aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, November 26, 2007

Obama’s straight talk finesse

In last week’s Slate Gabfest (inexplicably, I can’t find it on the Slate site!), or maybe it was in their audio book club review of Obama’s Audacity of Hope, John Dickerson said he’s been noodling around with a piece on how Barack has built his campaign on his willingness to talk honestly and directly with the American people (as the Slate gang agrees he did much better in Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance) but in his campaign he has been much less willing to do so.

Fred Hiatt beats Dickerson to the punch in todays WaPo:

Barack Obama suggests that Hillary Clinton is guilty of triangulating, poll-testing and telling the American people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

Maybe so. But then it’s fair to ask: Is Obama telling the American people anything they don’t want to hear? More specifically, as he campaigns for votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, is he saying anything except what polls suggest Democrats there might want to hear?

His campaign points to Obama’s traveling to Detroit to endorse higher fuel standards for automobiles, his preaching parental responsibility in black churches and his refusing to promise Iowa activists that he will cut the defense budget. He backs driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, not a crowd-pleaser this electoral season.

But to the extent that Obama’s positions have shifted over the past several months, they’ve shifted uncannily to where middle-class Democratic voters happen to be.

I like Obama - and note that he’s picked up endorsements from Lessig and Kinsley, two heavy-hitters in my pantheon - but I still lean towards Hillary.

I hope Dickerson still does his piece; I found Hiatt’s unpersuasive.