This is silly. No one bridles against Obama's rhetoric because they want a class war, or because they really think a President Edwards, though ineffective at moving his legislative agenda, will make the roads run red with the blood of Merck's executives. Rather, the concern with Obama's high-minded rhetoric of unity is what happens when it crashes into the dispiriting reality of plutocratic self-interest, and Republican obstructionism. If Obama is predicating his theory of change based on a belief that his personal characteristics will prove sufficient to establish consensus around progressive goals, he will be sorely disappointed. We saw this happen with Bill Clinton in 1994: His political strategy hinged on the belief that people of good will would come together to solve the country's problems. Instead, people of bad will came together to kneecap its president. Happily, Mark Schmitt offers another interpretation of his Obama's vision, arguing that Obama's rhetoric is a tactical colonization of the high ground, the better from which to overrun the forces impeding reform. "Suppose you were as non-naïve about it as I am," says Mark, "but your job wasn't writing about politics, it was running for president? What should you do? In that case, your responsibility is not merely to describe the situation exactly, but to find a way to subvert it. In other words, perhaps we are being too literal in believing that 'hope' and bipartisanship are things that Obama naively believes are present and possible, when in fact they are a tactic, a method of subverting and breaking the unified conservative power structure. Claiming the mantle of bipartisanship and national unity, and defining the problem to be solved (e.g. universal health care) puts one in a position of strength, and Republicans would defect from that position at their own risk."Mark's essay should be read in full. The problem is I just don't know if it's correct. This gets back to the Rorschach nature of the primary: You can, on the one hand, take Obama's rhetoric at face value, fit it into a life in which his personal magnetism brought unlike individuals together, and judge the package a laudable-but-insufficient approach to political battle. Conversely, you can, as Mark does, read Obama's rhetoric as an opening bid of sorts, integrate it into a narrative that includes his time as a community organizer and talent as a political observer, and see something altogether more sophisticated take shape. Either interpretation could be right. Both could be wrong. Photo used under Creative Commons license from Joe Crimmings, whose Flickr page is really worth browsing through. THE CHANGE CANDIDATE?
This is silly. No one bridles against Obama's rhetoric because they want a class war, or because they really think a President Edwards, though ineffective at moving his legislative agenda, will make the roads run red with the blood of Merck's executives. Rather, the concern with Obama's high-minded rhetoric of unity is what happens when it crashes into the dispiriting reality of plutocratic self-interest, and Republican obstructionism. If Obama is predicating his theory of change based on a belief that his personal characteristics will prove sufficient to establish consensus around progressive goals, he will be sorely disappointed. We saw this happen with Bill Clinton in 1994: His political strategy hinged on the belief that people of good will would come together to solve the country's problems. Instead, people of bad will came together to kneecap its president. Happily, Mark Schmitt offers another interpretation of his Obama's vision, arguing that Obama's rhetoric is a tactical colonization of the high ground, the better from which to overrun the forces impeding reform. "Suppose you were as non-naïve about it as I am," says Mark, "but your job wasn't writing about politics, it was running for president? What should you do? In that case, your responsibility is not merely to describe the situation exactly, but to find a way to subvert it. In other words, perhaps we are being too literal in believing that 'hope' and bipartisanship are things that Obama naively believes are present and possible, when in fact they are a tactic, a method of subverting and breaking the unified conservative power structure. Claiming the mantle of bipartisanship and national unity, and defining the problem to be solved (e.g. universal health care) puts one in a position of strength, and Republicans would defect from that position at their own risk."Mark's essay should be read in full. The problem is I just don't know if it's correct. This gets back to the Rorschach nature of the primary: You can, on the one hand, take Obama's rhetoric at face value, fit it into a life in which his personal magnetism brought unlike individuals together, and judge the package a laudable-but-insufficient approach to political battle. Conversely, you can, as Mark does, read Obama's rhetoric as an opening bid of sorts, integrate it into a narrative that includes his time as a community organizer and talent as a political observer, and see something altogether more sophisticated take shape. Either interpretation could be right. Both could be wrong. Photo used under Creative Commons license from Joe Crimmings, whose Flickr page is really worth browsing through. 
