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Obama has been visiting Oregon the last couple days and has been getting an inordinate amount of press coverage in the local media. This isn’t surprising or anything but two things of note:

• Arguably, it doesn’t make a big difference who is elected president. I am one to believe that politicians often go back on their word and are more moderate and more extreme on views we’d like them to be more extreme/moderate on. I am also one to believe that being a good President isn’t necessarily a matter of political skill but of timing and…well, let’s be blunt: dumb luck.
  • Imagine if Reagan had won the nomination in 1976 and won the Presidency. Would he be as universally lauded as the right person for the time? Hell, I have doubts he would would have been re-elected.
  • Imagine if Nixon had won in 1960. Assuming he does or doesn’t get assassinated, he is probably looked at much more differently than the politically hardened Nixon we saw win later in his career.
  • That’s not to say that presidents don’t make their own destiny, or that there aren’t bad presidents, just bad circumstances; just that we often assign more control over world events to presidents than they deserve (in good and bad)
• On the other hand, if some political experience does matter for Democrats (or at least effectiveness in political experience), don’t you really have to look more closely at Clinton? First of all, she is married to a master politician and it really shows in her work in the Senate. You can make a really easy argument that Hillary was at least twice as effective as Obama in gaining influence and pushing through an agenda that served her and her constituents well for the first four years of her Senate bid. Let’s couple that with the fact that her first four years was two as a split majority and two as a minority party and that Bush and Republicans were basically untouchable from 9/11 until mid 2003, that’s impressive. Obama has had a weak Republican majority for two years and one year and change as a majority party. We can talk about her judgment on one issue (defense where she is hawkish), but her ability to deliver as a junior senator has been really interesting.

And honestly, part of Obama’s appeal to me as a conservative is that he has a lot of big ideas but that those ideas still have to go through Washington DC. He is not terribly effective as a politician and that might be refreshing for some and it certainly doesn’t bother me but for entirely different reasons. If you want to make JFK comparisons, consider one of JFK’s bigger ideas was to put a man on the moon. Considering the fact that there wasn’t a ton of political baggage with this and it could be considered defense project (and thus given extra funding and priority with minimal political baggage). Let’s also consider that DC in 1960 was immensely less bureaucratic than today’s government.

Guess how long it took us to get to the moon? Eight years. That’s two presidential terms. And this isn’t even as politicized as some of the proposals Obama has made.

I think both Obama and McCain are in a unique position to come off as genuine people to the casual moderates who often tip the scale for candidates. To a certain extent at least, I believe both to be true to their word in this sense. I think what differentiates McCain’s experience from Obama’s inexperience is that McCain has learned how to get his way on policy when it is really important to him and still come off as a disinterested Washington outsider (a.k.a. the maverick label). If Obama doesn’t win the presidency, he could easily be in the same position as a Senator. Someone enormously popular at home and has a big enough national image to not have to bow to party pressure when he doesn’t want to (but also knows when to toe the line unlike the “hated” Lieberman).

Obama Speech

So I watched the Obama speech that everyone has written about today and figured I’d throw out my two cents.

I was underwhelmed.

I don’t know how to better put it. I am sure if I had a different political philosophy I may have gotten some semblance of optimism from it but as it stands, the speech simply bored me to death when it came down to the reason he was giving the speech. I don’t think this was a Kennedy moment or anything along those lines. I honestly haven’t read any commentary on it yet but it lost my interest early and often.

What if Hillary is better?

It looks as though that, if no candidate drops out, that Superdelegates will be the deciding vote on the Democratic nominee. I have to ask though: what’s the problem? The same people that complain about rule changing in regards to Michigan and Florida revotes are the same one’s often backing rule changes in the way Superdelegates vote for and nominate their preferred candidate. The ground rules were set in 2004 and people knew that this was a possibility. If you have a problem with it, change it at this convention for future conventions.

The reason this rule was implemented was because Democratic leadership wanted more of a say in the process because they felt they made better decisions for the future of the party. Now what if Clinton is the best candidate for Democrats (both present and future) and the superdelegates make that decision? Would Democrats accept that or would they move to change the nominating rules?

Old dogs, old tricks

A common theme that seems to be popping up in the DNC’s criticism of McCain is associating him with Bush (a.k.a. the boogie man). Are we going to have another election against Bush and not for ideas? Seriously? Because, this is going to be like the third one in a row and it is getting really old. Bush hasn’t even run in the last one and won’t be running against him. Nor is McCain a member of the Bush administration nor has he ever been considered to be a crony (unless you are a DNC staffer who came to consciousness about three months ago).

Democrats have to be big fans of Bush at this point as they use him in every one of their advertisements. It is just getting old. It was one thing when he was in the election, it is quite another now that he is on his way out.

Eliot Spitzer versus Crispin Glover (The Crisper):

I can’t find a better comparison picture but every time I see Spitzer on TV, I see George McFly.

I haven’t updated really updated in about two weeks. It is time for a bulleted list.

• I started my new job. Still trying to grasp things but I am sure it will lock into place soon.
  • It is strange commuting to work after six months of not doing any commuting and two and a half years of having about a five minute drive or twenty minute walk to work
• We got a new car. It is slightly used but still in very nice condition.
  • I am going to be driving it more than Jen which means she is driving the Jimmy. I think she feels sad about this but I have further to drive and gas isn’t getting cheaper.
• We haven’t got rid of my wife’s old car yet. I am seriously wondering if it is worth the goofing around or if it should just be driven into a donation lot and given away.
• My Dad came down to visit. Jen was really sick that weekend. It was a lot of fun hanging out with him and going to old places we used to go to when I was younger.
• We inherited another case of wine. Amazing how it accumulates.
• I haven’t been drinking much since I have actively started losing weight.
  • I am now down to 225ish. Still sounds bad but consider:
    • In 2002, when I started this journal, I was over 230.
    • When I got married in 2005, I was at 245.
    • When I moved last July (2007), I was at 255.
  • So, I am feeling much better but I need to continue down. I am hoping to be at 210 (or less) by the beginning of July.
• I have been feeling rather sleepless. It isn’t a lot of fun.
• Trips planned:
  • Indianapolis (April)
  • Vegas (late June)
  • Alaska (September?)
• I am startling productive recently. I haven’t been watching much TV but I also really haven’t updated my blogs much because I’ve been working a bunch.

That’s it!

When you use the term “swiftboating,” you often do so incorrectly. Like a poor little boy that cries wolf too many times, you really need to get a freaking grip on the term.

Swiftboating is not:

• All negative advertising
• A brutal attack on an issue the candidate agrees with
• Sarcasm or mocking of a candidate
• A misrepresentation of a candidates views
• One candidate saying another did something (like sleep with a former employee) that has nothing to do with policy and may be true or false (that’s usually called a smear)

If you are going to use the term, it is typically when a third party group with unlimited fundraising capability smears the “apparent” opponent of their causes with information that is unrelated to policy.

I say “apparent” because these organizations, by law, have no affiliation with any candidate and a candidate, by law, cannot have control over that organization.

If you need a reason to universally hate CFR, I can point to MoveOn and Swift Boat Veterans For Truth as two organizations that can appeal to whatever side of the political fence you are. I hate both of them.

I’d much rather have soft money donations going directly to political campaigns where the campaign would actually have to be responsible for what they say. We can point to instances where it has both mattered and not mattered but giving them a third party to blame it on has changed the dynamics of campaigning in a terrible way.

And yes, I realize I am arguing against the namesake law of the candidate I am supporting. For the last time, politics isn’t about perfect fit. Unless you regularly ride on unicorns, perfect isn’t happening in this world.