Jeff Zeleny writes an article for The New York Times about how Barack Obama is attempting to respond to critics by offering more detailed, policy oriented speeches these days. It doesn't, however, mention any of the details. If you're interested in detailed discussion of health care mandates the internet will, however, oblige at any number of locations. And for policy matters beyond the mandate, you could check out Sara Mead's analysis of the Obama education agenda, for example. Or Dave Roberts on Obama's energy and climate proposals.
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Details!
17 Feb 2008 12:36 pm
Comments (46)
I'm not one of Obama's critics who claims he doesn't have any substance. My problem is that his detailed, and rather conventional, policy prescriptions do not match his lofty rhetoric.
These are not radically progressive policies, or new and innovative, and they are not bold by any stretch of the imagination. Hearing his speeches you'd think he must have a pretty ambitious policy agenda, and he doesn't. No more than Hillary Clinton, and at times (as on health care) it is even LESS ambitious.
The only aspect of his agenda that is bold and ambitious is his promise to "do politics differently" and fundamentally change Washington, which also happens to be patently unrealistic.
. . . you could check out Sara Mead's analysis of the Obama education agenda, for example. Or Dave Roberts on Obama's energy and climate proposals.
Wouldn't it be nice if someone printed all that out and delivered it to doorsteps and coffee shops around the nation? Might help to spread the word . . .
My problem is that his detailed, and rather conventional, policy prescriptions do not match his lofty rhetoric.
These are not radically progressive policies, or new and innovative, and they are not bold by any stretch of the imagination.-Tim
You seem to suggest that radically progressive policies are what would be needed to fundamentally change Washington, and I think this is mistaken.
I've never once listed to Obama speak and thought he must have a pretty ambitious policy agenda. I only view it as a competent one. Obama's point has always been that good ideas are useless if you can't get enough people to mobilize behind them. This seems to be the part of the argument you're missing.
These are not radically progressive policies, or new and innovative, and they are not bold by any stretch of the imagination. Hearing his speeches you'd think he must have a pretty ambitious policy agenda, and he doesn't. No more than Hillary Clinton, and at times (as on health care) it is even LESS ambitious.
It's true that neither Obama nor Clinton are promising a socialist paradise. What Obama's proposing, however, is progressive, appealing, and achievable.
On a more abstract level though, the focus on details is mistaken. A President's personality, intellect, management style, and personnel choices are way more important than whatever set of policy proposals happened to be popular when he/she was campaigning.
A presidency is not like a policy playlist we can download onto the national iPod. Instead, presidents have to respond to unforeseen events, cajole and outmaneuver the domestic opposition, negotiate with foreign leaders, and persevere with character during the inevitable periods of adversity. In all those areas, what sort of person a president is matters far more than what sort of promises he/she makes.
Obama's personal appeal, the quality of his policy advisers, and his evident skill at managing a large organization and motivating the public reccomend him, to me, far more than the issues section of his website.
Jake:
Maybe that's what it seemed like I was suggesting, but that wasn't what I said. I'm saying that the one area where he actually does sound different is the one where he is least specific.
How exactly is he going to get people "mobilized" behind his ideas? More speeches with their high-flying oratory? That's going to wear thin at some point. Obama is exciting because he appears new and fresh, and by definition that cannot be sustained indefinitely. Inevitably he's going to have to make choices and his image will not remain untainted by the hard realities of politics.
First, ironically this is the exact sort of fluffy article Obama needs on this issue. The "not enough details" meme has only worked among people who do not want to make the effort to do things like wade into the details of his proposals. So, a largely detail-free article about how he is presenting more details is perfect for those particular people.
Second, I think it is true Obama is not a "radical" progressive, but just sort of an ordinary progressive. But our system of government was specifically designed to prevent radical change, even when those proposed changes enjoy majority support. In fact, it was really designed to prevent change at all without more than majority support. So I actually think his rhetoric is in line with his agenda, since given our system of government, even a modestly ambitious agenda will likely require a very popular President to push it.
@Tim K: How realistic it is is more or less up to us. I don't mean to say that changing Washington would be easy, or that corruption and unethical behavior could ever be wiped out, but politics is just as much a part of the human ecology as anything.
