Odd that no one else has said it
So there it was, on a Yahoo take from Bloomberg. The quote that I've been waiting for.
"Obama is a mediocre Chicago politician who voted present more than 100 times while in the Illinois Senate,'' said Linda Mahoney, a paralegal from Silver Spring, Maryland. "Even if he gets a female to run for vice president, we will not vote for him.''
I will carefully avoid every metaphor that comes to mind about the person being quoted: we've had enough of that. I don't want to throw insults, I want to point out that Americans have a completely wrong and wrong-headed set of expectations about presidents. This worked to Clinton's advantage, because she could parlay eight years in an honorary national position, another eight years in an honorary state position, and concurrent terms as a Republican chew toy, into "experience."
Through all this campaign, I have been irresistibly drawn to consider the last Illinois politician with a similar lack of experience to run for, and win, the presidency. His opponents were sure they were more experienced and better qualified. They were perhaps right, so the Illinois politician brought them into his cabinet to get the benefit of that experience. The politician was belittled and reviled by most of his own party and by most of the media for the bulk of his first term. Once he delivered a speech that the most learned speaker of the day recognised would outlast both of them. Not one reporter reviewed it favourably, and the politician himself thought it was a failure.
His gifts of persistence, of patience, of organisation, his genius for making the right gesture at the right moment were invisible to most Americans until after he was dead. They are still invisible to the dogmatists amongst us. Despite those gifts, the Illinois politician did make mistakes. At times, he did not quite rise above his own clay and the prejudices of his time. But he rose just often enough and just far enough to justify the respect in which he is held, long after his own time.
There will be a quiz.
The point about that politician from Illinois, and our current one, is that once in a very great while there is a profound shift in events, and the human race is fortunate when that part most affected by the shift in events, and the person who can ride that shift, come together. They can come together in the most unlikely ways, and the person can be the most improbable one could imagine.
I believe this is happening. We have reached one of those moments when the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. So, my confidence is with someone for whom what was matters less than what lies ahead. No conventional experience is preparation for that.
"Obama is a mediocre Chicago politician who voted present more than 100 times while in the Illinois Senate,'' said Linda Mahoney, a paralegal from Silver Spring, Maryland. "Even if he gets a female to run for vice president, we will not vote for him.''
I will carefully avoid every metaphor that comes to mind about the person being quoted: we've had enough of that. I don't want to throw insults, I want to point out that Americans have a completely wrong and wrong-headed set of expectations about presidents. This worked to Clinton's advantage, because she could parlay eight years in an honorary national position, another eight years in an honorary state position, and concurrent terms as a Republican chew toy, into "experience."
Through all this campaign, I have been irresistibly drawn to consider the last Illinois politician with a similar lack of experience to run for, and win, the presidency. His opponents were sure they were more experienced and better qualified. They were perhaps right, so the Illinois politician brought them into his cabinet to get the benefit of that experience. The politician was belittled and reviled by most of his own party and by most of the media for the bulk of his first term. Once he delivered a speech that the most learned speaker of the day recognised would outlast both of them. Not one reporter reviewed it favourably, and the politician himself thought it was a failure.
His gifts of persistence, of patience, of organisation, his genius for making the right gesture at the right moment were invisible to most Americans until after he was dead. They are still invisible to the dogmatists amongst us. Despite those gifts, the Illinois politician did make mistakes. At times, he did not quite rise above his own clay and the prejudices of his time. But he rose just often enough and just far enough to justify the respect in which he is held, long after his own time.
There will be a quiz.
The point about that politician from Illinois, and our current one, is that once in a very great while there is a profound shift in events, and the human race is fortunate when that part most affected by the shift in events, and the person who can ride that shift, come together. They can come together in the most unlikely ways, and the person can be the most improbable one could imagine.
I believe this is happening. We have reached one of those moments when the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. So, my confidence is with someone for whom what was matters less than what lies ahead. No conventional experience is preparation for that.
posted by Uncle | 00:07
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