad status quo.
But if those who love Obama tag him with unrealistic expectations that he will fix everything and he doesn't or can't, and the situation actually gets worse, whether it's the administration's fault or not, the aura of hope will be shattered and a lot of hearts will be broken.

The real intriguing issue at the heart of this particular conundrum is that Obama, in being built up into a superhuman icon, could really taint everyone's perception of any potential redemption for America and its government by simply...being an average or even an above average human President. Extraordinarily high expectations can bite one in the ass.

2. I also wonder exactly how Barack Obama is going to be capable of actually keeping all these promises he's made to so many disparate groups in the big tent of the Democratic party who have supported him. While Obama, to his credit, has some legitimate plans (moreso then McCain, having read Obama's energy and environmental proposals on his website) I kind of wonder how Obama's going to walk the tightrope of pleasing everyone.

On his website and through the filter of liberal blogs, he sounds...well...pretty darn liberal. And then you listen to Obama during a debate, and he sounds awfully moderate. I sort of wonder what the real Obama is going to govern like; regardless, I suspect he's going to disappoint a whole bunch of people when he simply is forced to articulate an exact position on a particular issue. What happens if an issue arises that, say, pits union workers against environmentalists? If the Palestinian situation flares up, how does Obama handle that potential crisis without either offending a core Jewish constituency or many pro-Palestinian Democrats? What about a genocide situation that sets the anti-war Democrats against pro-human-rights-interventions groups?

It's just going to be interesting. A lot of people seem to be of the perspective that once Obama becomes President the sun's going to start shining again and his administration will wave a magic wand and the economy will get better and all our problems will disappear. Yes, Obama is a smarter man than Bush, but Obama will not solve all our problems. And I consider myself of the decidingly "Obama has the potential to be an above-average President, but he will most likely not be an amazing one" camp.

Will an Obama Administration and a Dem-Controlled Congress ironically divide on critical issues and actually butt a few heads? Will ugly mistakes made by Obama cause huge racial divides or will the healing experienced after an Obama election prove permanent? Will Obama actually govern as a moderate or swing hard to the left? Can the Republicans feasibly recover, or will an Obama election actually signify the death of the GOP and the rise of a new competing political party, just as the Whigs died off more then a century ago? Lots of interesting questions.

And I apologize for the rant.

No need to apologize for the rant Snake, you make plenty of good points.

We don't know what will happen during Obama's presidency (at this point, with the polling trends and McCain's actions, I'm gonna go ahead and assume Obama's gonna win for this thought), we can never know what will go on during the next 4 to 8 years. We just need to take that risk and charge head-long into the unknown, because lord knows the country cannot survive on the course we're currently on.

I would probably go into a more indepth rant of my own, but I'm damn tired right now. But I do want to jump to one thing you said...

That is a very good question, what will happen to the Republicans after this election? Will we have the Constitution Party rise up to take over the 'conservative' banner, or will some other non-conservative group take over the 'other party' role - such as the Libertarians or the Greens. Heck, we might just see a schism within the Republicans as the centrists and 'true' conservatives split off from the 'neo-cons' who have seized the party under Bush's tenure.

We live in interesting times, and I'm damn glad we do. It'll be exciting to tell our children/grandchildren about this times, maybe it'll be about when America returned to its image as the 'city upon a hill' or it'll be about how America hit rock bottom and ended up a shadow of what we once were. But, yet again, who knows. The future awaits and I can't wait to see what will happen.

I just know I'll be really happy once when this election cycle is finally over.

I see what you're saying, SS, and you are correct in the fact that there will be some issue in which Obama makes a crucial error that will publicly hurt his image. Personally, my money is on NAFTA, though that's probably too easy a pick considering that it's been the thing politicians on both sides of the aisle speak out against publicly but continue to totally support when the time comes to vote for nearly about two decades now. Still, with job loss at the levels it has been lately, it's a more hot button issue now than it has been for a while.

