Could it be that I just went with the flow in 2008, and then jumped ship again? Could it be that reality hit home? Could it be that I found the President veer far too much to the left? Could it be, could it just be that … ? Well, just how did Barack Obama lose me?

(Disclosure: I still strongly believe that Obama was the best candidate across both parties in the 2008 election cycle. In my estimation, John McCain does not even come second; Hillary Clinton was much better than the Senator from Arizona.)

The loss of the message

Most, if not all, candidates for President run as “the outsider”, the reformer that shares the public’s anger at Washington. Indeed, in most cases, the person who wins is often the one who successfully cast him as the one farthest from Washington. However, not since Ronald Reagan (and before him, JFK) has a President swept to power with a resounding message of a new tomorrow.

Barack Obama captured America’s attention with that message. More importantly, Candidate Obama was on top of every news cycle. It is hard to think of many news cycles when the opposition drowned out Obama’s message. And on all such occasions — like “guns and religion” comment, or the question of race, or the Bill Ayers association — Obama prevailed by speaking directly to the electorate. In fact, “prevailed” is an understatement. On each of those occasions, not only did he emerged stronger than his opponents, but he emerged stronger than the candidate that he was before the problem arose.

In contrast, consider healthcare reform — the one issue that has clearly proved his lack of his leadership, or an inability to take control of the message. If there is one thing we know about this, it is that no one knows for sure what it is about. The President or his partymen have not answered clearly one simple question: “How will this cut costs for the average taxpayer?” For a party that enjoyed a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate till a week ago, and a clear majority in the House, and a popular President, the fact that the Democrats have not been able to answer this and other basic questions is glaring. Yet they have not let go of a single opportunity to blame the Republicans for its failure. (The Republicans have at times been nauseating naysayers, no doubt.)

If there is one striking difference between Obama the candidate and Obama the President, it is that this substitution of the message for rhetoric.

Change? What change?

What really did alienate me from thinking that Barack Obama was different from the rest of them is not that he has failed to live up to his promises (hype, rather), but that he has not shown how he is any different from the rest of “them” — those he set out to reform in the first place. And nowhere is this more obvious than in the way that along with Vice-President Biden, Obama weaned Arlen Specter into the Democratic party. In fact, “weaned” does not convey the gravity of the horse trade. It is indeed an irony that at the same time Rod Blagojevich was being vilified (and rightly so) for selling Obama’s vacant Senate seat, the President was working out a similar quid pro quo to buy the Senator from Pennsylvania.

To this day, I keep telling friends in PA who are eligible to vote in this year’s Senate elections to vote for Joe Sestak in the primary and Pat Toomey in the general. My argument: “Well, you know Specter shifted parties so he could remain in power. How can you be so sure he will remain a Democrat if he is re-elected?”

All talk of reaching across the aisle was buried six feet under, as Obama and Biden signaled their inability to work out compromises with the opposition by buying them out!

Horse trading and quid pro quo are the way of politicians. It is part of a politician’s “higher morality”. So what is wrong that Obama did it? Well, nothing. Except Obama claimed (and still claims) to be the new new. He came here to reform this place, and yet he turned into someone who has conveniently drunk the Washington koolaid, and lost his way.

When he promised to shut down Guantanamo, we trusted him. When he promised to rid Washington of its special interests, we trusted him. When he promised to end the war in Iraq, we trusted him. When he… never mind! He is just another politician. A charming man, a voluble speaker, a gifted leader, but just another politician.

In a brilliant opinion piece in the Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria points out that Obama has acted more like a Prime Minister, the leader and the voice of the Democratic majority in the House and the Senate than like a President. Not the man who once said, “there is no red state America and blue state America…” And for this reason, I now feel ambivalent, even skeptical about his ability to bring about positive change.

One year and an undeserved Nobel Prize later, Obama seems like the very person he warned us to be wary of.

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“The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. We won the race of discovery against the Germans.We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.”

The estimate of the number of people who lost their lives because of this barbaric act is pegged at over 200000, a major portion of which must be civilians. When Barack Obama says that the ban on torture is necessary to restore America’s moral standing in the world, one wonders which period the President is talking about. Surely not 1945?

P.S.: According to Wikipedia, “Truman has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents.”

