I was looking forward to reading Senator Obama's acceptance speech at the covention on Thursday night. I made a conscious decision not to watch the speech because I didn't want to be distracted by the pomp and spectacle. Thelma was watching it when I got home from work, though, so I decided to stick with it.
I haven't gone back to look at the transcript yet. My immediate impressions after watching it? I felt like I was watching multiple people. On the negative side, there was the doom and gloom Obama predicting the end of the American dream if he wasn't elected. There was the ridiculous Obama insisting his candidacy is somehow a selfless act. There was the naive or disingenuous Obama claiming he could somehow pay for his giveaways by pruning government.
On the other hand, there was the Obama who argued for more personal responsibility. There was the aggressive Obama willing to challenge his critics directly. There was the ambitious Obama declaring that we could be free of our dependency on foreign oil within ten years. There was the pragmatic Obama talking about middle ground on topics like gun control and abortion.
If I vote for Obama, which Obama am I voting for? Which Obama is running for office?
All of the above.
That's the way politicians want it. They want to be as many people as possible so voters are more likely to find a version they like. Never mind that the different versions may be incompatible or inconsistent. Most voters are already convinced that one political party is good and the other is bad. They just scratch the surface of the party they like long enough to find a version of their candidate that makes them comfortable.
This isn't unique to politics. People who have things to sell discovered this many years earlier. It's called segmenting the market. GM figured this out when it came to selling cars. By developing multiple brands that appealed to smaller segments of the market, they appealed to a broader market overall.
Generic brands are another example. Name brand manufacturers sell lower priced generic versions of their products under different names because they know this will let them capture sales from two market segments instead of one: people who buy generic brands and people who are willing to pay more for a name brand.
What makes Senator Obama unique in this election is that he has managed to segment the market while still avoiding the issues in any detail. He can pull this off because of his three great advantages: the power of his personality, his skills as an orator and his position as a viable minority candidate. All of these things make him feel different to different people in different ways. People want a change and he feels like one. He doesn't have to get into the issues in order to convince people that he is worth supporting.
Back to the original question, though. Which Obama is running for office? In the end, it doesn't really matter. What matters is which one will show up. That's where a history of taking a stance on the issues really matters. Unfortunately, that's also where Obama is the weakest.
I haven't gone back to look at the transcript yet. My immediate impressions after watching it? I felt like I was watching multiple people. On the negative side, there was the doom and gloom Obama predicting the end of the American dream if he wasn't elected. There was the ridiculous Obama insisting his candidacy is somehow a selfless act. There was the naive or disingenuous Obama claiming he could somehow pay for his giveaways by pruning government.
On the other hand, there was the Obama who argued for more personal responsibility. There was the aggressive Obama willing to challenge his critics directly. There was the ambitious Obama declaring that we could be free of our dependency on foreign oil within ten years. There was the pragmatic Obama talking about middle ground on topics like gun control and abortion.
If I vote for Obama, which Obama am I voting for? Which Obama is running for office?
All of the above.
That's the way politicians want it. They want to be as many people as possible so voters are more likely to find a version they like. Never mind that the different versions may be incompatible or inconsistent. Most voters are already convinced that one political party is good and the other is bad. They just scratch the surface of the party they like long enough to find a version of their candidate that makes them comfortable.
This isn't unique to politics. People who have things to sell discovered this many years earlier. It's called segmenting the market. GM figured this out when it came to selling cars. By developing multiple brands that appealed to smaller segments of the market, they appealed to a broader market overall.
Generic brands are another example. Name brand manufacturers sell lower priced generic versions of their products under different names because they know this will let them capture sales from two market segments instead of one: people who buy generic brands and people who are willing to pay more for a name brand.
What makes Senator Obama unique in this election is that he has managed to segment the market while still avoiding the issues in any detail. He can pull this off because of his three great advantages: the power of his personality, his skills as an orator and his position as a viable minority candidate. All of these things make him feel different to different people in different ways. People want a change and he feels like one. He doesn't have to get into the issues in order to convince people that he is worth supporting.
Back to the original question, though. Which Obama is running for office? In the end, it doesn't really matter. What matters is which one will show up. That's where a history of taking a stance on the issues really matters. Unfortunately, that's also where Obama is the weakest.
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