Where Obama has most excited me has been in his deflection of responsibility back towards the people. He is willing to occupy the space of charismatic leader, but not of magician race/economy/world fixer. In speeches like Tuesday's, he is saying 'I come as an observer, as a listener, and to channel what i see and hear -- what I hear behind closed doors as well as what i hear in town halls'.
Hillary will be hard pressed to have anything close to a response to this way of doing things, even if she comes up with some amazing content to fire back.Too true. Hillary comes off as a normal calculating politician, whereas Obama's a phenomenon. But if he's such a phenomenon, why isn't he blowing her away, rather than edging her out? The reality is that Obama appeals to upper-class, better-educated liberals and moderates. He also wins the black vote and the youth vote. These voting blocks by themselves are not usually the critical constituencies--its the elderly, whites, and the less-educated that decide elections. Someone said to me after watching Obama's speech, that he could understand the appeal that Kennedy had with people--giving speeches that actually have nuance and complexity. We're so used to talking points. Without denying this, it is also true that this appeal is limited to people who pay a lot of attention, while most people who vote don't. Kennedy didn't blow Nixon away at the ballot box in 1960.
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