His comment on health care--no solutions just happy rhetoric--makes me think he's not the real deal. It's the same with almost everything.

C'mon, Obama, take a stand.

J. McCutchen

OOPS...your comment applies to every Demo Senator in the 109th congress

J. McCutchen

At first blush, Clinton holds the enviable "schadenfreude" position here. At first blush...at second, her's has to be counted as a disastrous failure to exploit a wide open policy window.

Obama's comment is realistic. The ulimate choice in my view is between some sort of single-payer sys and the Mess of the Rest but given fiscal and political realities, the state of the play now favors incrementalism.

Beyond that, the same problem of 1993 - how to build a coalition of stakeholders from the bottom up which is strong enough to withstand the inevitable assault from multiple conflicting and powerful interests over the long haul that reform legislation will have

J. McCutchen

His Iraq comment proves his mettle as a contender..."Let's not relitigate"....

Clever. What is it that we have to relitigate?...mmmm...

Maybe it is "foreign and security policy" experience or lack thereof?

“intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members.”
Hillary Clinton
Floor Debate
Iraq Res2002

..."Let's not relitigate"....nice frame..nothing but net

You know, it is really hard to heal divisions when someone keeps swinging a meat axe at you. I have seen no acknowledgement from Obama that the last six years were anything but a tiny swing of the natural bipartisan pendulum just a fraction to the right of the "vital center".

When Grover Norquist, one of the core policy and politics figures of the Republican Party, stated that his goal was to castrate all Democratic politicians, did Obama take that the least bit personally? Did he understand that Norquist's words were the actual goal of the Radical Republicans, not just rhetoric?

I think the Democratic candidates have to think long and hard about the concepts of the "pendulum" and "bipartisanship", and ask themselves if a cycle of Democrats cleaning up messes followed by Radicals creating new messes and undoing all the hard work of the Democrats is really good for the nation in the long run.

sPh

I'm trying to figure out the point of your message. Is it: "Screw the center and embrace the base"? Because that strategy just got done exploding in the face of the Republican Pary.

Bless us all. The media has managed to victimize us yet again. Two solid years of a media-created, orchestrated and promoted race for president. Throw a Brittany-Paris-Tom factor into the race and Americans end up voting for a victorious god while the media ends up digesting the zillions of bucks hapless candidates have had to shell out to get billing .

By the time swearing in takes place, the president has attained the stature of a larger-than-life creature - omnipotent, omnipresent, infallible. How can anybody be shocked when Bush declares himself the Decider? Besides, why would he assume otherwise?

To think this phenomenon has not affected the power of the executive in American governance is naive. Even as the Prince takes on the look of frog, we, not to mention our elected representatives dare not challenge. Also, to think that this phenomenon is not a death blow to our Constitution and ultimately our Republic will be our undoing.

When Grover Norquist, one of the core policy and politics figures of the Republican Party, stated that his goal was to castrate all Democratic politicians, did Obama take that the least bit personally? Did he understand that Norquist's words were the actual goal of the Radical Republicans, not just rhetoric?

Obama said that the “blogger community,” which by now is shorthand for liberal Democrats, gets frustrated with him because they think he’s too willing to compromise with Republicans. “My argument,” he says, “is that a polarized electorate plays to the advantage of those who want to dismantle government. Karl Rove can afford to win with 51 percent of the vote. They’re not trying to reform health care. They are content with an electorate that is cynical about government. Progressives have a harder job. They need a big enough majority to initiate bold proposals.”

---From a pretty critical article on Obama at Harper's Magazine. There's an interesting follow-up by the author as well, based a Press Release Obama's Office put out on the article.

I'm not saying the man's perfect. But that's a hell of a lot of scrutiny, and not a lot of "oh, he's dirty".

Moreover -- The worst thing you can do in politics is take crap personally. You work hard to get your views across, but the Whole Entire Problem Up There is that, more and more, people have demonized and evil-lized the opposing number. Politics is about making things work, making them better, not demolishing the opposing number. I'd say that the last election is proof positive that any such attempts will backfire. Just because we're "right" doesn't mean we get to get away with acting like idiots.

Norquist, Rove, GW Bush,, Lott, Gingrich et. al. will go down in history as people who've damaged America with winner-take-all politics. I want to win, yet I stand four-square against any attempt to do unto others in similar fashion. Clear?

