The Other Obama

Ryan Lizza goes long and deep on Barack Obama's background in Chicago politics and his rise to the US Senate. I keep reading people debunking the idea that Obama is a messianic, saint-like figure and people criticizing the idea that Obama is a messianic, saint-like figure. Indeed, I've read so much commentary on the subject of how people shouldn't believe that Obama is a messianic, saint-like figure that I've become convinced that nobody actually believes that he is. But if they do exist, they'll be disillusioned by Ryan's article!

But in terms of worries I actually have seen expressed, I think the picture you get here tends to dissipate worries that Obama might turn out to be a Carter-esque failure or somehow who otherwise doesn't know how to get the job done. He's an eminently practical person -- practical enough to understand that to advance you need to stand a bit outside and above the systems you're operating in, but also very much operate in them. And not just to understand that (which is pretty easy) but to do it, which I think is very difficult.

Comments

Does anybody know if Obama went on to hold his Illinois state senate seat after losing the congressional primary to Bobby Rush in 2000? I know Obama won his 2002 Illinois state senate election after redistricting, but I couldn't find any results for the 2000 general election in Illinois. Did he sit out a term and re-enter the state senate in 2002? Anybody know? No results seem to be forthcoming on the internets.

Posted by Wondering | July 14, 2008 10:05 AM

"But in terms of worries I actually have seen expressed, I think the picture you get here tends to dissipate worries that Obama might turn out to be a Carter-esque failure or somehow who otherwise doesn't know how to get the job done. He's an eminently practical person"

Carter, like Obama, was an eminently practical person who ran a well thought out primary campaign.

Carter, like Obama, ran on a politics of standing for nothing except stylistic differentiation, which led directly to the political failure of his administration and the resulting Reagan revolution.

The failings of Carter and Obama are not a function of impracticality. They are a function of disastrous political decisions for those who actually care about the policy goals of the left.

Posted by Petey | July 14, 2008 10:09 AM

And not just to understand that (which is pretty easy) but to do it, which I think is very difficult.

It's difficult indeed. The question is, if you take that stance how do you know when you've crossed the line into being completely co-opted by the system? People who place "practicality" above principle can easily justify in their own minds every step down that primrose path, long after they've already reached perdition (without knowing it).

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 10:17 AM

I think one of the reasons Obama is showing respect to some center and even right ideas is that he wants a decisive victory in November. That will give him a mandate to move faster on some issues. Without a mandate he will move slower to build consensus.

Posted by carsick | July 14, 2008 10:19 AM

But what about the picture the picture the picture the cover the cover cartoon cartoon Obama terrorist fistjab the cover what about the cover??!!!?!?!????!!!

Posted by mk | July 14, 2008 10:20 AM

A victory won by standing for nothing gives you a mandate? To do what? Actually, nobody should even be able to use the word "mandate" with a straight face any more. Not after all the pundits opined in early 2001 that Bush would have to govern as a cautious consensus-seeker after his razor-thin disputed "victory", and he proceeded to demonstrate their error by governing as a right-wing ideologue exactly as he would have done with 60% of the vote.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 10:24 AM

The subtext of all such articles that Obama is an ambitious person, willing to make accommodation with all and sundry to get where he wants to go.

OMG an ambitious African American politician who never had to suffer the indignities of being an African American.!

Posted by gregor | July 14, 2008 10:26 AM

The failings of Carter and Obama are not a function of impracticality. They are a function of disastrous political decisions for those who actually care about the policy goals of the left.

So when exactly have these "policy goals of the left" been realized in recent history? Get real - this is the US.

Posted by novakant | July 14, 2008 10:29 AM

Obama remained in the state Senate following his congressional primary loss to Rush in 2000. I'm not sure how that worked technically - in terms of having his name on both ballots - but his state Senate term ran without interruption from 1996-2004.

Posted by Kevin | July 14, 2008 10:34 AM

I've read so much commentary on the subject of how people shouldn't believe that Obama is a messianic, saint-like figure that I've become convinced that nobody actually believes that he is.

What? Of course there are people who overestimate Obama. The comparisons to Carter are awfully strained, however. Obama is a much better leader in the managerial sense than Carter. Obama is also a much more deft, practical politician. But of course there are people who practically deify him. By 'nobody' I guess MY might mean 'nobody who matters'. (I kid!)

