5 posts tagged “election 2008”

Over here in London, I am sensing through various little thoughts that I
overhear, or see on the net, that some people are in denial over the new
Obama presidency. It is a little 'out of left field' for them.

"For how long?" is a common question (as in how long before he is
killed).

And, the lengthier: "The guy played it really well, well done, but
there's a trick up his sleeve."

At a coffeeshop tonight, I overheard the conversation between two men.
One guy was filling the other guy's brain with his grand theory
about what happened: Obama is not really the outsider he is, and the
election, why, it 's all part of a meticulously organised master-plan.

It is fun to observe people adjusting their 'brainwash' programs to take
account of unexpected developments; to 'restore order' after an event
has caused some serious cognitive dissonance. "The USA is a f'cked up
place" just cannot sit with the contradictory implication of the new
developments.

I wonder how I myself am adjusting my brainwash programs. For starters,
I know I am cynical about Obama. Too much so. I cannot get myself to
give him two months of honeymoon. Is the notion that "The Highly
Improbable can Happen and Good Things are Possible" too much for my
brain?

My brain has been busy painting Obama; that career-savvy, smooth-talker
who plotted his rise to power for almost twenty years. My brain takes
his audaciousness in seeking power with a name like his to be indicative
of immense self-absorption. Why sometimes I cannot but think he is a
cynical bastard who will show that nothing has changed at all to all
those unwashed, politically-illiterate masses!

Is the cognitive dissonance of seeing someone inspire, organise, put his
talents to disciplined use, and beat the odds, too too much for my
brain? Why, in my world, people who try to inspire or organise or do
anything audacious fail miserably, this Obama must be a schemer.

Hey, maybe that guy I overheard at the coffeeshop was onto something!

Maybe it was even me! ;-)

Moral of the story: Give Obama a chance.

Mouth-watering revelations from Newsweek, part of their regular "How He Did It" project.

I find this paragraph revealing of Obama's character:

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

And a good point too!

Earlier this evening, on Old Brompton Road - close to South Ken
station - in London, I noticed a big TV screen displaying a live news
channel. There were clips of Barack Obama striding on to a stage,
then of him giving a speech, then there was a series of pictures of
his grandmother and grandfather. The news item's caption was
"Decision Time USA". I had come to a complete halt and was watching
from across the road. I thought there was something new.

The TV screen hung on the wall inside the Foxton's Estate Agents
office that was across the road. I noticed I was standing next to a
bus stop, and that two young women were standing there. We had all
been focussing on the Obama clip. Obviously, the estate agents office
was closed, and we had no idea what the clip was saying. Then, I
noticed they were also looking at me; laden as I was with rucksack
and various other bags, I had stopped to watch the news clip.

The editors of the clip had picked only those shots that flattered
Obama; he looked dynamic and utterly presidential. One shot had him
framed between two US flags. It hit me: this man really does not fit
with the usual image of a US president. Had he been running for
president of Brazil or South Africa, there would have been no
surprise. And we would have seen very little of him on TV,
presidential as he may look.

The young women at the bus stop were probably white English folk. We
were all united in finding something eye-catching about Obama. We are
preparing ourselves to getting used to seeing him on television all
the time. Had he been running for the presidency of Brazil or South
Africa, I doubt they would have looked up. I doubt I would have
stopped dead in my tracks.

For me, an Obama win (looking very likely now, and a landslide too)
will be very interesting for one main thing: the campaign's
organisation. This is a man who was helped up by a hope-inspiring
speech, and who has been in the Senate for hardly four years, and look
where he is.

Look who he beat: Hillary Clinton. Look who he is leading
comfortably: McCain. Tainted as these personalities are (Hillary by
her husband's time, and McCain by his association with the Bush
administration), imperfect propositions as they were, they are two
formidable politicians who would have filled the president's seat
comfortably (McCain may still do?).

I remember talking to people in London about Obama a year ago, no one
was sure who he was. No one ever thought he'd win. I remember being
at a dinner party with a bunch of young bankers from New York, and
when I mentioned Obama's name, the New Yorkers laughed out loud. "In
America, to be in powerful positions, you have to be a man and you
have to be white. Okay?"

I do not know how he did it. But the word on the internet is that his
campaign has been one of the most organised in history. This David
Axelrod fellow seems to have been on the ball from day one.

This Washington Post article provides some clues on how Obama went
about cultivating friends, picking subjects to focus on since his first days
at the Senate. I am not sure if Obama wanted to be president as soon
as he joined the Senate, but it is clear that he planned for the option,
should he choose it.

When Obama won Iowa, on the back of his vision and personality, he
put the Clinton campaign in disarray. Given the doubts that the
commentators had about Hillary, they wrote her off: if an upstart
like Obama can dislodge her in Iowa so classily, how can she ever
win? She proved them wrong; she bounced back and fought hard. And she
would have won, had it not been for the foresight of the Obama
campaign.

They planned right from the start to have a presence in every state.
Hillary's people thought she'd have the nomination wrapped up early
on, and were lax about their organisation in the smaller, mid-race
states. Come mid-race, with both candidates tied, her campaign was
scrambling to have a presence in 12 states when the Obama people had
been there for months. Those states were crucial in handing Obama his
win over Clinton - she had, after all, won most of the big states.

Few people are aware that one of the reasons for Obama's handsome
surge in the polls is his campaign's spending on TV ads. He regularly
outspends McCain, sometimes with a huge margin. Obama is loaded,
and he burns through the cash super-fast.  Why shouldn't he, he is always
raising new money - see the recent Powell surge.

