Note to Rachel: Be Like Barack!

[ClusterFreak]

Rachel - I love ya - but you gotta let go of your wish that Obama would denounce conservatism as a political philosophy. In your interview with him tonight you missed the point entirely: precisely because he's NOT doing what you wish, he's making huge inroads into traditionally red states.

Instead he's denouncing Bush and McCain on their reckless economic, domestic and foreign policy positions...and these denunciations are resonating with a lot of conservative Republicans in America...in places like Virginia, Colorado, Indiana, Montana, Missouri and elsewhere.

In the RED STATES, Rachel.

If Barack wholly rejected conservatism, as you would have him do, do you really think he'd be running his campaign on offense right now, as he IS doing? Do you think he'd be winning over independents, small 'c' conservatives and moderate Republicans, if he went out day after day and blasted their core political values?

Not bloody likely.

McCain on the other hand is denouncing liberalism, the Democratic party and everything and everyone left of center...and look where it's got him.

Trust Barack...and chill.

He's got this.

[Lilith Velkor]

1. She dresses like him, isn't that enough?

[Lex]

8. .

:thumbsdown:

[hisownpetard]

11. Dumb remark.

[kayakjohnny]

2. Two highly intelligent people. Can't expect them to be on the same page about eveything.

I think each is doing their own part in shaping the current dialogue. That's ok for me at the moment.

[patrice]

3. It's the People's job to be themselves. It's Barack's job to deal with all of us, exactly for who

we really are, to integrate the differences, so that we can integrate our similarities. We can't do that if we are not genuine.

It's the same old thing: if we compromise too much before we even get started, "the middle" moves to the Right and just as it almost always has, when the deal is done, we end up that much further away from what we need. We end up, instead, with what the system tells us we need, i.e. the status quo.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. I gleaned from between the lines of her remarks that she sees it exactly as you do

But was reluctent to say it quite aloud lest the nutters pick up on it.

[ClusterFreak]

7. I'd have to go back and watch it again...

...to see if I missed what you saw. Maybe.

Also...it does seem that she's really starting to take this whole "Talk Me Down" meme to extremes. It's like...I see bad shit...I don't want to, but I do...and I need someone to comfort me and tell me it's gonna be okay. Have some faith, Rachel. Tonight she was going on about the 'soft turnout' in early voting...the fact that the bleachers weren't filled apparently at Obama's rally this morning in Sarasota. I saw the video tape. The joint was jumpin'. So people didn't want to sit in the cheap seats when they could instead gather on the field? So what?

Anyway...I love Rachel's opinions and fierce defence of liberalism...I just have this pet peeve. Or two.;)

[endthewar]

5. Rachel is an ideologue

and Obama isn't.

[olshak]

6. Quite right... and as much as

I wish Obama would exact revenge for what we have suffered through for the last eight years, the truth is that none of us will be better off for it. The only way, in my view, to make this nation as progressive as I would like to see it is to take one step at a time to the left, and Barack Obama is quite capable of getting us there.

Watching him in that interview was amazing; this guy just doesn't get rattled, and is an incredibly deep thinker. We definitely need someone like that in the White House.

[jonnyblitz]

13. obama has no intention of going anywhere NEAR "left"

as you deluded ones will soon find out. :D

[TahitiNut]

15. You may be confusing where he's going with how he's getting there.

:shrug: Just sayin'.

[thrift_store_angel]

9. Rachel is a journalist.

It is her job to try and get "new and insightful" answers out of him. She was trying to get him to say something he hadn't said before.

[AtomicKitten]

10. Rachel is just anxious.

Her interview was masterful and Rather anointed it with oil.

[frazzled]

12. Rachel is smart, but she really doesn't get this

She wants him to denounce conservatism and Republicans ... um, because they need a whupping? (I say that it in the heightened inflection Rachel puts at the end of all her statements).

Obama has been the most effective politician I've seen in my lifetime at shifting the public's opinion about economic and foreign policy ... to the left (yes, better than Bill Clinton). He is successful at this precisely because he DOESN'T excoriate the "other team." He doesn't alienate Republicans and conservatives by crowing how right we Democrats are and how wrong they are. He just makes the case, be it against "trickle-down" economics or tax policy or health care (Bush's particular brand of foreign policy is in a class of its own ... unlike any previous Republicans even) ... and it is hard for people not to agree with it.

And that is why conservative Republicans are coming out publicly in support of his ideas: he has given them the space to do so.

So Rachel, the point is not to lay nuggies on the other team. That is what has kept us at a 50-50 split for so many years. That is what kept Al Gore and John Kerry playing on the same limited map each election cycle. And it is what is allowing Obama to play on an entirely new map. And it's not "playing it down the center" by any stretch of the imagination: it is inviting people to agree with liberal policy and ideas, without making them have to say they're sorry.

If the point is just to point fingers at the other team, well ... it just pisses people off. The point is to change the country, to get things done. Barack Obama is denouncing conservative ideas and bringing people over to liberal ideas by refusing to play team sports. As it has been said, he is a transformational figure: and that transformation lies precisely in knowing how to change the ideological perspective of the American people without being ideological.

[ClusterFreak]

14. Yes.

B-)

[TahitiNut]

17. I'm not inclined to underestimate Rachel.

She has a different job ... and a different audience.

Let me put it this way. Of ALL the interviews of Obama, hers was the first to clearly and cogently address the approach he's taking. While it's pretty clear it's working as a campaign strategy, I'm inclined to believe there will be a subtle variation in how he governs. Obama rejects the ad hominem as a man who's about as bereft of fallacious thinking as anyone I've seen. Don't mistake the fact that he eschews ad hominems as a means with how well-developed his ideological perspective is. (Read "Audacity of Hope.")

I have a feeling that a LOT of folks will be surprised with Obama ... most of US pleasantly so.

[EFerrari]

18. Rachel is a journalist, not an Obama campaign operative.

Her job is to try to get her subject to reveal himself, not to forward his political aims.

[poetsdream]

16. Rachel: STAY FOCUSED ON WHAT MATTERS RIGHT NOW!

I think that the bottom line is that Obama's strategy is working and will help him to be elected. I don't think NOW is the time to get sidetracked on whether he is denouncing republicans to her satisfaction, or if he is 'liberal enough.'

The point is, this is crunch time for the election, and we should be concentrating on getting out the vote, protecting the vote, keeping our base upbeat and energized, and making 'our side' appealing to caring moderates and conservatives.

There will be plenty of time for Rachel to talk to Obama when he is president and she can, as we all will do, work to be sure he lives up to the ideas and vision he has expressed so well in his campaign.