What's so different about Obama?
Updated on 07 January 2008
He's about change, that much is clear. But what about policy? That's what US commentators and bloggers alike are wondering.
Obama's triumph in Iowa has left the Clinton campaign machine smarting, and many wondering what, beyond the sweeping proclamation of "change", he has to offer by way of policy.
"Pimp the sizzle and ditch the steak?"
No Quarter blog is confused:
"Mr Obama says, 'I am the change!' Change to what, we ask? Mr. Obama says, 'Turn the page!' Turn to what page from what book, we ask? Mr Obama says, 'Hope we can believe in!' Hope for what, we ask? The siren song remains the same - a lot of smoke and mirrors and no ideas...
"Poke any policy proposal put forward by Mr Obama and the air will rush out of the bogus balloon. There is no there there, when it comes to substance or his favorite word, change."
But is this a fair summing up of the Obama campaign? Does it, as No Quarter asserts, merely "pimp the sizzle and ditch the steak?"
Last year the Economist's Lexington was similarly suspicious of Obama's policy credentials: "If policies were all, Mrs Clinton could smother the Obama challenge under a pile of policy papers," the column said.
His preference for what Lexington describes as "uplifting speeches to detailed policy recommendations" has clearly irked many commentators.
"Grass-roots rather than treetops"
But others believe his lack of experience at top levels of diplomacy is not the handicap critics make it out to be. When it comes to foreign policy, New York Times columnist Nicholas D Kristof believes Obama's unique experience is of a higher value.
"So how would an Obama administration differ from the Bill Clinton presidency in foreign policy?" Kristof asks. "One way, he said, would be a much greater emphasis on promoting education, health care and development in Africa and other poor regions - not just for humanitarian reasons, but also with an eye to national security.
"What sets Mr Obama apart is the way his training has been at the grass-roots rather than in the treetops. And that may be the richest kind of background of all, yielding not just experience, but also wisdom."
"Gaffes often was the policy"
Frank Rich, also writing for the New York Times, says that Obama's policy has been given an airing, just not been recognised as such:
"The Washington wisdom about Mr Obama has often been just as wrong as that about Mrs Clinton. We kept being told he was making rookie mistakes and offering voters wispy idealistic sentiments rather than the real beef of policy. But what the Beltway mistook for gaffes often was the policy."
But still what nags at many is the concern that Obama lacks experience. Richard Cohen, writing for the Washington Post, says: "I am a bit enamored with Obama as well. But the man's public record is thin and the glow from him is distracting and my intuition tells me that sometimes intuition is no substitute for experience."
"Fascination with the horse race"
Charles Peters, also in the Washington Post, rushes to Obama's defence, saying:
"People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements. One reason these accomplishments are unfamiliar is that the media have not devoted enough attention to Obama's bills and the effort required to pass them, ignoring impressive, hard evidence of his character and ability.
"Since most of Obama's legislation was enacted in Illinois, most of the evidence is found there - and it has been largely ignored by the media in a kind of Washington snobbery that assumes state legislatures are not to be taken seriously."
A problem Peters attributes to "reporters' fascination with the horse race at the expense of substance that they assume is boring, a fascination that despite being ridiculed for years continues to dominate political journalism."
But maybe, as Paul Krugman observes in the New York Times, the change is itself the policy. "Not to put too fine a point on it, Barack Obama won his impressive victory in Iowa with a sunny, upbeat message of change.
"But there's a powerful political faction in this country that understands very well that any real change will create losers as well as winners. In particular, any serious progressive reform of health care, let alone a broader attempt to reduce middle-class insecurity and inequality, will have to mean higher taxes on the affluent.
"And members of that faction will do whatever it takes to scare people into believing that change means disaster for the economy."
"That Obama's message of change is in itself a prospect of policies which will be unpopular with some."