I think Obama models himself on two other presidents: FDR and Lincoln, especially Lincoln. Fairly appropriate, I'd say.

Posted by jonnybutter | July 14, 2008 10:37 AM

Obama didn't squander is youth in a coked up alcoholic daze while being AWOL from his public obligations?

He can't possibly be qualified to be president.

Posted by An Outhouse | July 14, 2008 10:44 AM

jonnybutter:
FDR? When did Obama tell all the haters to "bring it on"? Despite using Commander Codpiece's words, that is what FDR told his enemies back in the early 30's. How will Obama prevail over an obstructionist Senate?

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | July 14, 2008 10:52 AM

I sincerely hope no one is surprised by this article. You don't beat the Clintons in the presidential primary by being unwilling or unable to work the system. And you don't get anything done as president, either.

Posted by evie | July 14, 2008 11:00 AM

Joe Klein's conscience,

Obama can only do that after the election. He cannot do that or else it will be seen as arrogant or callow.

Posted by Micheline | July 14, 2008 11:03 AM

From FDR's second inaugural address. Wake me up when Obama starts sounding like this.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 11:03 AM

Joe Klein's conscience,

Obama can only do that after the election. He cannot do that or else it will be seen as arrogant or callow.

Posted by Micheline | July 14, 2008 11:03 AM

I seriously think that people like Micheline, well-meaning as the are, greatly underestimate how scared people are by the daily unraveling of the status quo, and how hungry they are for real change and for someone who will promise them real change instead of mouthing the usual Beltway platitudes. That was the source of Obama's strength in the primary, and he distances himself from that source at his political peril.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 11:07 AM

Correction, that was from an October 1936 campaign address. Sorry.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 11:13 AM

Gee, I wonder if there's any difference between an inaugural address and a campaign speech? Hmmm.

From an FDR speech in OH during the 1932 campaign:

I find it necessary, therefore, not only to discuss [the '32 GOP platform], but to consider ..[it].. in the light of Republican policies and promises of the past few years. To do so without severe criticism is impossible.

I regret that necessity, for destructive criticism is never justified for its own sake. And yet, to build we must first clear the ground. We must find out why the Republican leadership--and mind you, all the way through this campaign I am not talking about the millions of fine men and women who make up the Republican Party, I am addressing my remarks to the Republican leadership--why that Republican leadership built so unwisely. We must determine the causes that made the whole structure collapse.

'Unwise'??? Give em hell, Franklin!

BTW, I didn't say that Obama is like FDR - although I do think their MOs resemble each other; I'm saying Obama models *himself* after those two, particularly Lincoln.

Posted by jonnybutter | July 14, 2008 11:18 AM

Gee, I wonder if there's any difference between an inaugural address and a campaign speech? Hmmm.

From an FDR speech in OH during the 1932 campaign:

I find it necessary, therefore, not only to discuss [the '32 GOP platform], but to consider ..[it].. in the light of Republican policies and promises of the past few years. To do so without severe criticism is impossible.

I regret that necessity, for destructive criticism is never justified for its own sake. And yet, to build we must first clear the ground. We must find out why the Republican leadership--and mind you, all the way through this campaign I am not talking about the millions of fine men and women who make up the Republican Party, I am addressing my remarks to the Republican leadership--why that Republican leadership built so unwisely. We must determine the causes that made the whole structure collapse.

'Unwise'??? Give em hell, Franklin!

BTW, I didn't say that Obama is like FDR - although I do think their MOs resemble each other; I'm saying Obama models *himself* after those two, particularly Lincoln.

Posted by jonnybutter | July 14, 2008 11:21 AM

Here's the whole speech from which jonnybutter is selectively quoting; read it for yourself and decide if Obama is anything like as forthright as FDR was even before he was first elected.
http://newdeal.feri.org/speeches/1932e.htm

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 11:23 AM

Damn, forgot how good FDR's second inaugural was. Thanks for posting, Steve.

Nobody got as feisty as the dude in the wheelchair!

Posted by sweaty guy | July 14, 2008 11:25 AM

A sample for those disinclined to read the whole (rather long) thing:

I believe that the individual should have full liberty of action to make the most of himself; but I do not believe that in the name of that sacred word a few powerful interests should be permitted to make industrial cannon fodder of the lives of half of the population of the United States.

I believe in the sacredness of private property, which means that I do not believe that it should be subjected to the ruthless manipulation of professional gamblers in the stock markets and in the corporate system.