Our current governmental model isn't all that different from that of the late 18th century -- it comes from a print-based, linear culture in which hierarchies are easily mappable. Some of the big problems we started to see in the 20th century (and are still seeing now) came about as a result of our inability to recognize how drastically the rise of electronic media, particularly television, altered the playing field. To use a biblical metaphor, we keep trying to put new wine into old wineskins, and then we wonder why the wineskins burst.
Anyway, my larger point is just that things do change (for better or worse, depending on who you are). Washington hasn't, much, because it's by nature a set of very conservative institutions, but we've only recently seen an exponential increase in the capacity for population-wide transparency. Just like the next post says, to say that anything will never happen is absurd -- this whole 4.5 billion-year experiment is one no one's run before, as far as we know.
I would guess that Obama doesn't think changing Washington is going to be easy or that he'll be able to make everything bad go away, either. But when you're working a theme, your reach has to exceed your grasp a bit to make the message resonate. I mean, Martin Luther King's dream hasn't come true yet, but if he hadn't made such a big deal about it, I'm not sure we'd have gotten as far as we have. Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.
I stumbled across Obama's WI Dem Party speech on CSPAN last night. Maybe I just got lucky with the timing, but I heard nothing but policy proposals. This being a presidential race, he seemed to be offering something for everyone -- "All this and a pony, too!" -- which was something of a drag. Still, tons of substance, so this meme needs to die post-haste.
I hasten to add that I wouldn't expect lots of policy details at many of his speeches, which after all, are at campaign rallies. His task there isn't to wow his supporters with wonky knowledge -- they're already on his team. His job at the rallies is to get the troops excited.
"I Have a Dream" did not have a 10-point plan for the EEOC, and it was a better speech for it.
The problem is once you take this argument from the general to specific this all falls apart.
Take public financing. Obama made a commitment to remain within the public financing system for the general election if his Republican opponent would do the same. Now that John McCain has agreed, Obama has changed his tune. The reason? Since he has the financial advantage it is now more politically expedient for him to break the pledge.
That's change all right. A little consistency wouldn't be out of line either, though.
Take the intervention of independent groups into the campaign. First he was against that when it was Emily's List and AFSCME spending on Hillary's behalf in Iowa, now he doesn't mind when it was done on his own behalf in California.
Is this supposed to be the change we can believe in?
@Tim K:
How exactly is he going to get people "mobilized" behind his ideas?
I dunno, but seeing as how he's mobilized so many people to contribute to his campaign and, more importantly, to get out and vote in a frickin' primary, I'm willing to give him a shot. (I don't think there's any way to prove that he's the factor that's catalyzed the high turnout we've seen so far, but my gut feeling is that if the nomination had been between Clinton and Edwards, the numbers wouldn't have been so high.)
If I had my druthers, I'd like to see him keep using the Web to do some kind of fireside chat 2.0 if he gets into office. I think his real strength is that people feel like they could approach him on the street and that he'd give an ear to their concerns without just glad-handing them and walking away. (I'm not saying he wouldn't actually do that; I'm just saying I think that's how people feel about him.) He also seems to be better than the average politician at acknowledging mistakes instead of straight-up spinning them, and I think a lot of people have been hungry for that. For him to do something that maintained that open sense of connection with his constituents would be huge, I think, and fairly simple, technologically speaking. And no other leader in history has had it available to be able to reach so many people at once and to get feedback at nearly the speed of light.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/energy/
A commenter at MyDD claimed it was simply wrong that Obama didn't have detailed plans and followed up by giving about fifteen links to the Issues section of the Obama website.
Well color me unimpressed. Obama compresses Energy & Environment into a single page that ignores all environmental issues other than energy efficiency. Sure you can click through and read the PDF factsheet http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/EnvironmentFactSheet.pdf but you really don't get a lot of detail even then. What is Obama's position on new nuclear power plants? Enforcing the Endangered Species Act? Reforming the Mining Rights Act? Dam removal to aid salmon recovery? Your regional issues may vary but the whole thing is very vague.
Or you can read the whole Obama plan in one condensed and easy to read 56 pg pdf http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf
Don't be worried that you are not on top of all the wonkishness out there, you won't need it.
And just on a final note. Isn't it a little odd to attack the Hillary Health Care plan because of mandates and advance a mandatory savings plan for low income workers all at the same time? Is paternalism only justified when addressing national savings rates?