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The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu claims that the supremo of the LTTE, Velupillai Prabhakaran, prime accused in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and considered a terrorist by many governments, is his good friend.

Such is life.

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A bumper-sticker I saw on the road this morning summed it up succinctly: “2008: End of an Error.“

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I step out of the house. The buildings are in their same proper places. The ground is still intact. The sky hasn’t fallen down. So, it isn’t apocalypse. Barack Obama might not be that bad for America!

Oh, and by the way, where are those chronic Nostradamus-quoters, who explain every event with a purported quote from old man Michel?

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Somewhere in the backdrop, McCain doesn’t like the campaign that he is running. It is against his nature, and he recognizes it. This moment captures that in all earnest.

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Please! I mean, we don’t want someone who is just like us. “Just like you” does not mean that the “you” is some exalted person. It means that the person who is touted as “just like you” is just average. So so. Nothing special. Fair. Tolerable. Mediocre. Passable.

In any country, the average citizen is a loser. Outside of statistics, the term is almost derogatory. It is not a compliment to tell a host that the food was average.

Consider this. A random Google search leads one to peg the average IQ of Americans at 98. The technical term for a person with an IQ of 70 or less is “moron”. Sure, there is quite a lot of daylight between the two figures, but it isn’t a world apart. Is the McCain campaign telling the American people, “My pick for Vice President is just as intellectually challenged as you are”? Surely they deserve better.

Or, consider the per capita personal income of the average American – $38,611 per year. Again, that is quite some money, but not a lot. While the intention here is not to be patronizing of people who make that much annually, you sure won’t be astounded by that figure.

That is not to say that a candidate running for President or VP should have at least 10 patents against his / her name, two of which were gained while working towards a PhD at Harvard, and half of the remaining were filed during a second PhD at MIT. Oh, not to forget about the annual 10 million dollar-royalty that the patents earn him / her.

Leaders should command respect. They should be inspirational. Either through force of character, or a history of achievement, or something else. For all the criticism that he has come under, there is no denying that John McCain commands respect. A war hero, a veteran Senator, his resume shines. Senator Obama, though a freshman Senator, is inspirational not only through the story of his life, but also through the freshness of his message. Senator Joe Biden has as impressive a CV as any Senator on Capitol Hill.

And Sarah Palin is thrown into this ring, an epitome of Shakespeare’s “… and some have greatness thrust upon them” quote. It is not politics or male chauvinism or condescension when one is led to remark that Governor Palin is uninspiring, even putting-offy.

When was the last time you were inspired by someone who only inspires fear in you? Fear and pity not for yourself, but for that selfsame person.

The stakes are so high, and of the many crises that America is faced with at this moment, the primary crisis is of confidence. An uninspiring, average, er… just-like-you leader is something that the country can do without.

Think, America, think!

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Well, there are many reasons why he need not. For one, I am not a former Miss Alaska runner-up. I don’t know what a moose is. Hockey-moms won’t vote for me. When last measured, I had a three-digit IQ  (and the first digit isn’t a zero!).

But here is one strong reason why. I have had a photo of me taken outside the gates of the White House. That means, I have a thorough understanding of foreign policy, defense, the economy and handling crisis situations. At least, that is what Palin-logic leads me to infer:

Couric: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was kinda made to … I don’t know, you know … reporters.

Couric: Mocked?

Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.

Couric: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.

Palin: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…

Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state.

(Courtesy: CBS News)

Oh, and I have been to a couple of other countries as well. I’m so confident of getting onto the ticket! Moreover, I’m only 25, so the average age of our ticket is lesser than the Obama-Biden combo. So all you folks, go out on November 4, and vote for Senator McCain and me. Remember, we’ve seen it all.

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The topic of discussion this morning was the money that former New York Stock Exchange chairman, Richard Grasso had taken home, roughly $190 million. Pat Buchanan launched a tirade on CNBC’s Lawrence Kudlow for his unabashed support of Grasso’s compensation.

The funniest part comes after Kudlow opines that Grasso must be lauded for his “Herculean” efforts to restart the operations of the NYSE in ten days. Buchanan shoots back saying, “Now, that’s what he got paid a $5 million bonus for. Did any of the New York City firemen get a $5 million bonus?” The other rib-ticking moment came when Buchanan asked, “Why does he get so many million dollars when he leaves? What did they pay him a salary for?”