Howard Dean may have invented internet-based grassroots organisation
but Obama's campaign seems to have made all that look like ancient
history. They raise money at every opportunity. Hillary is
super-tightening the race? We need your support. Palin's just
appeared on the scene? Hey guys, time for your donations.  McCain
is running attack ads? Money please. Powell's just endorsed us?
Greenbacks, please. The campaign's default answer to any situation
is: "Dear supporter, here is how you can help: send us a check."

You cannot win with only money.  He stands for something, and put against
John McCain he is showing he is a better candidate.  His appearances on
Letterman and Leno about two years ago revealed a guy with a sense
of humour, intelligence, and a presidential look. It is now apparent he is also
a highly-focused candidate. I love the way he has matured over the past year;
he used to be a single-issue, Iraq-war guy with a unique name. Now he
speaks with ease on any number of topics and conducts himself with such
terrific judgment.

"Don’t feel defensive. Stay calm, cool and collected."- seems like his motto.

How do my friends in Egypt see the upcoming US election? The answer
may surprise US readers. My friends see it as a choice between two
candidates worse than each other. They have no preference for either
candidate and see both as representatives of the same system; a
system steeped in domineering unfavoured others.

They perceive that Obama has charisma, they know McCain is
experienced. They can see that Palin will hoover up votes from
certain demographics. They know about the US election cycle, and the
huge campaign budgets involved. But they fundamentally believe
neither candidate will make their own lives better. As far as they
are concerned: the US political system produces a stream of
standard-issue presidents.

Let's take the last two Democratic-Party presidents of the US:
Clinton and Carter. Clinton was no great reformer of US foreign
policy. He instigated sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime,
sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis; he authorised
illegal attacks on Sudan to pull attention away from his Lewinsky
scandal; and he tried to force Arafat to accept what he deemed a
'good' offer by Ehud Barak. When Arafat walked away, Clinton passed
on a decidedly anti-Arafat message to Bush.

Back in the late 1970s, even though Jimmy Carter was a personal
friend of Anwar Sadat, Carter leaned on Sadat to accept what then
became the Camp David peace accords. The Egyptian negotiating team
had decided unanimously that (Israeli Prime Minister) Begin's offer
was unsatisfactory. But Carter laid it on the line: "Anwar, if you
walk away from this, you walk away from it all, and I will cancel the
US aid program that we have prepared for Egypt".

The eight years of GWB have left people in Egypt (and elsewhere) in
no doubt that he is a particularly bad sample of US president. My
mother curses him whenever he appears on television. She sees him as
responsible for a lot of the bloodshed in Iraq; he lied about WMD and
he should be tried in court for it.

When my mother sees on television Condoleeza Rice, she says to her:
"you, God will punish you." Rice is not the typical US
white-man-in-charge; my mother expected her to come to the job with
an independent mind. Instead, Rice is working from the rule-book that
was set by her predecessors and her president.

The US has got itself in a terrible position: it is right in the
middle of a polarising "war on terror"; it supports a bad regime in
Egypt because the regime accepts instructions from it; and it is
always willing to see things from Israel's point of view. Put
yourself in the place of the common Egyptian: is the US on 'your
side'? Let's see.

The US supports the corrupt, oppressive regime that torments you on a
daily basis, it is "fighting terror" by launching wars against two
Muslim countries and killing lots of Muslims and torturing them, and
it refuses to stop Israel from occupying territories that are not
hers.

People here see the US as a blind supporter of Israel, a country that
in most people's minds is spoilt rotten by the blank cheques it gets
from the US. It is true that Egypt fought Israel as an enemy forty
years ago, but today most Egyptians just want a fair settlement,
something that will please the Palestinians and compensate them for
having lost their country sixty years ago. But the Americans are not
pressuring Israel to make serious concessions.

It is not just the US that is in a terrible position; the Egyptian
people are too. They absolutely resent the way they are being ruled,
but they are struggling to find a way to change the regime. There's
an old joke going around the country. The government raises taxes,
and the people cope. The government mismanages the economy so badly
that people can barely eat, and the people cope. Then the government
institutes a policy of whipping every bridge-crosser, and now finally
protests are organised: "the lines are too long, we need more
whippers".

I believe the Egyptian people need to change their own government by
themselves, I really do not want to see a US president try to "help
out". The best way to help out is to affect what is under the US's
direct control and to not interfere in other people's affairs. What
is under American control is their policies: they can stop giving in
to the short-sighted pro-Israel worldview, they can stop going to war
unnecessarily and fighting Muslims worldwide.

Almost everybody in Egypt thinks the US hates Muslims. Look at it
this way: the US is very worried about China, but it has actually
invested in China over the past twenty years in a manner that brings
puzzlement to many; it is almost like the US wants to help China out.
A lot of US debt today is in the hands of the Chinese government,
China can harm the US economy. But US policy is very careful when
addressing China. Likewise Russia; a lot of care is taken, and no
unnecessary wars or confrontations are sought. North Korea was able
to test a nuclear weapon.

It is only when it comes to the Muslims, be they Iranians, Iraqis,
Afghanis, Lebanese, or Palestinians that force is threatened and
actually deployed. It seems like the US is using these countries as
whipping boys. The US strategy seems to be to pick on the guys they
know they can beat, the guys they know they can play against each
other, the guys with 'development issues', who are still groping
their way out of bad governance. That's a really terrible strategy.

No one I know in Egypt thinks either candidate will change that
strategy.