Some of Obama's supporters doth protest too much. If Obama really has people working on real detailed plans complete with numbers, dates and dollars well at a minimum he hasn't shown his hand. What I am seeing are laundry lists and not policy papers.
@Tim K:
I don't know about the other stuff, but Wonkette just posted the other day about the public-financing "pledge" Obama made to McCain (excerpt from The New York Times):
Last year, Mr. Obama sought an advisory ruling with the Federal Election Commission to see whether the campaign could opt out of public financing in the primary and accept it in the general election. It was merely an inquiry, he said, not a pledge to accept the financing.
Going out to caucus for an afternoon, voting in a primary, or making an internet donation is not going to fundamentally change the way Washington works.
We keep hearing about The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his "I have a dream speech" as if the greatness of that speech is supposed to say something about Obama's rhetoric. But MLK did not run for public office. He didn't change Washington. He worked with politicians in order to make progress happen within the system. He campaigned for elected officials and even LOBBIED (I know it's a dirty word) to have legislation passed. FDR didn't fundamentally change Washington... JFK certainly didn't... So what is all this supposed to prove?
It would be helpful if someone could identify when Obama made the pledge. I'm open to the possibility he did, but when journalists look for a pledge, they generally don't find anything definitive.
http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/MDNNATIONALRELEASE.PDF
That's a link to some evidence on the finance pledge. It wasn't a pledge to the FEC, but it was a commitment to gain political advantage in the campaign.
@Tim K: Maybe you're being intentionally dense, or maybe you weren't responding to me, but I thought it was pretty clear that I wasn't directly comparing Obama to King. I was just saying that when you're pushing a big idea to a bunch of people, you push it BIG. Large crowds simply don't rally behind "I might be able to make some small inroads" -- but you need those crowds just to start making those small inroads.
And while going out to caucus, voting in a primary, and making donations in themselves won't change Washington, getting large numbers of people involved could. And the caucusing, the voting, the donating are all just expressions of greater involvement.
Will Obama be able to sustain that level of involvement? I don't know (but I'd like to find out). I already know Clinton won't, because she hasn't even been able to spark it.
Okay Moff, maybe you're the one being intentionally dense now. Even if Obama did sustain this "level of involvement" it wouldn't mean a thing for what actually happens in Washington.
This is just reaching the level of make-believe.
Can we somehow make politics not be politics anymore? I don't see how.
Samuel Huntington once remarked that when power and primacy stop mattering then political scientists can look for a new line of work.
@Tim K: Thanks. It wasn't a pledge to the FEC, but his position there seems pretty clear. Understandable that he might not want to take public financing in the general now, but disappointing.
What people must remember is that Jesse Jackson in the 1980's used to make the same claim that Obama makes today. That being able to make great, inspiring speeches is important because it energizes and motivates people. The question is.. to do what? The evidence, 25 years later, is that Jackson's speeches didn't do a thing to change the negative realities of the black underclass. The blacks who didn't make progress were the ones who listened to him most, the blacks who did make progress benefitted more from Ronald Reagan's economic growth policies than anything Jackson ever did. Sorry for being cynical, but his speechifying only benefitted himself by making him into a media star, noone else.
I never said it was a pledge to the FEC.
It's just an example of him doing what politicians do... pander for votes until it's no longer opportune. Wake up people! He's down here in the streets with Hillary and the rest of the gang soliciting votes. He can hustle with the best of them, and he's not above changing his positions when it suits him.
@Tim K: I have to go in a second, so if you respond and I don't, don't think it's because I'm ignoring you.
My point is just that a great deal of the stuff we don't like in politics happens (as far as I know) because most voters aren't paying attention and the people who could let them in on it have a vested interest in not doing so.
I'm not talking about politics being perfect -- compromises are still going to have to be made, and some people are always going to get the shit end of the stick. But the more people are paying attention, the better someone's reasons have to be for, say, obstructing or passing a bill.
Moff:
I don't think Obama is any better or worse than most politicians. I think he's tapped into a winning political formula: running against Washington. He's simply done it in a new and novel way.
A shameless plug:
We've been discussing economic policy differences over at Economists for Obama.
My take on the Zeleny article is here:
When do we get to have a discussion about the class differences between the Clintons and the Obamas?
