Throughout this campaign, Barack Obama supporters have advised skeptics like me to read his book, The Audacity of Hope (along with every policy paper on his website).
While those supporters have done a yeoman-like job in illustrating Obama’s vision of unity, I wanted to get it straight from the source, given the very real possibility that he will be my candidate in November.
And so we begin, with the Prologue. Please note that I am using a trade-paperback edition, in case any references I make to page numbers don’t match the edition you’re reading.
Rather than trying to synthesize the whole book, I will highlight particular passages or themes that stand out to me. I invite others to share their observations on any of the material from the chapter at hand, regardless of whether I’ve touched on that particular topic.
Please join us each Tuesday, as we continue this journey. (For my other exploration of a revered text, stop by sometime over the next ten years or so at Bible Study for Atheists.)
* * *
Audacity begins with stories about Obama’s first campaign, his successful bid for a seat in the Illinois state legislature.
“I talked to anyone who would listen,” he says, adding that “If two guys were standing on a corner, I would cross the street to hand them campaign literature.” Must. Resist. Making. Grandmother. Joke.
He reflects on the kneejerk sentiment he reliably encountered, once people finished asking about his “funny name”: why would a nice guy like you get into a dirty game like politics?
In response, he worked up what he calls “a pretty convincing speech,” positing that “what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart.”
Not only is it a lovely sentiment, it’s smart writing to articulate the central argument of the book as early as the top of the second page. To frame it from the skeptic’s perspective, I’d restate it as “is hope a plan?”
For a moment, I feel a guilty twinge about being a skeptic. What could possibly be wrong about putting aside partisan politics and buying the world a Coke? Or a beverage with some indie cred — what are the kids drinking these days? Is Red Bull passé?
Well, two “what-could-be-wrong” answers came to mind”:
- Everything that happened in American politics since 1968, and much of what happened before. I wasn’t so sure I had that much in common with Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Gingrich, or Bush. Well, sure, lots of likable-enough people voted for those motherfuckers, but I’m not going to stop noticing that the people they voted for are motherfuckers, if that’s what this is all about.
- Sometimes the things that bind us aren’t particularly good things, like when racism, sexism, homophobia, religious zealotry, or xenophobia are or were all the rage.
Still, I remain interested in seeing if there’s some there there in this hope/change/unity thing, because, honestly, it really does sound nice. (BTW, I’m still hoping that the other book I’m reading will pan out as inspirational, but so far, not so much).
One thing I’d hoped for was an inspirational story about Alice Palmer, but her name does not appear in this section, nor in the book’s index. About his successful challenge for her seat, the Chicago Tribune says:
…in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.
A close examination of Obama’s first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.
Calling himself “restless,” he describes the next step he attempted, what turned out to be the only speed-bump to date in his fast-track career: a failed primary challenge for a U.S. Congressional seat.
This restlessness he chalks up to a saying he’d heard, that “every man is trying to either live up to his father’s expectations or make up for his father’s mistakes.” That does make me curious about his first book, Dreams from My Father. Intentional or not, man can this guy sell!
He relates a moment where a media adviser told him, post-9/11, that “the political dynamics” had changed, i.e., his name was now “bad luck” for him, apparently in that it would trigger word-association with “Osama.”
A couple of years later, he decided to go all-in for a U.S. Senate bid, which was “bolstered by several helpful endorsements.” I don’t doubt it.
If he wasn’t successful, he was going to pack in his political ambitions, to the likely relief of his wife.
He spent four or five hours a day calling major Democratic donors. Funny, Hillary is routinely vilified for seeking out large contributions. I reckon the difference is that when Obama gets a large donation, it’s still really all about you. I’ll bet the checks are even made out to you.
He lists the various places he gets himself invited to, in order to promote himself, including getting people “to arrange for my visit to their church.” Sometimes, though, the pastors would “forget to recognize me.” That’s gotta suck, doesn’t it, when you miss out on a chance to campaign in a house of worship?
Obama describes the citizens he encountered:
Some recited what they had heard on Rush Limbaugh or NPR. But most of them were too busy with work or their kids to pay much attention to politics, and they spoke instead of what they saw before them: a plant closed, a promotion, a high heating bill, a parent in a nursing home, a child’s first step.
In other words, all politics is local, and the average voter isn’t well-informed. The book, he says, grew out of his conversations with those uninformed, salt-of-the-earth folks.
