Steady on the tiller
Oct. 22nd, 2008 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoI've said this before -- every time John McCain speaks at a podium labeled "Country First," he campaigns for Obama. Every time he talks about a "steady hand at the tiller," he campaigns for Obama. Just like, before McCain, every time Hillary Clinton ran that "3AM" ad, it was a net pickup for Obama. In each case, Obama better suits what's ostensibly being sought than the opposing candidate who thinks it plays to their strengths.
James Fallows has a good post on Obama's steadiness these past few weeks, as everyone else on the national scene has been running around like Chicken Little.
"(W)hat struck me most, in reviewing Barack Obama's oratorical and debate performance since the first cattle-call, Gravel-equipped televised primary debate early last year, was his unchanging nature. He got better as he went along, but as an improving version of the same thing. I said I couldn't be sure whether Obama's consistency arose from deliberate strategic choice, flawlessly executed over a very long time, or whether it simply reflects the way he is. Odds favor the latter."
But, here's an interesting point Fallows makes about Obama's competitors' opinions of him:
"(A)s a subject for a later day, I remember how often, how vehemently, and with what certainty Obama's detractors during the Democratic primaries said that he could not, possibly, in any way, in any real world, withstand the onslaught of GOP negative campaigning once it geared up against him. That he's been seriously underestimated twice -- by the Hillary Clinton camp, and now by McCain -- doesn't prove his potential in office but is interesting."
James Fallows has a good post on Obama's steadiness these past few weeks, as everyone else on the national scene has been running around like Chicken Little.
"(W)hat struck me most, in reviewing Barack Obama's oratorical and debate performance since the first cattle-call, Gravel-equipped televised primary debate early last year, was his unchanging nature. He got better as he went along, but as an improving version of the same thing. I said I couldn't be sure whether Obama's consistency arose from deliberate strategic choice, flawlessly executed over a very long time, or whether it simply reflects the way he is. Odds favor the latter."
But, here's an interesting point Fallows makes about Obama's competitors' opinions of him:
"(A)s a subject for a later day, I remember how often, how vehemently, and with what certainty Obama's detractors during the Democratic primaries said that he could not, possibly, in any way, in any real world, withstand the onslaught of GOP negative campaigning once it geared up against him. That he's been seriously underestimated twice -- by the Hillary Clinton camp, and now by McCain -- doesn't prove his potential in office but is interesting."