The Clintons are white trash. They have downmarket taste, and sensibility. More importantly, they do not evidence much taste for self-reflection. Hillary in particular is a person who does not know herself. Accordingly her "voice"--in every sense of the word, is small, and hollow. It makes total sense to me that lunchbucket Democrats are drawn to her. That demographic, I would argue, is right on the mark in seeing themselves, in her. What they like best about her is that she is talentless. And has had to come by her accomplishments through hard work.
C'mon. Let's talk about it. What we are seeing here is an imperfect but "good enough" replay of Mike Leigh's tour de force "Secrets and Lies" where the white main character is an uneducated factory worker, and the black main character is a professional, replete with style, and a better command of English.
Which brings me to the Obamas. How many of you out there woke up one morning, in the last year, with your Master's degree, PhD degree, writing, teaching, financial career, in your nice neighborhood--and realized you were in fact the demographic that Barack is pulling in. Right? You have a passport and have spent time in London, Paris, Delhi. Your wife/husband is British, Dutch, Israeli, or from Hong Kong. You speak enough of one or two languages to get by. If you're a man, many of you have a wife whose career at least matches your own in accomplishment, and may exceed it. When you have dinner parties it looks like a policy meeting at the United Nations.
How many of you would choose to be friends, therefore, with pond-scum like Harold Ickes, Terry McAullife, or other monsters of the Clinton Universe? Practically none of you. If you are for Obama you've probably done alot of work to expel the narcissistic assholes from your life. If you are Bill and Hillary Clinton, you can't surround yourself with enough of these people.
The Clintons in style, in their sexual behavior, and especially in their capacity for self-reflection are lower middle class through and through. Take a look at towns in states like Massachusetts and California that went for Hillary vs. Obama. If you read Carl Jung, have been to therapy, command moderate respect from your children, and live in Amherst Massachusetts or Marin County CA, you voted for Obama. If you have an associates degree, work for the police department, would feel uncomfortable if your daughter married a black man (she is alienated from you in part because of your drinking problem and the fact that you messed around on your wife/her mother before a divorce), and you live in Worcester Massachusetts, or Bakersfield CA, you voted for Clinton.
Sorry to be so blunt but these are neither grotesque or cartoonish generalities I am making here.
What's transparently obvious is that the Clintons are exceedingly intimidated by the Obamas because although the Obamas are nearly one generation junior, in age, to Hillary and Bill--Barack and Michelle far exceed them in emotional and psychic maturity. As we know, simple advancement in years has nothing to do with maturation, or development. It's not something you get for free, just by growing older.
It's stunning to watch Obama on stage with Hillary. He is her superior in every way but what's crucial is that, because he is not hamstrung by an arrested development in self-maturation, because he is not contorted by a failure to keep growing and learning--he is able to take full possession of his intellect. That's the tragedy of course of Hillary, and people at her level. She is exceedingly intelligent, but she lacks the sufficient maturation to harness it.
The goal in life is to get to where the Obamas have gone. Not to get stuck where the Clintons find themselves, full of grudges and resentments.
If Obama does not make it to the White House, he will still have himself. Which is clearly a pretty good thing to have. If Hillary doesn't make it, she will turn back to her impoverished state, and press onward in the misery of her ever-diminished self.
He who knows himself resonates with others.
She who does not know herself is a dud, with others, and cannot connect with them.
C'mon. Let's talk about it.
Yeah Gregor, let's have some straight talk.
Obama's success so far is based on naive, starry-eyed college students, wealthy white elitists, liberal activists, and ethnic voting. He's a black version of Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas or Bill Bradley, all rolled into one. If it weren't for bloc voting from the African American community, he'd be meeting with their failures.
How exactly is he going to get people "mobilized" behind his ideas? -Tim
Well I think the idea is to work to ensure the ideas are actually the focus of the debate, as opposed to all the personal stuff you're likely to get with Hillary. He's also been a big proponent of transparency in government. I think that Obama simply believes that if the discussion can be focused on the merits, generally speaking, progressive arguments come out ahead.
Has he absolutely said that he won't accept public financing yet, or rather that he'll wait until he's actually the nominee to make that decision?
Do you actually think Obama isn't going to be focused of a campaign of personal attack if he becomes President?
I think if you do then you fundamentally misunderstand how the Clintons became the focus of that kind of assault.