And he’s a down-to-earth Joe himself, skeptical of glib hucksters:
We know how high-flying words can be deployed in the service of cynical aims, and how the noblest sentiments can be subverted in the name of power, expedience, greed, or intolerance.
My governor, Deval Patrick, once gave what I thought was an excellent speech about the importance of words. Now, I can’t believe I fell for it! Thanks, Barack, for straightening me out!
Obama considers whether his idealistic vision can come true in our cynical age:
In such a climate, any assertion of shared ideals or common values might seem hopelessly naive, if not downright dangerous — an attempt to gloss over serious differences over policy and performance or, worse, a means of muffling the complaints of those who feel ill served by our current institutional arrangements.
As Jon Stewart often says, with unctuous enthusiasm, “Go on…!”
My argument, however, is that we have no choice. You don’t need a poll to know that the vast majority of Americans-Republican, Democrat, and independent-are weary of the dead zone that politics has become, in which narrow interests vie for advantage and ideological minorities seek to impose their own versions of absolute truth.
And, on page 8, I feel I must already call “bullshit,” or more to the point, “equivalation.”
As I will be expanding and expounding on in considerable detail in another post later this week, and as Lambert and I have documented at some length in the recent past, this is Beltway- and GOP-approved nonsense, if we may call toxic falsities that destroy countries something as trivial-sounding as “nonsense.”
Pop quiz: who said these things in the wake of the 2006 Midterm election?
“…we need to put aside our partisan differences”“The election said they want to see more bipartisan cooperation.”
“The truth of the matter is, the American people are sick of the partisanship and name-calling.”
Hint: he lives across the street from 1599 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Anyone who observed anything in American politics over the last several decades should well understand what a myth this is. The story of modern American politics is the story of a ruthless, corrupt, incompetent, authoritarian GOP, and an accommodating center-right Democrat party. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar or a fool, and I don’t take Obama for a fool. But he has the rest of the book to convince me he’s not a liar.
Now, to my non-lefty friends, I am not saying that every conservative or right-libertarian impulse is intrinsically as debased as it’s been practiced (or paid lip service to) by the Republican Party for the last several decades. But it might be worth noticing that it’s how it’s been practiced (or paid lip service to) by the Republican Party for the last several decades.
Toward the end of the Prologue, Obama says he’s “guilty as charged” on the count of being a Democrat, and in that spirit he argues against oppressive things like “using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs — including [his] own — on non-believers.” You really have to hand it to Jesus for calling on someone to serve as president who respects Jefferson’s wall between Church and State. Nice going, Big Guy!
Immediately after he pledges allegiance to the guilty pros of being a Democrat, he quickly disowns what he considers the guilty cons: “I also think my party can be smug, detached and dogmatic.” After which flows a long list of the things that, by rejecting them, make him a triangulating third-way post-partisan statesman. Rather than typing all these loathsome tacit aspects of the Democratic mindset — a list that includes racial, gender, and sexual-orientation identity politics (or at least one-track focus on same) and “victimhood generally,” too much lawyering, and gumming up the wheels of economic progress — I refer you to the collected works of Peggy Noonan.
Also, “our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.” I’m with him, of course, on the “values” part (except insofar as it’s blatantly intended to be a Christianist
dogwhistle word), but saying that delusions and superstition are as important as the GDP worries me a tad.
Finally, he self-diagnoses his believe-what-you-want-to-believe appeal with stunning candor:
“I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.”
This just might be an interesting read….
See you on Friday, for Chapter 1: Republicans and Democrats.
Front page
where the hell did he come up with that?
I also think my party can be smug, detached and dogmatic.”
It’s a mystery to the nation. We all know that the DLC leaders of the party are humble, attached, and open to fresh new ideas.
Democratic Leadership council
I mean, for chrissakes, see anything smug, detached, or dogmatic in these mugs?
http://www.dlc.org/upload_graphics/leade…
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ka.cfm?kaid=137
Though some of us are smug...
Others are so humble, they deign to tell us we’re likable enough.
Hillary's folks slam Obama for being too liberal
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con…
Good thing she’s the progressive candidate in the race.
The Post article doesn't back up its claim
If you find real evidence that Hillary’s campaign is criticizing Obama for being too liberal (i.e., shaming him for supporting positions that I as a progressive promote — such as universal healthcare, gay rights, and banning torture), I will publicly condemn that.
Interesting take on Daley and Chicago
Here. From a Chicago reporter.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
it takes a ghostwriter
i looked at Obama’s books and Hillary’s book in airport bookstores and decided that any one of them contained enough vapidity to destabilize plane.
