I was struck by Obama going before republicans at GOP get together and engaging in an open forum with them - and not for the reasons most are commenting on, how it was a cunning move on Obama's part etc etc - I mean, it was that, yes, but I'm struck by republicans not seeming to realise or being slow to realise that Obama was doing this precisely because he felt strongly the advantage would be his - they played into his hands - did none of them note that he just brought the man who guided his slick campaign back into the fold to help burnish his dulling image? The republicans treated this as if it were just some respectful give and take but the reality was Obama was getting back to the one thing he's really good at: selling an image - which I'd label as suave intelligence that telegraphs to the average voter reasonable moderation with a hint of affability. It's all bullshit, of course - but they bought it, or at least, that's the impression one is left with. Yes, power is daunting and demands respect - no one wants to be seen berating or bad mouthing or even simply arguing with the president - but of course that's the dynamic Obama is exploiting in order to sell the image!
Possibly I'm over-estimating the one and under-estimating the other - but when Obama claimed, in a very personable and reasonable way, that he's no ideologue if you're in that audience you have to immediately understand you're being played because given his record he either is an ideologue or he has no coherent control over his agenda and has allowed ideologues to co-opt it - certainly independent voters are of the growing opinion that he is or they fear he is an ideologue. Once he says something like that he's thrown you a challenge that if not immediately contested beats you down - and sure enough the one sound bite you heard over and over again on the news was reasonable Obama declaring that he's no ideologue. He wins, you lose. The thing to do would have been to ask if he's no ideologue why then is there a growing sense among independents that he is? The only way for him to answer that question is to either interpret the polls in a very narrow way and you can then attack him on that, or to blame republicans for painting a false picture of him - in other words, to defend himself against charges of being a left wing ideologue by ascribing the smear to right wing ideologues, a circuitous argument that gets you nowhere - unless of course it goes uncontested. You get into a game of presumed reasonableness with Obama and he's gonna win - that's how he beat Hillary, she needed to get tough with him and was at her best when getting tough but because she feared [with good reason] alienating the ultra left wing of the party who adored Obama she had to reel it in and play nice - she's not good at nice, but even if she were you're still being forced to play to Obama's strength and simply by conceding that ground you lose - the whole allure of Obama was this persona of smooth and reasonable intelligence matched to a naive idealism conjured up by his race. Agree to a game of softball with him and you're not gonna win. [oddly enough, say what you will about her, but Sarah Palin seemed to understand this and wanted badly to play hardball with Obama, something the McCain camp adamantly refused to do - which makes me wonder if Sarah indeed does possess some rather keen political instincts] [understand this is not an endorsement of Sarah - her continuing cavort through the playhouse of American politics does fascinate, but in the end still stirs up more fear than anything else]