--

APOSTATE: Angry Young Black Man Does Raqs.

There are a dozen plans out there that all work better than the status quo. It doesn't make sense to put out a plan when you can't govern or pass it (nothing will pass with Bush in office) only to have your plan become the target of millions of dollars in attacks. Coming up with a plan is the easiest part - it's defeating the interests your plan upsets that is most difficult. Each type of universal coverage upsets different interest in varying amounts. Politically it's better to spring the plan at the time and place of your choosing so forces can't easily align against it.

As for Obama, here's his legislative record from the 90th, 91st, and 92nd Illinois General Assembly. He may be a 'rock star' but he's been writing good progressive legislation for a decade - even when nobody was looking. If he runs for President I'm sure Obama will reveal his preferred route to universal coverage. I think doing so now is counterproductive.

How interesting to watch everyone scramble to project their own hopes, fears, questions, and conflicts on the jug-eared junior Senator from Illinois.

Here's what we know: He's of mixed-race heritage, with his white mother having left his African goat herder father, and he was raised in a white family. Politically, he's right of center. He panders when it comes to religion and he exhibits more than a bit of homophobia. His record is also thin, but he has shown a distinct corporate (anti-consumer) bent to his voting philosophy. He's also just published a book which he aparantly wrote during his first two years in the Senate, and all the hype comes (conveniently) just in time to coincide with his book's publicity tour.

What I'm curious about is, who profits from Obama's book (other than the self-promotion involved, of course)? In comparison, I think about Al Gore donating profits from his movie, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

Um, you are pretty wrong about Obama. He is NOT right of center. That's just totally bogus, an outright lie. He's one of the strongest progressives in the Senate, and he was against the Iraq War before the war started. He's smart, tough, and disciplined.

Your comment also borders on racism, listing the fact that he is of mixed race background with a list of your perceived negatives about him. His father got a PhD from Harvard. Here's Scott Turow's piece in Salon from a few years back:

"His parents met as college students in 1960. His father, also named Barack Obama, was from Kenya's Luo tribe, the first African exchange student at the University of Hawaii. His mother, Anna, had gone to Hawaii from Kansas with her parents. Even in Hawaii's polyglot culture a black and white couple remained at best an oddity in 1961, when Obama was born; at the time miscegenation was still a crime in many states. Nor was Obama Sr.'s marriage welcomed in Kenya. Under those pressures, Obama's father departed when Barack was 2 to pursue his Ph.D. at Harvard, leaving his son with mother and grandparents. When Obama was 6, Anna remarried. Her new husband was Lolo, an Indonesian oil company manager, and the new family moved to Djakarta, where Obama's sister Maya was born. (Obama describes her looks as those "of a Latin queen.")

After two years in a Muslim school, then two more in a Catholic school, Obama was sent by his mother back to her parents' home so that he could attend Hawaii's esteemed Punahou Academy. Living with two middle-aged, middle-class white people (his grandfather was a salesman, his grandmother a bank employee trapped by a glass ceiling), Obama struggled as an adolescent with the realities of being African-American, an identity that was in part imposed by others, and yet one he also embraced as the legacy of a father for whom he yearned but with whom he enjoyed only sporadic contact. He attended California's Occidental College, then Columbia. After graduation he moved to Chicago, where he worked for a number of years as a community organizer on the city's South Side, employed by a consortium of church and community groups that hoped to save manufacturing jobs.

Obama's father died in a traffic accident in Nairobi in 1982, but while Obama was working in Chicago, he met his Kenyan sister, Auma, a linguist educated in Germany who was visiting the United States. When she returned to Kenya in 1986 to teach for a year at the University of Nairobi, Obama finally made the trip to his father's homeland he had long promised himself. There, he managed to fully embrace a heritage and a family he'd never fully known and come to terms with his father, whom he'd long regarded as an august foreign prince, but now realized was a human being burdened by his own illusions and vulnerabilities. With that, Obama began to feel more accepting of himself. Harvard, law practice, teaching and politics followed."

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/03/30/obama/index.html

He's got two years to come up with a plan. It's good to be flexible -- you have to come up with something that will work and pass the Congress. Remember how Hillarycare failed?