Oh, i forgot. DLC stalwart, flag amendment supporter, secret NAFTA dissenter, and AUMF yes vote, H. Clinton is a progressive stalward. A regular Henry Wallace or Gene Debs.
a blank screen
on which the views of others can be projected.
And he says this as though it is a desirable attribute, without any concern that this could end up being a problem - for him as well as for the country.
Show business, construction of an artificial persona for the pursuit of power, with no shame whatsoever; no need even for pretense that anything more is needed.
I do want to like this kid; just wish he’d give me something more to work with.
Thanks for this, VL; brave man.
Battle Weary
Why would Republicans be weary of it? They’ve been winning. Who the fuck gets weary of getting everything they want, whenever they want. Yeah, I’m sure Republicans are tired of the status quo of them kicking the shit out of us without a whiff of resistance.
And I don’t just mean Republican politicians (the Obama folks often draw that distinction). No, I mean your John Q. Public Republican who listens to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. He’s not tired of kicking the shit out of us either.
Translation: "You don't need a poll to know..."
1. I’ve got no data to back up my assertion.
2. Synonym. Bullshit.
Partisanship increases turnout and interest. That’s a good thing.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
The audacity of Code Pink and the AUMF
Here’s progressive and feminist heroine Hillary Clinton explaining her war in 2003.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZcY6TGfA…
The real audacity of hope
And I don’t just mean Republican politicians (the Obama folks often draw that distinction). No, I mean your John Q. Public Republican who listens to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. He’s not tired of kicking the shit out of us either.
* reply
That was not my experience knocking on doors for Obama in south austin.
Rootless, that's what's so damn frustrating
Re: “Oh, i forgot. DLC stalwart, flag amendment supporter, secret NAFTA dissenter, and AUMF yes vote, H. Clinton is a progressive stalward. A regular Henry Wallace or Gene Debs.”
Being more progressive than Hillary was such an easy bar for Obama to clear, but instead he’s dug in on being less “divisive” than she is.
less divisive - appealing to the majority
Being more progressive than Hillary was such an easy bar for Obama to clear, but instead he’s dug in on being less “divisive” than she is.
Odd that appealing to the working class majority should have become so unpleasant an idea for a “left” that is accustomed to and comfortable with politics controlled by the right where the lefts’ outlet is donating to impotent lobbying groups.
i think that's a bridge too far, rootless
sorry, but i got to pipe up for balance. i’m not really sure that you can claim that there is much for the working class in obama’s policy proposals, so far. i’m sure there are some nice bones here and there, but the overall picture for the working class at this moment is desperate. you must know this if you are of/work with this group of americans.
as someone pointed out downstairs, it would be best if both candidates spoke along the lines of FDR, and had bold policy like he did to go along with that. they aren’t. mushy, sound-bite laden, nonspecific, feel good, carefully crafted, Village-centric, speechifyin is what we get from both of them. snore. wake me when someone wants to talk about what they are actually going to do, and how they know. i’m so tired of discussions that lack substance.
show me a bold, serious policy that anyone is proposing to elevate the working class, upon taking office. mortgage relief, education funding, retraining/employment initiatives, health care programs that are broad and deep and uncomplicated. the list is long, the working class have been effectively ignored for several decades now. git to it.
Working class voters...
seem to be going for Hillary. See here, though I’m no polling wonk. No doubt that’s why the OFB
are spinning so hard on NAFTA, to try to peel some of those votes off. I imagine that, like me, (we)/they see the differences between the two as marginal, but real. Atrios may hate the idea of the Wise Men getting together on housing, and he’s right, but at least she’s proposing something, and you can’t beat something with nothing. (The hilarious counter here from the OFB is that Obama’s so busy fending of Hillary’s attacks that he doesn’t have time to develop a policy response. Teh funny! What, he doesn’t have people for that?)
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
well, i've heard a lot about the circle of econ advisors he has
and while i’m with you about hillary’s stunningly not-bold “get the guys who made this mess to ’fix’ it” plan, i’d like to hear more about how (if at all) BHO has different ones. he’s using not a few UChicago folks, right? that’s bad news for progressives.
reality check on "progressive" alnd Guinier
Both candidates are conservative. Differences are in approach and not in nicely laid out policy proposals which will disintegrate on contact with reality anyways (see, for example promises from Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run).
By the way, people who harbor a fantasy that FDR ran on left-wing principles need to learn some history. FDR ran for president on a budget balancing platform.
