Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

So, frequent readers of this space likely will notice a shortage of political discussion this year, especially relative to the lead up to the 2004 election. The simple version of this is Charlie and I have not been in agreement on candidates and differ on a few issues. Since there isn't a "Site" view, I haven't spoken on behalf of the royal we on a number of things. However, there is a bunch of crap this week that I want to comment on.

First up: Cult of Obama

It seems insane to me that having a presidential candidate that can deliver a moving speech is now "creepy". Seriously, fuck you people. This is how a president is supposed to sound. After 8 years of a barely-verbal chimp, this just kills me. Reagan was a horrible president, but every one of the GOP candidates chases his legacy -- a legacy of explosive spending, cutting and running from the middle east, negotiating with terrorists, and ceding important foreign policy calls to the Congress -- because he was a good speaker. Freaking Bill O'Reilly (yeah yeah) has come down on him for being light on specifics in his stump speeches. Sure, but the problem with big-D candidates since Mondale has been long policy tracts as stump speeches. Obama releases details on policies from healthcare to the war to my own beloved tech issues to the web, and gives a stump intended to draw in citizens and pump up support supporters. It is hard to fault him for that.

It was, in point of fact, this strategy that drew in the "nerd crew" while the "left blogosphere" was shunning him. There was, I think, some real bitterness among the online-kingmakers of the Democratic Party that Obama was doing so well online. The fact that the whole political blogosphere has yet to come to terms with is the pool of geeks on the internet still clobbers them in numbers. And whether it is Howard Dean or Obama, when you visit the Larry Lessig Mountaintop, you win this huge population.

Speaking of Lessig, with the pending retirement of Tom Lantos turning into an early demise, Draft Lessig for Congress gained 1k members on Facebook in 24 hours. Certainly not a 1,000,000 Strong for Colbert level, but impressive nonetheless. If Silicon Valley needs a new congressman, I can think of no one better. I have said for years, I consider it a privilege to cast my vote for John Lewis every two years. Larry Lessig might me the one other man in the country I would rather vote for.

Speaking of my Congressman, it is hard to miss the coverage of his so-called defection. Frankly, it isn't really much of one. In the 06G voting here in GA, Obama beat Clinton on the order of 60-40. (BTW, 20 of my neighbors voted for Huckabee. I will find them. I swear). He is, simply, following the will of his district, which he has been great about for years. I was a little disappointed in his Clinton endorsement last year, but I know he and Bill are close. Reading between the lines, I think it is simply that this giant of the Civil Rights movement simply didn't think white people would vote for a black man yet, and to quote The Daily Show, "He won Maine. In Maine they call Lutherans 'colored'."

One thing that stands out about Obama that no one seems to pick up on: He is the first Gen-X candidate. I remember in 92 it was *fucking earth shattering* that Bill Clinton was going to be the first Boomer president. Listening to Tom Brokaw plug his new book, it seems he misses one of the most important things about the Boomers: they are the most self obsessed generation ever. Nobody from "The Greatest Generation" called it the fucking greatest generation. Ken Burns, in doing his WWII documentary, tells of eliciting stories from these old timers that they have never shared in the past. The simple fact of the matter is Obama isn't "post-partisan" as the media seems to call him. He is post-60's. That is the real difference here. Gen-X doesn't give a shit about hippies and Kissenger and revolution. We just want a government that works.

Trivia note of the day: Barak Obama and Scott Baio are the exact same age.