"WHAT HIT THEM"
Jonathan Chait argues that Obama is winning high-education voters because they are high information voters. -AS
Didn't Chait read When Genius Failed? Sorry, but TNR isn't exactly high on the recommended list, right now, post the Times-McCain flap they lubricated, reportedly.
This kind of psychoanalyzing of election results is such a fools game. I wish I could get paid for it as much as some.
WHO IS BARACK OBAMA?
Rather than take some cheap shots, let's just ask, who is Barack Obama? As Chris Matthews so amply demonstrated on his show last week, even many of his supporters do not have a clue. They vote for him because they think he represents something in themselves and he casts his net wide enough to accommodate that amply.
You are free to conceptualize him however you want.
ADVANCE COPY HAGIOGRAPHY
BO hasn't been in the oval one day, even, yet he's JFK. No, he's RFK. He's MLK. He's Jefferson. He's Jackson. (He's Deval Patrick....). He's Reagan. He's "American Adam". He offers a Hope that he's blurred into old-fashioned American optimism in peoples' mind, although the two are quite distinct. He'll get "us" past race (especially if we are white-male McCain-hugging independents).
BO hasn't been in the oval one day, even, yet he's JFK. No, he's RFK. He's MLK. He's Jefferson. He's Jackson. (He's Deval Patrick....). He's Reagan. He's American Adam. He offers a Hope that he's blurred into old-fashioned American optimism in peoples' mind, although the two are quite distinct. He'll get "us" past race (especially if we are white-male McCain-hugging independents).He's a revivalist, who calls up old-time phrases that are more aptly suited another time, like "Si, Se Puede". But he's not "reviving" anything, because he's also a fancy page turner.
He's an idealist, who is going to sweep away what is wrong with Washington. Yet, his advisory team? All ... quasi-slacker pragmatists (the idea that Dick Thaler might be an influencer is a little disconcerting, and I sort-of like Thaler, too).
The list goes on. His pre-war judgments are somehow supposed to give confidence that his post-war judgments are better than others.
LET OBAMA BE OBAMA, BEFORE HE GETS HIGH ON HIS OWN SUPPLY
Barack Obama is Barack Obama. Nothing more, nothing less.
Certainly not the conceptual dream that his advance hagiographers are whipping him up to be. If you are not o.k. with that and still like BO (for President or otherwise), then something is wrong, seriously wrong.
