Senator Obama has led an electric campaign. Last night Senator Ted ( the billionaire...holdings in the caymans, holdings in Mexico..holdings in China ) Kennedy nearly had a stroke in front of an audience of college kids enumerating high sounding rhetoric that is excellent stuff for Sunday morning sermons but unfortunately gives very little indications about real problems facing real people here in the very, very real America.

I am as enthusiastic as the next guy about American spirit and inspirational deliveries by highly motivated candidates. I really do like listening to Obama but there is one very deeply troubling aspect to almost all of his rhetoric.

Catch phrases like hope or together we can sound great when introducing a general theme for improvement but they do nothing to indicate what might be or what might not be done to effect the changes.

Senator Obama says he is going to get things done...he still hasn't really said what things he is talking about though. Also he seems to have forgotten that the process of taking an idea from Dream to law is a meticulous, arduous, hard fought and sometimes bloody process. If he does make it in he will find out in short order just how deeply that process affects the real possibilities of what he can and cannot get done. Strange considering the fact that he has been there for many a filibuster and political battle in the Senate....was he not paying attention? How does he intend to take so many unpopular ideas and just ram them through his opposition?

Hillary on the other hand has enumerated real, tangible process steps as to how she intends to deal with the problems of Manufacturing loss, housing costs and health care issues. I don't particularly like her plans but at least she has plans. To date I don't know what Obama is offering. and I have grown tired of Sunday morning inspirationals substituting for substance.

Additionally Obama has not offered out any of his acumen on economic matters like inflation and monetary policy. Clinton has been a bit shy on those details also. I fail to see how a person without a degree in economics can actually step up to the plate in the white house...but alas this is not a requirement...it probably should be.

There is no question that people are hungry...but like so many spoiled kids who don't want to eat their vegetables they probably would moan....waggle and stomp if they had to listen to the real solutions in terms of how to balance a check book, use caution with credit and live within their own means. Instead they have their ears tickled by the thoughts of human expletives and visions of a knight in shining armor. What they probably don't see is the fact that none of these guys would be where they are now if they didn't at one point or another master the finer points of how to take care of themselves first....doubt what I say? I give you exhibit A....Obama's complex investment portfolio and his multi million dollar Chicago property stake. Same with Edwards and Clinton and Hucakbee...these guys/gals didn't get where they are by being Mr. Nice guy all of the time. Is this the same Dream that he is holding out to the average Joe? Does his rhetoric on cultural and financial equality include elevating all Americans to the status of Local Mcmansion owner? If not then I submit to you that somewhere in his thougt process there is a short circuit present.

Dream speak is great stuff for children's bed time stories but it is dangerous stuff for political campaigns. It tends to reach the " Better Angels " ( a la Ted Kennedy ) in all of us and that's not a bad thing...it's just that it doesn't pay the bills and dreams are very hard to have on an empty stomach.

Please don't take my name in vain !! I am simply a figment of your imagination.

Dreams are what we are made of. And it is really all "unreal".

Suffice it to say, in some areas of this world, there are those who truly consider this "real life" simply an ocean of dreams in which we think we are real. Therefore, if we cannot truly understand the foundations of our ignorance and how far away we are from the "true" reality of which Polo speaks, then everything we live and breathe is just as much dream-speak, dream-think and dream-lived.

Blathering sounds good for those who don't know the difference. The strident rhetoric with which I heard Senator Kennedy rap out to those in the audience, with his niece Caroline K pretending that what he was saying was "true" reality, was simply boring. After so many decades of listening to the strident rhetoric and oratorical style of Senator Kennedy, one realizes that that is all it is. Loud banging on the pianoforte which should otherwise allow for many other gradations and shadings of emotional expression. And all the lemmings simply stand and wait, or follow the stridency over the cliff edges..

Stridency is no longer a politician's emotional rhetoric standard of choice in this day and age. McCain is the only republican whose entire message is shrouded in a calm, collected, reasonable logic-speak that somehow is very appealing.