However, I don't see Obama having a "moral shortcoming" along the lines of an extramarital affair or anything of the kind. His opponents have thrown everything up to and including the kitchen sink at him on the grounds of personal character so far--I feel "pals around with terrorists" blows getting hummers on the side out of the water, sorry--and his personal life all the way back to his childhood has been under major scrutiny since he first arrived on the national scene, and he's come up pretty clean. I don't see a problem coming up there.

Also, seriously, you didn't think Bill Clinton would cheat on his wife? The press was interviewing mistresses he'd had before he was even elected. It was well accepted by the public at large that he got some on the side pretty much through his entire marriage. I mean, I adore the guy and think he was the only actually good President we've had since Kennedy, but I refuse to believe anyone was surprised by the whole Lewinsky thing.

My only other objection is the idea that we've had relative safety under George W. Bush. I've heard a number of people credit him with "taking major successful steps to prevent another 9/11" but I can't help but question the validity of such a statement when the only 9/11 we've ever had was on his watch.

I hope I've made it clear that I'm not expecting one to happen either, I'm just saying that it's possible, and it's interesting to debate the hypothetical. I do think that if -- that's a huge if -- a moral issue were to arise with Obama in office it'd be very different then anything dug up on his past. To use an example you brought up, all sorts of allegations were made against Clinton prior to Lewinsky, but it wasn't until Lewinsky actually happened in the Oval Office that it really collapsed on Bill.

Yes, but then again, I was also a naive young'un at the time, and I was largely oblivious to the prior allegations until the impeachment trials. Ignoring the allegations and just concentrating on the way he sounded during his early speeches and whatnot, no, I didn't think he'd have an affair. He seemed like a genuinely good, moral person. I had a lot of qualms with his politics and his policies, even then as a young'un, but the scandal caught me completely off-guard.

It's easy to pick on Dubya these days and I consider him well below average as a President at best, but I've never bought into the "worst President ever he's Satan-spawn sin" analogies, which ironically tend to be every bit as extremist as the detractors claim Bush's administration is. (Not accusing you of making the analogy, just speaking in general terms.)
The Patriot Act had a ton of bullcrap that I protested even way back when and I'll never know to what extent Bush's policies actually kept America safe post-9/11, but on the very narrow issue of post-9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil I'm willing to give him a bit of credit. None have played out, and I'm sure at least a couple had been planned.

I wouldn't blink at calling Bush the worst president ever, but not by a huge margin. Invading a country that had neither attacked nor threatened us, (A Crime Against Peace under the Nuremburg Principles - Nazis who couldn't be tied directly to the Holocaust were hanged for participating in the invasion of Poland) instituting torture (depending on the victim, War Crimes or Crimes Against Humanity under Nuremburg), domestic spying, ect. On the Evil-O-Meter He's eye-to-eye with Andrew Jackson.

Oh, no worries. While I do feel that Bush Jr. has a unique blend of willful incompetence and criminal motivation that had, up to now, been largely unseen on the Presidential stage, I don't feel that anything his administration has done has been as comparatively catastrophic to the nation as the policies of Hoover or Buchanan, nor as irreparably damaging as the Jackson/Van Buren administrations, nor has he shown the pitiable ignorance of Harding or the admittedly effective evil of Nixon in his time in office, and thus I can say with utmost certainty that he will not only not be remembered among the nation's worst Chief Executives, but he will in all likelihood be altogether forgotten by history.

The Iraq war will be seen on no grander scale than Korea, and our current economic fallout will probably amount to nothing more than a historical footnote akin to the recession of the late 70s. 9/11 is the Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century, which isn't to say that it's not a big deal, but a century from now it will be nothing more than fodder for countless History Channel specials and a special effects-happy action film with a romantic subplot directed by whatever the era's equivalent of Michael Bay will be. Despite the repeated mantra of "Never Forget," history is guaranteed to not remember it the way we may think it should.

And this, I feel, is the most fitting punishment for George W. Bush. Just as Bill Clinton was obsessed with "legacy"--especially in comparison to Kennedy--so too has Bush been wrapped up in his future standing in the history books. The vast majority of his public addresses have contained a single common word: "Historical." He is a man that came into office not wanting to serve the nation, not wanting to better the standing of the people he represented, and not even trying to make a quick buck at the expense of our livelihood. His goal was to be the next face on Mount Rushmore. To be among the Jeffersons, the Washingtons, the Roosevelts and Lincolns, anything so long as he wasn't left forgotten like his old man.