I share the President's complaint against regimentation; but unlike him, I dislike it not only when it is carried on by an informal group, an unofficial group, amounting to an economic Government of the United States, but also when it is done by the Government of the United States itself.

I believe that the Government, without becoming a prying bureaucracy, can act as a check or counterbalance to this oligarchy so as to secure the chance to work and the safety of savings to men and women, rather than safety of exploitation to the exploiter, safety of manipulation to the financial manipulators, safety of unlicensed power to those who would speculate to the bitter end with the welfare and property of other people.

Yes, the word "individualism" is a bitter word in the mouths of Republican leaders, who have fostered regimentation without stint or limit. Opposition to financial exploitation is a ghastly sham in men who have created, encouraged and brought into being the very power of exploitation. We must go back to first principles; we must make American individualism what it was intended to be--quality of opportunity for all, the right of exploitation for none.

I give you also Harry Truman:

Given the choice between a Republican ans somebody who acts like one, the people will choose the real Republican every time.

That's what Democrats sounded like, once upon a time.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 11:28 AM

Oh, cmon. Obama has to do all sorts of stupid crap in the 21'st century to get elected. I don't care what he says or who he props up around him as advisors. It's kabuki and the audience is the villagers. If he ran the campaign I'd like to see they would come out in arms and dismiss him as "unserious" and the like. Maybe he would still win without them, maybe they could hate his guts (and they would if he won with them gunning for him) and he could still be a successful president but it's on hell of a risk for sheer aesthetic purposes.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 14, 2008 11:28 AM

Steve LaBonne, have you failed to notice that we don't live in the 1930s? Different ages, different rhetoric.

Posted by mcilroy | July 14, 2008 11:29 AM

hey, I linked the entire speech too!

I'm just saying that a first-campaign speech is different from an inaugural, and if you go slog through the speech we BOTH linked to, what you will probably think of first is that people had longer attention spans in 1932 than they do now. I also think that Obama has been perfectly forthright about some things. It's also not 1932!

FDR was a crafty politician and so is Obama. I don't think it besmirches a really great leader's name (FDR) to compare the two stylistically. Sheesh.

Posted by jonnybutter | July 14, 2008 11:31 AM

Steve LaBonne, have you failed to notice that we don't live in the 1930s? Different ages, different rhetoric.

Posted by mcilroy | July 14, 2008 11:32 AM

Funny you should say that, when we just had one of the biggest bank runs in US history, with more undoubtedly to come. Getting more like the 1930s every day...

What's really different, sadly, is precisely that we have nobody like FDR.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 11:34 AM

We are putting the cart before the horse. After election day Obama can adobt that stance when he gains a filibuster free senate.

Moreover, FDR was not always that brave. Read When Affirmative Action Was White and you will see that he had to get in bed with the dixiecrats to get a lot New Deal legislation pass. He had to do that to effect change. It's all about priorties and cutting your losses.

Posted by Micheline | July 14, 2008 11:34 AM

We are putting the cart before the horse. After election day Obama can adobt that stance when he gains a filibuster free senate.

Moreover, FDR was not always that brave. Read When Affirmative Action Was White and you will see that he had to get in bed with the dixiecrats to get a lot New Deal legislation pass. He had to do that to effect change. It's all about priorties and cutting your losses.

Posted by Micheline | July 14, 2008 11:36 AM

We are putting the cart before the horse. After election day Obama can adobt that stance when he gains a filibuster free senate.

Moreover, FDR was not always that brave. Read When Affirmative Action Was White and you will see that he had to get in bed with the dixiecrats to get a lot New Deal legislation pass. He had to do that to effect change. It's all about priorties and cutting your losses.

Posted by Micheline | July 14, 2008 11:36 AM

The question is, if you take that stance how do you know when you've crossed the line into being completely co-opted by the system? People who place "practicality" above principle can easily justify in their own minds every step down that primrose path, long after they've already reached perdition (without knowing it).

Politics is the art of the possible. Nothing gets done if you aren't able to give on some things and hold the line on others--every good politician has been able to do this, combined with convincing people to come over to his or her side. (That much-derided rhetorical skill.)

LIke Matt not getting the "Obama isn't the messiah" message in the face of a dearth of announcements that he is, I don't get the "Obama is a very capable politician, able to make deals and get things done, he even has a ruthless streak" surprise. Why would I be electing a non-politician to the White House? What successful politicians didn't have a ruthless streak?

