Did Harvard Prepare Dr Obama For Dem Family Quarrels?
By streetwise Posted in 2008 — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Doctors Crane- Harvard didn't prepare them, either!
American presidential elections tend to be a study in scandal for ideological liberals and not a few movement conservatives. The tidy shelves of propositional politics give way under the reality of the nature of the office. We have a BIG government that requires executive skill to manage, and whose services the electorate is not willing to do without. We have national interests that people expect to be protected, and a superpower’s responsibilities. We share the planet with other powers that are not disposed to accept our world view.
So presidential contests are uncomfortable for people who prefer to concentrate on issues in, er, black and white. To make matters worse, the elections are ventures in sociological conflict, as different groups compete for the honor and prestige of seeing THEIR guy win the office. This is why this Democratic primary season was so fascinating. Despite the basic similarity of candidates Obama and Clinton in terms of propositional politics, the primaries morphed into a conflict between two distinct factions within the family.
As reported here on RS by simpson316, the conflict remains unresolved. And like many family conflicts, this one promises to be a blowout.
The two factions are hard to describe, and they overlap both within the Democratic party and outside of it. (To be perfectly truthful, no one cares much about the Republican party in 2008; we are the moon orbiting the home planet. But watch out for our tidal forces!) Reverting to my New York background, perhaps it could be called the conflict between the Uptown Thinkers and the Downtown Doers. The Thinkers are driving the Obama train, which caters to people who function conceptually and believe they can impose their way of thinking on an unruly world. They are the students, academics and professionals who are well-connected to the Information Age, affluent and privileged. Their leaders are those who have made fortunes from pursuits that put a premium on the manipulation of concepts and images- finance, entertainment, media, advertising, law. When it comes to politics, they are great believers in the power of their ability and expertise to run the show.
The Doers have propelled the Clinton candidacy. Curiously, they are a more diverse lot in terms of life experiences. They tend to view reality as something that exists independently of thought processes. One respects it, adapts to it and works hard to deal with it. It is no accident that the Clinton armies attracted a lot of “working class” supporters, which encompasses a lot more than traditional industrial union members- small businessmen and women, entrepreneurs, white collar workers, cops, nurses, firemen, shift supervisors, sales reps, accountants, IT specialists, managers, technicians- the legions of citizens who are tied to schedules, either 9-to-5 or shift jobs. Not surprisingly, they were at a real disadvantage in the Democratic caucuses, time-consuming schmoozefests that are much more suited to the flexible schedules and leisurely affluence of the Uptown set.
The Doers may have had reservations about Hillary (who doesn’t have reservations about any politician?), but they respected her experience, her tenacity and above all the fact that she had “paid her dues”. No one, but no one, will deny that Hillary Clinton has worked very hard for a very long time in the public square. So they were all the more astonished when the glib and inexperienced Obama waltzed onto the stage, early fortysomething autobiography in hand, to grab a presidential nomination through a caucus process that dissed people like them.
And here we come to the real anger, indeed rage, that is the residue of the Democrats’ family quarrel. Especially the ire of women who see the whole rigged game as a rerun of their life experiences, where they did all the work and the well-connected guys got all the promotions. As our own Dan McLaughlin has pointed out on numerous occasions, Obama flopped quite noticeably in the Democratic primaries. And yet he has the nomination, and Hillary is the also-ran, by the grace of the MSM and the fecklessness of the superdelegates.
The Democratic party is offering a candidate for the Presidency who is not quite four years removed from a state legislature, with no foreign policy experience, no national domestic policy experience, no executive experience and an unremarkable record as Senator. If he wins, he becomes Commander-In-Chief. In wartime. This will not fly in Downtown Land.
We all know that the Republican party has an uphill battle in 2008. We need to take sides in the Dem Dysfunctional Family battle. Opportunity is knocking! Because Obama is an Uptown Guy in deep trouble with the Downtown Girls. And Guys.
Wow, great analysis, recommended. This line in particular:
Not surprisingly, they were at a real disadvantage in the Democratic caucuses, time-consuming schmoozefests that are much more suited to the flexible schedules and leisurely affluence of the Uptown set.
Really gets to the tactical reason Hillary lost.
"If they were merely incompetent, then at least SOME of their actions would have been to the benefit of the country."
Hillary won the primary & Obama mananged to get more people to win the caucus. And boy, were they loud, obnoxious, and pushy at the caucus; it's no wonder Obama won the caucus part.