Do you actually think Obama isn't going to be focused of a campaign of personal attack if he becomes President?
No, I fully expect him to be. I just don't expect him to make fighting with Republicans an emphasis in his presidency the way HRC would need to, and probably wants to.
Regarding the Clintons, I think Bill's zipper problem did play something of a role there. Obama does not appear to have that issue.
The other difference re: Obama and WJC, is that the former doesn't seem to have quite the same interesting relationship with the truth. Can you see Obama saying something like "I didn't enhale" or some other such nonsense?
Also, what's your take on why Hillary won't release her tax returns? What's she hiding?
It is the mind-numbing regularity with which Hillary gunners fire the litany "naive", "cult of personality", "marginal black candidate", "style no substance", "thin resume", "caucuses are undemocratic", etc., etc., that's made me so sick of the primaries.
I guess my beef is if you're going to derail threads with the "Obama sucks" meme then at least offer something that's distinguishable from ginned-up versions of campaign spin.
Meanwhile I watched Tim K's heroine Hillary Clinton give a speech in Wisconsin (or was it Ohio) on CNN. I have no credibility here, but I really wanted to get down with Hillary on this speech, especially since I had been softened up by his smarminess John McCain this very morn. But Hillary was awful. The more she ranted about how speeches aren't substance and how she on-the-other-hand has "the specifics", the more hectored and sullen I felt. When Hillary demanded to know who should be Commander in Chief, I reflected on her AUMF vote, her Kyl-Lieberman vote, her hawkishness, and the hawkishness of her foreign policy advisors. No no no! I did not want Hillary to be Commander in Chief! What about who we should hire for the hardest job in the world? Hmm. Somehow this rhetorical question did not do the trick, either.
Really, on who is the most grating, between Hillary and McCain it is a race to the bottom.
Obama's success so far is based on naive, starry-eyed college students, wealthy white elitists, liberal activists, and ethnic voting. He's a black version of Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas or Bill Bradley, all rolled into one. If it weren't for bloc voting from the African American community, he'd be meeting with their failures.
Using Eugene McCarthy, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas and Bill Bradley as examples to support your argument fails to take into the account that with the exception of Tsongas, all the eventual nominees lost some fairly and others unfairly. Regarding McGovern, he lost because he failed to recognize that law and order was a salient issue and thus appeared out of touch.
Should Obama win the nomination he has to tie McCain to the failures of the Bush administration. He also needs to mention how all the cheerleaders for the war against Iraq dropped the ball in getting Osama bin Laden who is now a mythological figure because of his ability to elude the US.
Obama should also address his religious background like Kennedy did in 1960. Even though the rumor is false, you don't know how many people still belive that he is a Muslim.
I share your anxiety about Obama but I think that he would be a vast improvement over Bush. And the way he has been running his campaign from operations perspective seems to be encouraging.
Jake:
The Clintons have had some experience having to release documents and spending a decade defending themselves against trumped up charges. I have no doubt at all that whatever is in those tax returns the press will find something untoward about them. They always do with the Clintons.
Lucy:
I think Clinton supporters have had to listen to our fair share of nonsense from Obama, his campaign, and you all who support him, being repeated over and over. Never say the word "hope", or"inspire" again and maybe I'll consider coming up with some new lines.
The Clintons have had some experience having to release documents and spending a decade defending themselves against trumped up charges. I have no doubt at all that whatever is in those tax returns the press will find something untoward about them. They always do with the Clintons.
That would be a reasonable explanation Tim, except she's said that she will release them after the primaries are over. Why wouldn't this also be an issue for them at that point? Unless of course she never plans to release them, in which case she's just lying now, which might be more plausible I guess.
Have you ever heard me use the words "hope" or "inspire"? No, sir, you have not heard me utter those terrible words!
Jake:
I don't have a huge problem with lying, misleading, distorting, parsing phrases, negative attacks, spin and any of that. That's all part of politics, like it or not. What I do have a problem is with politicians acting as if they are above politics when they clearly are not. That kind of sanctimonious, pontification is just hypocritical when there is plenty of evidence that Obama does it just like everyone else.
So Jake, let me get your stance straight here - you don't have a problem with lying, misleading, and distorting because it's part of politics. Obama, however, appears to be above politics and you do have a serious problem with this because... that would mean that, with regard to his true self, he is lying, misleading, and distorting?