However, Madame Clinton has a better grasp and is better emotionally prepared to deal as a sitting female POTUS in the WhiteHouse than is Sen Obama. He is just beginning his 'sense of political presence" with this campaign. He is truly untested and also is one who has not ever been in the military. As a man, he would hardly be able to handle being CinC when a real critical situation arises. He would simply defer to his Secy of Defense...whose goals are more in line with the military-industrial complex goals than any social politician's ideas of "hope and change". Ooops! There goes "hope and change" down the toilet... :)

Madame Clinton not only has been constantly sending her messages out to the electorate for quite some time now, and also has defined how most of those will be implemented, but also is at this point in time, being cautious in her economic plans and use of economic terminology, so as not to "blight her campaign" early on.

Huckabee had one of the most energizing thoughts about improving immediately the plight of those who are unemployed to raise the employment percentages by indicating that a 150 billion dollars should be spent in the american infrastrucuture [roads, bridges] to repair and improve so much of what is now obsolete, dangerous and falling behind the times in terms of safety. American employment, american steel, american concrete and all other supplies would greatly and immediately enhance the american economy, and that is simply one idea of his.

The real problems of inflation, the decrease in the dollar's value and other international impacts that influence our economic state, as well as the Federal Reserve Board status and relationship to the "elite central bankers" is definitely at this point in time in the campaign a taboo subject.

Only if Madame Clinton gets to be the nominee, will she then get more bold, audacious and plan-specific in her economic message and content. But you can be sure that she won't say anything outrageous, like Ron Paul, to suddenly "create a Campaign Mycardial Infarction" !! Don't give away the state secrets before you get to the throne!!

To give out too many "ideas" for the other bugaboos stomping the campaign trail would be foolish. Already, EVERY ONE OF THE CAMPAIGNERS is using the word of "CHANGE" as a ticket to win the political campaign struggle and garner merit for themselves. Using the word "hope" is now declasse, outmoded and passe. It's as good as the "flower people of the 60s"..which means it is a generation behind the times.

We need 21st century-speak, not dream-speak, to bring plausability and real functionality to any politician's campaign.

Don't take my name in vain....for I am simply a dreamscape wandering throughout your thoughts and a dreambeat silently living in your heart of hearts.

:)

Ever go to a restaurant and you look at the menu and there's burgers and fries, spaghetti, and southern fried chicken and then there's something you ain't never seen on the menu before?

I've already had my quota of burgers and fries, I hates spaghetti, and my heart can't take southern fried chicken no more. I'll take the risk.

If you want to know what Obama is about, I suggest you read the stuff on his website. This lack of substance argument is most often regurgitated by those who palette is oriented to those burgers and fries. People who want their meat ground up for them and smothered in ketchup.

Here's what you get with the Clinton Bule Plate Special:

Two years of Democrats trying to ramrod the decades-old vainglorious Democratic agenda down America's throat and vengeful assaults on the conservative establishment.

Then a side order of a Republican congressional takeover in 2010 as American's remember that socialism is a little rich for their blood. Followed by two more years of devisive wrangling while nothing gets done, just as if today was yesterdays leftovers. Thanks, but no thanks. I already tried that. It gives me heartburn.

I look at who's aligned with what and that's what makes my choice. It's not that I don't like Hillary. In many ways, I admire her. I don't admire her supporters. They strike me as being fairly narrow-minded nasty folk. Most of the people I know who support Romney appear the same. I don't get that impression from Obama or McCain people - and many of them seem interchangeable.

I agree with Hillary in principle far more than I agree with McCain, but McCain seems pretty capable of getting past partisan rancor. I think Obama could do the same. To me, that is more important. I firmly believe it not only possible but necessary for Americans to agree in principle on their future direction. This is going to be a rough century. I don't want to see half of this country having to drag the other half along kicking and screaming, only to see it turn around and go the other direction four years later. We ain't going to get very far going sideways.

So I know it's a risk, but I got to think that Obama is the only one right now who can cut through this left-right shit and address the future with 'yes, we can', because everyone else in their partisan rheetoric is declaring 'no, we won't'.

But, I don't think Obama will make it to the main course, and so America - rather than run on an empty stomach, will get its just desserts.

The average news story from the campaign trail is 86 seconds long. The average political ad is either 15 seconds or 30...heard it from Bill Moyer a couple of days ago, but I don't recall exactly what he said. Nobody can say much of anything in such short gasps.

