Seriously Considering Barack

Will have to be (comparatively) terse here. Taters boiling for morning hash-browns, anticipating annoyingly early pottery-foray by spouse, and late start on post in any case, thanks to need to respond to appreciated emails from several of you out there.

I'm not set on a candidate. Frankly, the incredible destruction wrought on the principles of representative democracy and the standing of the US in the eyes of the world by the Limbaugh/Rove/Cheney debacle may preclude any candidate from resembling even a partial saviour. That's certainly how it appears to me now. HRC, Obama, and Edwards, all certainly an order of magnitude preferable to any republican you can name, in office or aspiring, will all struggle mightily imho when it comes to the goal of correcting the incredible damage done by bush to our country.

But I continue to monitor input from those better-connecting and more clear-thinking than I. Tonight's post is on Obama. I've got clips from two posts at Anonymous Liberal, in the order in which I came upon them. Due to length I have excerpted somewhat mercilessly. I know of some important aspects that were as a result not captured here. Get thee to a link please.

First, in the form of advice to the candidate:

For a moment, I'm going to pretend that I'm a hotshot political consultant and not some anonymous dude on the internets.

Much has been made of Hillary Clinton's improved standing in recent national polling. Her goal has been to improve her standing with the party base while projecting an aura of inevitability that causes money and endorsements to flow her way and marginalizes her opponents. This is definitely the right strategy for her to pursue, and to date, she has executed it flawlessly. There is little doubt that the nomination is hers to lose at this point.

That said, because of our peculiar electoral system, following such a strategy exposes a candidate to one significant vulnerability. The better a candidate is at surrounding him or herself with an aura of inevitability, the more momentum an opposing candidate can generate by pulling off a surprise victory in an early contest. Like a rubber band being stretched, the more Clinton increases her national lead and cements her status as the presumptive nominee, the greater the snapback will be if she loses in Iowa. The higher you rise, the harder you fall. Just ask Howard Dean.

And therein lies the opportunity for Obama. Many have suggested that Obama needs to start going after Clinton, that he needs to do something dramatic now in order to change the direction of national polls. I think that's a fool's errand. Obama is not the slashing type and if he tried to be, much of his appeal would be lost. Moreover, it's not as if there is some gaping difference between the candidates when it comes to policy. Obama thinks that he would be a better general election candidate, would exercise better judgment as president, and would be a more effective agent of change than Clinton (and I tend agree). But those differences don't make it easy to draw sharp contrasts in a primary race, particularly without coming across as obnoxious and self-obsessed.

So rather than trying to take Clinton down a notch nationally, Obama needs to think locally. He needs to focus most of his resources on winning Iowa, where the polls indicate a much closer race. The significance of the Iowa caucuses depends almost entirely on expectations. If Obama (or Edwards for that matter) manages to pull off an upset in Iowa, it will instantly puncture the aura of inevitability surrounding Clinton and create major momentum going into the next series of contests. Overnight, Obama would enjoy a huge bump in the polls, both nationally and in New Hampshire, just like Kerry did in 2004, and he could potentially ride that momentum all the way to the nomination. And ironically, the more Clinton is perceived to be the national front-runner going into Iowa, the harder she'll fall should she lose and the more momentum will transfer to the candidate who pulled off the upset.

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And I also appreciated this earlier post making the pro-Obama case rather cogently:

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Political observers from across the ideological spectrum agree that Obama is, hands down, the most charismatic and engaging candidate either party has to offer at the moment. Charisma, of course, is not in and of itself a qualification for president, but its importance is often under-appreciated. Presidential contests are, in large part, referendums on the perceived character of the candidates. Many voters, including a large percentage of so-called "swing voters," rely on visceral or emotion criteria every bit as much as intellectual criteria. They often vote for the candidate they "like" better.

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What should be clear to anyone who has paid any attention to the slow-motion trainwreck that is the Bush presidency is that judgment and intelligence matter far more than anything else. Presidents are not islands unto themselves; they surround themselves with advisers of all kinds, most of whom have far more experience in their area of expertise than the president can ever hope to have. A good president is someone who has the judgment to surround himself with a qualified and diverse group of advisers, who has the intelligence to understand what his advisers are telling him, and who has the curiosity and discipline to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions when necessary, and go wherever the facts lead him.

Obama graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude. Trust me when I tell you that only an exceptionally smart and keenly analytical person can accomplish such a feat. It's hard to get into a good law school. It's even harder to distinguish yourself from the pack once there. Obama is more than qualified when it comes to intelligence.

Obama has also shown good judgment in the past on key issues. In late 2002, in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, it seemed like everyone went collectively nuts. The press, including most liberal pundits, were accepting everything the administration was saying at face value. They were failing to ask obvious questions and vilifying those who did. Amidst this hysteria, Obama got up in front of a crowd in Chicago and said the following:

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

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Obama is certainly not perfect, and he has a lot to prove over the next year if he wants to earn the support of Democratic primary voters. Between now and then, there are all sorts of things he can do to prove himself either more or less worthy of the honor of being the party's nominee. And he'll of course have to overcome some very serious and capable opponents. But, in case it's not obvious by now, I find it very hard not to root for him. He intrigues me in a way that few politicians have, and I very much want to see him succeed.