I gotta go here with Lani Guinier’s analysis of the difference between Obama and Clinton.
http://leftword.blogdig.net/archives/art…
Yeah, he's sure inspired people to organize
It’s just that the people inspired to organize for Hillary are “invisble” and their stories aren’t covered by our famously free press.
Nice little bit of payback by Lani. If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog, so I don’t blame her for wanting to get a little bit of her own back.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
i;ve tried three times to reply on mortgages
and each post has disappeared.
Obama on housing (drupal correcting )
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/03/13/ob…
http://obama.senate.gov/news/051108-sen_…
Have a third link to FT, but drupal seems to hate it.
your idea: only dupery or vengence moves obama supporters
Lani Guinier is a smart lady. Read her remark. Watch the Code Pink video and try to honestly dissent.
obama's econ advisers are almost as bad as hillary's
But that’s the choice we got.
pointless to self-debate when you have pre-picked the winner
Atrios may hate the idea of the Wise Men getting together on housing, and he’s right, but at least she’s proposing something, and you can’t beat something with nothing. (The hilarious counter here from the OFB
is that Obama’s so busy fending of Hillary’s attacks that he doesn’t have time to develop a policy response. Teh funny! What, he doesn’t have people for that?)
Who in the “OFB” told you this? Because, as I noted above, Obama has had concrete proposals for mortgage reform for some time and he has also endorsed the Dodd bill which is about as concrete as Clinton gets.
A lot of your comments on Obama have the same form, where you brilliantly crush what you imagine the dumb obama supporters would say about the record that you imagine exists.
The Chicago School Rulez
As far as all three Preznitial candidates are concerned anyway.
A Krugman Keynesian has no chance with McSame, HHHillary, or The Unibama.
Nader’s even stupider, and getting Rethuglican money at that.
The economic policy of Empire administered by the fourth branch of government will continue to be the play book for this country. But the Empire’s not simply Amerika, despite McSame’s smoke and mirrors. Look where the money goes, and who profits from the flow. It’s not where it ends up alone, because in a shell game there’s a bundle to be made from moving it all around.
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
Obama's Econ Team
I concede that Obama’s economic advisors give reason to pause. There are however, some nuggets of progressive goodness when you dig deep.
The top advisor, of course, is renowned economist, and UofC prof, Austen Goolsbee. While Goolsbee is often associated with right leaning UofC, he has shown a progressive streak in wealth distribution. Look at the following NY Times columns of his:
For the Super-Rich, Too Much Is Never Enough
Is the New Supply Side Better Than the Old?
Also, from Goolsbee’s wikipage, he is some sort of world class debater. This makes him a very able salesman of Obama’s economic policy - persuasive and respected across the politcal spectrum. Watch him tangle with Wall Street conservatives on CNBC:
CNBC Videos
I also recommend this look at Obama’s economic and foreign policy teams: The Audacity of Data
His advisors are described as non-ideological. They have roots in right leaning spheres, but consult progressive thinktanks. They tend to be have a bottom-up pragmatic approach to economic policy vs a more traditional ideological top-down approach. They are heavily influenced by the relatively new area of study, behavioral economics. This seems to be a major driver of Obama policy.
Granted, this is all short on real proposals. But in real life, the perspectives of the advisors are a key indicator of how a candidate will govern.
Obama's Econ Team are Libertarians
as far as I can tell. See Subprime Obama for more on Goolsbee.
Libertarians frequently bill themselves as post-ideological, but it’s basically laissez-faire conservatism minus the Gods Guns and Gays.
mana- i used to work downstairs from the econ dept
i have interesting stories i will keep private, about nobel prize in econ winners and what they’re like in real life, in that “day to day” sense.
anyway, trust me, progressives don’t have friends there. the “progressive” ideology from the chicago school almost always comes with a cost. yes there should be this or that progressive freedom but it comes at the cost of lots of dead brown people, or something. dig deeper, you’ll find that’s almost always the trade they say is “good” to make.
rootless you're wrong
Obama famously criticized Hillary’s plan all during the winter and early part of this year, from a Republican frame (it would increase mortgage rates for everyone… surprise surprise, mortgage rates are going up for all non-GSE loans without Hillary’s plan or anything like it implemented). His own plan at the time called for less federal action than the Bush administration ended up doing. The $10 billion housing fund he proposed last month is literally 1/10 of the size being discussed by folks in Congress right now, and 1/5 of the size of Hillary’s plan. He joined onto Chris Dodd’s plan (which was actually Barney Frank’s plan) way late in the game, and the parts of it he approves are the same parts that the Bush administration approves.