Incidentally, I'd like to propose spankings for all members of Congress who complain in interviews about "politics" affecting an issue in Washington, as though it's the last place in the world they ever thought politics might rear its head, and that politics is not something they expected to arise, ever, based on their job description.

Posted by Deborah | July 14, 2008 11:38 AM

After election day Obama can adopt that stance when he gains a filibuster free senate.

We'll see. My guess is that people who believe this are being played for suckers.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 11:47 AM

LaBonne:

I seriously think that people like Micheline, well-meaning as the are, greatly underestimate how scared people are by the daily unraveling of the status quo, and how hungry they are for real change and for someone who will promise them real change instead of mouthing the usual Beltway platitudes. That was the source of Obama's strength in the primary, and he distances himself from that source at his political peril.

I'm not going to worry myself over him "distancing" himself until after the election. If he starts triangulating like mad like Bill Clinton in order to get reelected, then I'll be upset.

Besides, how has he "distanced" himself?

Campaign finance reform? That was a no-brainer. He was supposed to unilaterally disarm?

Iraq? Edwards voted for the war then apologized. Hillary never apologized. Obama never voted for it and has a clear forceful op-ed about pulling out.

FISA and guns and religious help to the poor, etc? I think they're all blown out of proportion in their significance. Maybe the Iraq Op-ed was directed at the upset liberal netroots?

One of the things Obama campaigned against is the useless partisanship of the Clinton-Bush years. Is he going to go on a Kucinich-like quest to impeach Bush and send Cheney to jail? I doubt it.

What I recall about FDR is that he campaigned on a conservative economic plan, but changed it in a pragmatic way once it became clear how messed up the economy had become. Plus he was a trust fund scumbag, wasn't he?

Posted by Peter K. | July 14, 2008 11:50 AM

We'll see. My guess is that people who believe this are being played for suckers.

What's worse than a sucker? A pessimistic cynic who gets it wrong and misses a once-in-a-life time opportunity.

Being that cynical is too easy. I'm afraid some people have been disappointed so often that they no longer allow themselves to hope.

Posted by Peter K. | July 14, 2008 11:56 AM

Look it up: Carter was not so bad. He gave us two political principles that everyone agrees on now: a conservative inflation oriented Fed, and a human rights based foreign policy. He also started the policy of beating the Soviets by outspending them on defense.

Posted by lgm | July 14, 2008 11:57 AM

It's simply naive to pretend as if all of this was up to Obama - it just isn't. If the people are so hungry for a change, then they should display that hunger publicly.

Posted by novakant | July 14, 2008 12:02 PM

Anybody know?

The Illinois State Senate has three classes that are staggered and rotate through a 4 year, 4 year, 2 year term cycle.

Posted by Hustler | July 14, 2008 12:12 PM

Damn, forgot how good FDR's second inaugural was. Thanks for posting, Steve.

Nobody got as feisty as the dude in the wheelchair!

Posted by sweaty guy | July 14, 2008 12:31 PM

I'd like to propose spankings for all members of Congress who complain in interviews about "politics" affecting an issue in Washington, as though...politics is not something they expected to arise, ever, based on their job description.

I love that idea, Deborah. Yes, the horror! Having politicians handle politics! Gives me the vapors.

Posted by jonnybutter | July 14, 2008 1:13 PM

If the people are so hungry for a change, then they should display that hunger publicly.

You'd hear them if only you'd listen. They voted for a Democratic Congress in 2006. Which proceeded to do none of the things the voters installed it to do. Have you checked Congress's approval ratings lately? (Hint: you'll need a microscope.)

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 1:21 PM

Interesting that a Carter defender cites increasing defense spending as one of his major accomplishments. Bill Clinton, who also hoodwinked progressives, also had Republican programs as his only lasting accomplishments: welfare reform and NAFTA. Obama is right on track to continue this grand tradition by expanding spying and further increasing the grotesquely bloaoted defense budget, as well as proposing a "health care reform" program that will efficiently channel more of the taxpayers' money to billionaire health insurance executives.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 1:26 PM

Obligatory disclaimer: yes I recognize that Obama is preferable to McCain in important ways and yes I intend to vote for him. But I get really tired of being told that I shouldn't complain at having yet another "choice" of the lesser of two evils. Almost as tired as I get of never HAVING any other kind of choice.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 1:30 PM

By the way, the people didn't "demand" an FDR. Rather, the country was fortunate that someone like him was there to channel and consolidate inchoate public sentiment. There's a word for that: leadership. That's what we're sadly lacking as the country sinks into its deepest crisis sicne teh 1930s.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | July 14, 2008 1:34 PM

MY - I keep reading people debunking the idea that Obama is a messianic, saint-like figure and people criticizing the idea that Obama is a messianic, saint-like figure. Indeed, I've read so much commentary on the subject of how people shouldn't believe that Obama is a messianic, saint-like figure that I've become convinced that nobody actually believes that he is.