As if an interview with the Union Leader is the appropriate venue to launch a big new health care initiative.

Okay. I'll stand corrected. Or maybe clarify that his votes on economic matters, e.g. limiting awards in lawsuits against corporations and supporting the new bankruptcy laws, land him right of center.

Name one who had the brains and/or guts to oppose Bush on Iraq.

Tom

It's Demember 2006. Anybody who expects a possible candidate who hasn't even declared yet to have an armload of policy proposals ready to unload on the NH Union Leader almost 2 years before the election is getting the cart before the horse. If he runs he'll have specific proposals, like he does for Iraq for all the issues of the day in due course. You might want to reserve judgment until then.

In the meantime whose your favorite and what's his/her position on healthcare?

Russ Feingold. If we want to elect the first of something, lets elect a Jew and get somebody with experience and a record for standing for something!

Yes, I know he's not running but we should change his mind.

I have not read Obama's book

so I was glad to read the post by Ohiomaster above.

I did hear Barak Obama great speech at the Democratic
convention , which the major TV shows did not show
because they were limiting the coverage of the convention
in prime time .

I hope the Democrats will finally learn to choose
their nominee for POTUS someone who will win

I voted against Bush more than for Kerry , I predicted
that Kerry would loose , mainly because of his
speaking style, too long , too boring.

And Hillary , might make a good president , but she
would not get elected because of Bill .

go right to hinting that someone is racist because they point out, accurately, his heritage and upbringing

Yes. But why is his racial heirtage notable, what dos that bring to the table in your opinion?  Why mention his father's humble beginnings as a goat herder without noting he was a Kenyan educated with a PhD at Harvard?. Why infer that his white mother left the 'african goat herder' as if this 'goat herding african' was an issue and skip over the fact that it was the 'educated african', under significant family pressure, who left the white mother and son in Hawaii?

You also mention Al Gore gives his film profits to charity, without noting that Gore comes from a wealthy family 'born with a silver spoon in his mouth'.  Clinton wrote a book and so did Hillary and numeous other politicians and their book sales went to their pockets. So why single out Obama for being the recipient of the revenues from his book like countless other authors?

Yeah, I know. I wasn't counting him because he said he wasn't running. I also would like to see him change his mind.

Tom

Harold Ford already tried the black guy running as a conservative Democrat. It didn't work so even moving to the center right isn't enough.

Ford had race as an issue because he was in a Southern state. Obama is running nationally, race is not going to be as big an issue as people may want to believe.

 Obama, just like many great politicians and entertainers, transcends race because of what he is able to do.  He is like a Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan were/are to golf and basketball respectively. He has a unique set of characteristics and they are going to carry him into the WH. Folks, do not come out to hear Obama because of his race...if race was the deciding criteria then Jesse Jackson, Condolezza Rice, Alan Keyes, Al Sharpton, Colin Powell and Cynthia McKinney would have commanded those crowds. They didn't.  Obama is not drawing crowds because of a center right position either.

 He draws these crowds because he has a different brand of politics. Politics for those weary of  bitter partianship and who are alienated by the endless clash of partisianship we see in Congress and on the campaign trail.

His is a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of 'our improbable expreiment in demoracy'. He speaks to a search for connection as Americans build on the foundation of  political consensus. Obama exhorts  and tells us that it is only by returning to the principles that gave birth to our Constitution that Americans can repair a political process that is broken and restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of touch.

People feel the country is out of control. They are going to want a track record

Yes, the country is out of control. Obama tells American citizens that our track record and blueprint for success with democracy lies within  the US Constituton...it is what holds the promise of our ideals and brought us this far over 200 years. Obama has a track record in US Constitutional Law...he taught it for over 5 years. He tells audiences that is the path back to our civil liberties, ideals and beliefs that is the promise of American democracy.

That is leadership, that is what ordinary Americans are craving.Obama gives people a sense of renewed  hope that they can regain their democracy and that is what people need to do to gain control of the country.

You may wish to read more about him and gain a deeper understanding of what his politics are. He is not someone that can be labelled as right, left or center...he is democratic at heart based on the Constitution not on some partisian ideology.

I don't think much of politics and Democrats but that is a nasty thing to say.

No, you can't have your own facts!