Why Texas has both a primary and a caucus is beyond me. But wouldn't you think the results would be the same? I mean it's the same state, same day, same voters (sort of). Just goes to show how the caucus system can be gamed.
Maybe somebody needs to tell Obama that the general election is not a caucus; and there are no super delegates to help him out. OTOH, let's not tell him.
Those who control energy, control society.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
Great job!! Recommended. You make some excellent insights here. :-)
I would say that we can attract many of the disaffected to our side without compromising our principles. Real conservative principles are good sellers, especially when they are sold by those who believe in those principles - not just one person, but the grassroots.
America's "foremost" university has what people who don't know any better regard as the best training program in labor negotiations called "Interest Based Bargaining." It is a joint venture with MIT, costs a lot of money for a week of training, and attracts people in droves.
When I became director of labor relations, I had a very junior staff. I got a bit of sniping from managers about that and I also had to work harder than I wanted to because managers would insist on having me represent them in hearings and negotiation or advise them personally rather than have someone from my staff. So, I got them all the unassailable credential of having gone to Hahvud and learned about collective bargaining there.
Now the credential looks good on one's resume though the certificate itself is pretty gyppo. Beyond that, it is a total waste of time and money. It might as well be titled "How to work together with the Union to screw the taxpayers and the legislature." It really is designed to make people who don't know anything about nuts and bolts labor relations sound and look like they're doing something special and mysterious while actually doing nothing but going to lots of expensive meetings and talking, talking, talking while accomplishing precisely nothing.
Oh, it has an elaborate vocabulary, almost an arcana, and all sorts of rituals, but mostly it is about avoiding or deflecting any controversy, the ultimate political tool. Like Obama, the skilled practitioner of interest based bargaining can sound really good while saying nothing and look really good while doing nothing. Also like Obama, it is predicated on the assumption that the other guy will play by your rules - a fatal assumption.
I earned the enmity of the lead presenter in the first hour. It starts with an exercise supposed to demonstrate something about the value of trust and "collaboration," a favorite word in academia, and when you hear it, you should cross your legs and put your hand over your wallet. Well, the game was obvious, so I just went around to the other three teams that we were supposed to be "competing" or "collaborating" with and told them how the game worked and what we had to do to get the perfect score. I have the habit of command, so it wasn't hard to get a group of sheep to follow me, so we became the only group to get that perfect score. The lead presenter asked how we had done that and I told him what I'd done. He replied that it wasn't in the rules for the scenario to do that, to which I replied that it wasn't in the rules that you couldn't break the rules. And the game was afoot!
OK, so I'm an arrogant a** who's reasonably certain that he knows more about this business than most anybody else in the Country. So, I had a lovely week showing them all the ways one could just make a mess of their lovely process all the while scrupulously following the law.
The grand exercise was mock bargaining. I was the spokesperson for a union team and an educrat was the spokesperson for the employer. The educrat had really taken this stuff to heart and was just a regular automaton in using all the right vocabulary and pursuing all the right processes. He, of course, insisted that my team engage in these negotiations in the form and manner prescribed to achieve the holy goal of collaborative bargaining. I simply refused to cooperate and when he continued to insist, filed an unfair labor practice against him asserting that he had failed or refused to bargain by preconditioning that bargaining on my team's engaging in the process he was proposing. Without belaboring a bunch of labor law, that is a per se unfair labor practice. One of the MIT profs was designated to decide things like that and since my position was pretty much black letter, he had to agree with me and make the employer team withdraw their proposal as to how the negotiations would be conducted. It produced a moment a lot like that scene in "Top Gun" where Charlie rebukes Maverick for his extreme but successful maneuver in achieving a kill, and the guy said pretty much the same thing as Charlie (paraphrasing), "while the union's action was successful, I think we've demonstrated that it is NOT the right thing to do."
I'm afraid that Mr. Obama (and a lot of other Hahvud grads) will find that there are a lot of people in the World that will not accept his vocabulary or bend to his insistence on a collaborative process.
In any event, while it was a waste of about three grand, the certificate looks good, and I had a lot of fun. And just for the record, I'd destroy anyone who tried to run that silly c**p on me if for no other reason than to show them I could.
In Vino Veritas
It tends to describe life in general.
and thanks for the plug
McCain for POTUS so the left can't ruin SCOTUS.