While I disagree with Buchanan’s views on executive pay, I must say that the way he argued against it was funny. Incidentally, Kudlow chided Buchanan during the discussion for sounding like Obama’s echo. Jack Welch was also at the discussion table.

Here is the video of the episode from MSNBC.

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Suddenly, at the next light, a couple of cars came to a screeching halt and all of us turned to our right to see what had happened.

A second later, a middle-aged African American gentleman to my left said aloud “Yes, we can!” as if the middle of an Obama rally. Puzzled all of us turned around… only to hear him complete “… cross the road!” The “Walk” sign had come up.

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The New York Times effectively settles the argument with a furiously hard-hitting editorial that criticizes Bush and McCain for selling out to big oil companies, that are already basking in record profits.

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Image via Wikipedia

I am not going to write out an entire speech here, but going by the way she has plugged for her website in the recent past, I bet she is going to say towards the end of her concession speech:

“And, by the way, remember to visit www dot hillary clinton dot com, and donate liberally!”

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Image by jurvetson via Flickr

Many pundits have been of the opinion that Clinton would not seek to be Obama’s Vice President, and that she would rather aspire for a bigger, more powerful role in the Senate. Some blogs, like the Obama-backing Dailykos, have been discounting her from the veepstakes, preferring instead to look at popular Clinton backers, like Evan Bayh, Ed Rendell, Ted Strickland and Wesley Clark as possible running mates for Obama.

It is possible that Hillary Clinton has calculated that the Senate role that she was hoping for would be hard to come by, given the fact that most of her Senate colleagues don’t like her anyway, and that the current Democratic leadership in the House has no reason to give way to her, despite her “decades” of experience in Congress. She probably sees the role of the Vice President as her best shot at getting to the upper echelons of the Party.

I remember reading somewhere a few months ago that if Clinton were the Democratic nominee, McCain would win in November even if he chose Britney Spears as his running mate! Well, if she wants to be the running mate (and let’s not think she doesn’t deserve to ask or be asked) Senator Obama now has to carry her baggage too.

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The article says:

1. She missed the mood
2. She didn’t master the rules
3. She underestimated the caucus states
4. She relied on old money, and
5. She never counted on a long haul

What the article (rather politely) omits is that she underestimated her opponent, and crucially, his staying power. While the Clintons never publicly cast Senator Barack Obama as a candidate of color in 2007, they seem to have hoped that he would appeal to only a narrow audience, and that the others would rally behind her. The Clintons would have loved it if Obama played along racial lines, as this would have diminished his appeal.

However, credit to Obama, he never did this. He was, therefore, able to build a coalition of supporters that was more broad-based that any other candidate in the running for President in 2008. As the Clintons’ wait-and-watch strategy started failing, Bill Clinton tried to play up race as the primary factor behind Obama’s successes. This flew in the face of common sense, as Obama’s opening day victory was in Iowa, considered among the whitest of the white states. It also exposed the Clinton campaign’s expectations on this front.

While the other candidates could not get their campaigns to take off as they would have expected, Obama’s campaign worked and is still working really hard to make every state and every vote count. With Hillary, a combination of a failing strategy and pathetic operations ensured defeat.

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Hillary Clinton: “Yes, we scam!”

(Wow, this is becoming some kind of a feature! Here is Politics, in four words)

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For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity. Look at her schedule as first lady and ever since. Think of the thousands of staged events, the tens of thousands of times she has pretended to be delighted to see someone she doesn’t know, the hundreds of thousands of times she has recited empty clichés and exhortatory banalities, the millions of photos she has posed for in which she is supposed to appear empathetic or tough, the billions of politically opportune half-truths that have bounced around her head.

No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It’s like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic.

The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears.

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Supporters of Barack Obama: “Help make Hillary history!”

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If the press were as prejudiced against Mrs. Clinton as her campaign constantly whines, debate moderators would have pushed for the Clinton tax returns and the full list of Clinton foundation donors to be made public with the same vigor it devoted to Mr. Obama’s “plagiarism.” And it would have showered her with the same ridicule that Rudy Giuliani received in his endgame. With 11 straight losses in nominating contests, Mrs. Clinton has now nearly doubled the Giuliani losing streak (six) by the time he reached his Florida graveyard. But we gamely pay lip service to the illusion that she can erect one more firewall.

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