Yeah, right! Pity Team Axelrod doesn't believe it isn't true. The Grand Seal of Obama. Surrogates saying wisdom, peace, and life alteration comes from experiencing the impact of the Obama - if people only listen.
Obama himself saying future generations would mark the day he clinched the nomination as "the moment the sick began to be cured, the oceans rise slowed, the Planet started healing".

Latest stunt of course by Team Axelrod is saying their vessel is so big, so important, so saintlike and messianic that unlike all past Presidents and candidates...a Convention Hall is just too small. It confines his "rock star" Greatness, and causes too much pain in the deep spiritual yearning of young women to see him, breath the same air - and the need in liberal Jews and Gentiles to be morally absolved of their sins by a Black Messiah.

Thus the planned 3-hour long Obamagasm at Mile High Stadium. His Greatness can expand to the rafters, he is too big, too potent a redeemer to be considered on a par with smaller men content to little convention halls like JFK, FDR, Reagan..

He will start with a a surrogate black making tribute to Holy Saint Martin, another messianic saint-like figure, on the 45th anniversary of his plagarized "I have a Dream" speech. Then his celebrity supporters will be trotted out, and inspiring poems to honor Obamessiah will be read. Then it is planned he "Come Forth" to adulation and read what the Team Axelrod writers have prepared for him on Teleprompter in his unique, honey-dripping black preacher oratorical style.

Chris Matthews will pronounce it "soaring" a "true inheritor of America's Greatest Man (MLK)" and announce that the tingling in his legs has progressed to a full raging hard-on and that he will pray to both God and Obama to give thanks for his "life-altering speech".

Thus he

Posted by chris ford | July 14, 2008 2:30 PM

this Ryan Lizza piece is brilliant, with a truckload of previously unreported--and revealing--details about Obama's early political career. Obama's column responding to 9/11 and the 2000 redistricting are two of the highlights.

great, great reporting.

Posted by raft | July 14, 2008 2:54 PM

Chris Ford

Thus the planned 3-hour long Obamagasm at Mile High Stadium. His Greatness can expand to the rafters, he is too big, too potent a redeemer to be considered on a par with smaller men content to little convention halls like JFK, FDR, Reagan..

Dude, this morning I had a Cinnabun and it was shaped like Obama's head.

Posted by Peter K. | July 14, 2008 3:48 PM

Thus the planned 3-hour long Obamagasm at Mile High Stadium.

In short, you're whining that Obama is popular and can fill a stadium. Only when the Republican candidate is an old man no one cares about does popularity become regarded as a sin. Next thing you know, you'll be lashing out at Obama in a rage every time he lifts his arms above his head or has the audacity to show off having a full head of hair.

Posted by Tyro | July 14, 2008 4:14 PM

Not at all, Tyro. If he truly can transmute water into gasoline with a simple touch, heal sick cancer patients, and stop the ocean's rise and heal the Planet, I'm voting for the guy.

(the last two he said in his speeches he would be given adulation by future generations for doing.)

I'll even recommend him to others if he can manage the gasoline or cancer cure miracles.

In short, you're whining that Obama is popular and can fill a stadium
I would say that JFK, FDR, Reagan were popular enough to fill several stadiums at their peak. That they didn't, was from humility....

Like the Grand Seal of Obama, unless I see cripples cast off their crutches and walk to their cars with 5-gallon jugs of Obama-created gas - I'm inclined to think the Obamagsm Rally at Mile High Stadium is another sign of the hubris of the Obamas and their Team Axelrod acolytes.

Posted by chris ford | July 14, 2008 4:48 PM

Six months ago, Team Obama was using a fair amount of quasi messianic rhetoric and imagery. The push back has arrived long after it was relevant.

Posted by late | July 14, 2008 9:09 PM