After hearing his rhetoric and following his proposals on healthcare, subprime mortgages, and bankruptcy, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s basically a Republican when it comes to regulation.
The Chicago School
From what I can tell, Obama is a DLC candidate, if not THE DLC candidate, whether formally associated with the DLC or not. As others have said, neither candidate has liberal enough advisors to really make me happy, but to try to claim that Hillary is the only one in sync with the DLC is a joke. The only economist who writes regularly for folks like me that I trust on issues of economics and politics, says that it’s Obama’s economic policies are less progressive. Again, that doesn’t mean Clinton is progressive enough, but if you aren’t willing to out-progressive Clinton in a democratic primary, I’m not going to presume you’re going to be some great liberal after getting election.
There could be good things about Obama’s econ team that I’m missing, but once I hear the word “Chicago” used in the description of an economist my alarm bells go off too loudly for me to hear anything else. Has any modern school of thought ever wrought so much damage?
And it’s interesting to me how so often concerns raised about Obama - what he believes, what he advocates, his advisors - are not disputed or explained by his supporters, but are instead met with anti-Hillary attacks. Even if I grant you Hillary sucks, how does that mean Obama does not? If we’re stuck with a centrist nominee, and we are, I’d much rather a partisan centrist.
I have yet to hear any supportable explanation for why Obama’s “unity” theory is good for democrats or good for America. I’ve heard theories on expanding the base (which seem dubious given polling), but I have yet to read anything about why it’s good for me or my country to let Republicans off the hook for their ideological crimes or negotiate with them to get out of the ditch they’ve driven us into. All I hear is 20-year-old talking points about how much Hillary sucks, which doesn’t make me feel any better about Obama. In fact, his recycling Republican smears against a democrat only makes me fear the Unity
Pony
more (and I doubt it’s a coincidence that so many of the things Obama dislikes about democrats, neatly matches what Republicans dislike about democrats - does this guy know anything about political history that he didn’t learn on Meet the Press, it’s the Reagan crap all over again).
sorry you're putting yourself thru the book--
why bother reading his own version of events anyway? it’s certainly in no way objective or even the truth.
My thoughts
I’ve decided to shadow VastLeft’s work reviewing the book. Thus far, I’ve read the prologue and the first chapter of the book. My impressions below are based on that, though I’ll focus the specifics on the prologue.
The book, thus far, could not be summed up better than by the first sentence of the first back-cover blurb: “[Barack Obama] is that rare politician who can actually write.” This is far better than the NYT writer who wrote this probably imagined. Think about it for a moment—“unlike a lot of people, he can write?” Made of an applicant for an internship, it’s mildly encouraging. Made of a best-selling author, it’s as damningly faint as faint praise can be.
This comes across as the sort of mediocre book which could be dismissed as “okay, not great,” without making the book look too bad. But to critique such a book in detail will turn up flaws in a way that will make the critique look like an unconsciousable act of cruelty. (For another good example of this, I recommend John Beversluis’ critique of C. S. Lewis’ works. Though no fan of Lewis, by the end I found myself wondering why Beversluis’ book was necessary, why he couldn’t simply have dismissed Lewis as “not so impressive” and left it at that.)
I’ll admit to liking one paragraph of Obama’s book: the paragraph on p. 7, where he lists some basic things that the many ordinary people he’s talked to want. But how good are his ideas on how to address those concerns? So much of what I’ve read appears to be old cliches given a little spit polish and nothing more. On p. 9, he uses the old trick of painting a grim situation for himself to save us from: “if we don’t change course soon, we may be the first generation in a very long time that leaves behind a weaker and more fractured America than the one we inherited.” Yet in the first chapter we will see him bragging about how he tells fellow Democrats its not so bad. Both lines sound good on their own, but together, there is a tension which Obama makes no clear effort to resolve. He might resolve them through nuanced exposition, but I haven’t seen him do it thus far.
Though my instincts are more centrist than VL’s, I find myself coming up with very similar complaints about Obama. The problem seems to stem from contradictory pieces of conventional wisdom. You can think the contradictions should be sorted out in a centrist way, or in a lefty way, but they’re there all the same.
Hallq, very glad to have you aboard
For those who don’t know The Uncredible Hallq, he writes primarily (and insightfully) about church-and-state topics at his own blog and God is for Suckers.