And while Dubya's memory won't fade as quickly as daddy's (who was mostly only remembered for an unfulfilled "Read my lips" promise and a VP who couldn't spell "potato" even before he'd cleaned out his desk), he will at most be remembered as clearly as Monroe is today in a matter of decades. Regardless of whatever he's done, good or bad, George W. Bush will be denied the only thing he ever truly wanted out of his presidency, and I'm pretty okay with that.

As for how history will view Obama or, to a lesser degree of possibility, McCain, I can't say for sure. Obama could potentially follow the path of Wilson, a bright, educated man with noble intentions who wished to bring the United States and the rest of the world into a new era of prosperity only to be ultimately brought to his knees by Washington politics as usual. McCain will likely fair no better, though I fear his own admitted lack of knowledge on economics and his willing to embrace the idea of "preventative war" has a greater chance of making an already bad situation worse.

I've meandered a bit, and I apologize. But I do suppose this brings me to a point: I feel that the reasonable worst case scenario of an Obama presidency is nothing of importance happening, good or bad, whereas I simply feel that McCain's reasonable worst case scenario is more dangerous. Not catastrophically so, but noticeably. A potential Iran war, a mishandling of a shaky economy, and a running mate with less executive experience representing less people than the mayor of Charlotte, NC.

Just feels like a safer bet to me.

As far as comparing presidents go, I think Obama will be in line with JFK more than any other. JFK certainly set up the 60's, with a lot of LBJ's work just fleshing out and fulfilling the promises and programs that JFK started. Obama's got a lot of vision that he wants to make happen. I'm pretty sure he'll get the ball rolling on a lot of things, even if they aren't carried to full term before he leaves the Oval Office.

Sure, public opinion of Obama is going to get knocked down a few pegs, but I'd argue that some of Obama appeal isn't so much the man himself, but the contrast that he gives to President Bush & Democrats in general.

First, I'm going to address the issues with the Democrats. First, for a long time they pretty much have avoided the issues & taken a non-confrontational tone & view. Obama at least doesn't sound like the majority of Democrats, and in the case of the voter fraud, proves it.

(To explain, the Obama camp is taking the view that this is the very same issue that created the whole attorney firing scandal that cost Gonzales his job. Going after trumped up accusations of voter fraud. In contrast, there's Kerry who saw this going on, gathered lawyers to deal with it after the election with a recount & not actually addressing it.)

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Then there's Bush, who people are quite sick of, for a variety of reasons. Obama's contrast with Bush is also obvious. Obama has an clear understanding of issues & can speak effectively about them. Something you never really got from Bush, and something that's a bit lacking in McCain.

And this is a change election, people are desperate for change & Obama's got a good product to sell (where McCain is largely working with last year's model with a few minor modifications).

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Additionally, there are outside factors. The energy & numbers at these rallies were somewhat seen in the 2006 elections, where the Democrats not only won back the House, but the Senate as well. And winning back the Senate was a huge feat, because they pretty much had to run the table there.

Also, some of Obama's rallies are due to organization of Democratic supporters. Under Bush, the ranks of the Democratic base has swelled considerably. Its also become increasingly tech savy & embraced the internet to organize & gather funds.

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You also have to remember that Dean was starting to get similar crowds early on in the primaries, but I think the difference is because of Dean. When Dean ran, he was favored in Iowa & would've won if the youth vote had actually come out in force for him.

However, it didn't. But with the elections of 2006, I get the distinct impression that the youth vote learned a lesson from that experience. Thus, they're putting everything onto the table & hope they've got a winning hand.

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And overall, yeah Obama might be nothing more than a JFK. JFK was a great talker, and did okay in some areas. However, throw in the Bay of Pigs & his womanizing ways, and you start to get a different picture.

Had he & his brother not been assassinated, history might not have had nearly as glowing a view of him. Still positive, but more in the Clinton sense, with mixed feelings.

SWB