You seem to want it both ways - to say that politics are dirty and everything is fair, only not where Obama is concerned.
Oops, sorry - that last post should be addressed to Tim K, not Jake.
Tim K somehow seems to think that cynicism and arrogance make an argument because you can just assume everyone else who dares to argue with you is retarded so that you don't actually need to read what they write and can just interpret in a way that shows they are naive. Somehow his clear-eyed cynicism hasn't let him onto the idea that Ms. "35 years of experience" has no real accomplishments pushing liberal ideas, is hated by the majority of Americans with a passion matched only by Bush and Cheney (with a lot more people hating all three than most partisans seem to realize) and somehow thinks toughness is caving into the Republicans on domestic policy whenever you want to do anything liberal and doing whatever they want on foreign policy with a bit of a Dukakis-like "competence" spin. She's not running really on anything.
Tom:
I have a problem with politicians bashing politics to get a gig. That's what I have a problem with.
Reality Man:
Where has Obama shown to be any braver in confronting Republican ideas? He sucks up to conservatives by admiring Ronald Reagan and dissing Bill Clinton, and making a backhanded comparison between Clinton and Richard Nixon. He makes "Harry and Louise"-like attacks on universal health care, and Republican-like accusations about garnishing wages.
I think Hillary Clinton made a mistake in voting for the Iraq war authorization. How would Barack Obama had voted if he had been in the senate at the time? We'll never know. But seeing as though he voted on Iraq exactly as Hillary did from the moment he was sworn in, there's reason to be believe he wouldn't have had any more courage. It's easier to take the kind of stand he took from a position of ZERO relevance in national politics. Nobody cared in 2002 what Barack Obama had to say on Iraq.
I have a problem with politicians bashing politics to get a gig. That's what I have a problem with.
Exactly, because it's disingenuous. If you're going to go into a profession where lying, misleading, and distorting is the norm, you sure as hell better not be disingenuous about it. Yeah, your logic airtight, man.
Tom:
I'll try to put it even more plainly, if it's possible. I don't like people acting like they are better than other people, when they aren't. Obama behaves morally superior to Hillary Clinton, and that's deeply offensive to me. He's a hypocrite for criticizing Clinton for doing things he has done. He's done it on the subject of votes, on the subject of going negative, and on distorting the truth. Obama supporters behave morally superior as well, and that's also irritating, by the way.
I'd hate to see Obama let Clinton bait him into abandoning the inspirational rhetoric that has carried him this far.
Maybe he just needs one stunt to put the whole "lack of substance" thing to rest. I'm proposing an excessively long speech in which he explains in full detail each of his many policy proposals and the reasons supporting them (go to his website if you don't know what I'm talking about). Such a speech could easily take several hours. Afterwards, he'd take questions from anyone still awake. It'd get plenty of attention and nobody would say he lacks detailed policy proposals again. He could then go back to the important business of inspiring the country.
Sure, sounds good. I'll provide the snake oil if it's in short supply.
Tim K: "I don't have a huge problem with lying, misleading, distorting, parsing phrases, negative attacks, spin and any of that."
We can tell.
"Obama behaves morally superior to Hillary Clinton, and that's deeply offensive to me."
Jeffrey Dahmer could behave morally superior to Hillary Clinton.
Look, when it comes to foreign policy, BOTH candidates are heavy on rhetoric and even "policy" - but devoid of content. Their foreign policies cannot and will work. I've pointed that out repeatedly here. Both of these candidates, to say nothing of McCain, will get the US mired into wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran - if not also Darfur and elsewhere.
But there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Hillary Clinton, when it comes to corruption, makes Obama look like the "Flying Nun".
That alone should disqualify her, not to mention her overall hawkishness, which IS significantly more than Obama's, despite Obama's cluelessness on foreign policy. He panders to AIPAC, of course, but not as quickly or as deeply as Clinton does.
There's a reason Obama was dead last in the Haaretz poll of candidates viewed favorably by Israel. Giuliana was their first pick - and Clinton was second, even over McCain.
That should tell you something.
Israelis are a lot more sophisticated than Americans?
Comments closed March 02, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Or you can go straight to the source and and read about his policies on education and energy on his website.
Posted by TLM | February 17, 2008 12:54 PM