Add to that two facts: one, many people have a problem with attention span; two, detailed plans can inspire more criticism than admiration.

More to that, a friend recently told me he'd just received a voluminous (OK, I think he said 8 pages) glossy Obama brochure that described his ideas in some detail. He didn't elaborate, but said it was a good antidote to the soundbyte message problem. As you might expect, Obama details some of his positions on his website.

<link>

OK, not detail to the nth degree, but a lot more than he can say in a debate or stump speech.

Perhaps Obama believes a soundbyte campaign more calculated to inspire than inform is better now. (See Charlie Rose, 1/28/2008) with ...

Martha Raddatz
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Evan Thomas
James Fallows
Matthew Dowd
Jacob Weisberg
Ronald Walters

Maybe the idea is to express general principles now in order to be more flexible later. Obama isn't prescient in regard to economics or foreign policy...nobody is...and it might be harmful to his credibility if he tried to be too categorical.

Anyway, somebody on Charlie Rose said the Kennedys' endorsement was intended to signal their view that Obama was a substantial person, capable of leadership.

Lots of possibilities.

Obama video, ten minutes.

<link>

it is notoriously non-committal. Thanks for your input...it was helpful and yes you are right we do need to take a chance. Really it's always a chance isn't it? You are no doubt correct about my predilection to have my meat ground up and neatly separated from my potatos... but dammit man I need room for the gravy volcano!

always a pleasure to read your input..

jo

Add to that two facts: one, many people have a problem with attention span; two, detailed plans can inspire more criticism than admiration

This is a serious and very real problem with the American electorate...I am amazed when I watch the European processes at now much the average voter there seems to know the candidate and what he/she stands for.

Is it the McDonald's food?

jo

Get thee to the closet now! There are urgent matters that need to be rammed home!

Still seems to be hands off on the particulars but then again perhaps too particualr is also too presumptuous.

Thanks for the link.

Songs to sing in a closet...it is raining in the closet ! I dreamt I heard these songs while flying to a closet with a "Don't Interrupt" sign on the floor! Sweet Siren

Oh siren sing for me your song

A comfort lost for which I long

Against which will and wit must fail...

What mortal man could then prevail?

The heart more treacherous than a sword

Unleashed; obeys not but is Lord

Of fate and master of despair!!

This vessel truth and lie must share.

Yet in such pleasure let me drown

A willing slave to siren sound

With dreams and wings my passion dove

Comes on the wind with words of love.

Where is the dreambird??

There, in my heart of pleasure

wrapped tight in my arms

She has come to me,

an angel of the night-time;

fantasy has wings.

Delightful she is

consumation of my dreams

precious, womanly.

Chorus:

Oh where oh where is my little bird blue? Oh where oh where can it be? It's singing and having a fling in the closet;It's singing and having a fling in the closet.

you're going to catch it for this one. The Obama-nauts are going to eat you for lunch, if they haven't already. I'm bookmarking your post & urging you to keep on keepin' on, no matter how much the Obama-maniacs try to tear you to shreds or to ...

(more likely) "correct" your misguided thinking. Nice work, j.o.

Best line: "I have grown tired of Sunday morning inspirationals substituting for substance." Exactly! If I want inspiration, I'll go read a poem, or listen to a (real) sermon, or some Mozart or Telemann, or opera -- I don't need it from someone who I prefer to look at as a leader of, and role model for, our country. I was interested to discover, a few posts ago, that omf Appy is also unmoved by the campaign of the Junior Senator from Illinois.

of it is spot-on. Just more of his vague, dreamy promises and v. little substance to back them up. Someone sent me a copy of Teddy Kennedy's email, announcing his support for BO -- and it's even more idealistic (so ironic, given who it's coming from)
and vague, and cloud-based and gauzy than BO's website. (Hard to imagine, but it is...I'll send it if you like.)

As for taking a chance? Depends on how/who you define it. Some might say we are taking a chance, those of us who support Senator Clinton. And I see very little, if any, evidence that Sen. Clinton will not be a uniting, aisle-crossing, bipartisan-working President. She has been, as a Senator, and all the Repubs. she has worked with, credit her for it.

Good Lord!

Deja-Vu ?