Obama, Man of the People Magazine

(This was written by me late last week, and appears this morning on BoomerGirl.com as RedSkirt, along with Blue Skirt's response.)

Barack Obama, Man of the People Magazine, darling of the media and the Hollywood set. Quite the photo on the beaches of Hawaii, one of the many places Barack Obama calls home.

The man’s a living embodiment of multiculti chic. Well, granted his gut is a little firmer than many his age, but will this photo-op campaign be enough? It worked really well for John "Wetsuit" Kerry and Al "Torrid Staged Kiss" Gore (we won't mention the enhanced Rolling Stone cover), not to mention Michael "Tank" Dukakis.

I’m not sure he's an alpha male even by the Dem standards of "carefully cultivated masculinity" (my view here) , but that may not matter to his legions of fans. He’s a hero of our time, a celebrity candidate who draws crowds wherever he goes, and an otherwise sensible (for a liberal) woman reporter writes about wanting to follow him into the locker room.

Obama announces he's in the 2008 race for president the day after we commemorated Martin Luther King, and will formally announce a couple of days before Lincoln's birthday. Quite the political calculus---I'm not in their league but I am. It's quite a stretch for someone whose parents are both Ph.D.s and is second generation Harvard, who as a child attended a private school with the Hawaiian royal family. He may not be the Man from Hope, but his already written best-selling biography is called The Audacity of Hope. He’s giving Hillary some serious competition, with a charisma rivaling her husband’s, but you have to wonder if all this doesn’t seem like name-dropping in a big way. He speaks loftily in interviews of "moments in American history". Doesn’t it seem a little too wannabe, not enough there there?

Obama portrays himself as an outsider, non-partisan, even post partisan. But after all, he does work in Washington D.C. Can he pull it off? At some point voters need a little substance. I mean, where's the beefcake? uh, the beef?

Time for, pardon me, a gutcheck.

Obama may really believe that Americans are "hungry" for change, and that "meaningful change begins at the grass roots", but what does this really mean?

Obama may talk comfortable-centrist, but his record in the Illinois legislature and in Congress is very liberal.He may suggest he offers something new, as one of the next generation, that Hillary is over the hill with the rest of us Boomers, but his policies are recycled from the '70s, all pain no gain. His record is left in Illinois and in Congress he is one of its most liberal members, voting with his party nearly 95 percent of the time.

Obama may talk about meaningful change at the grass roots, (video) but when he had his chance to make an impact on reform at home in Cook County and Illinois he stuck with business as usual.

Obama may write a biography at the beginning of his political career comparing himself to some of the greats of our time, but what did he do with the proceeds of his book but buy a multimillion dollar mansion, trading up for more land by tapping a political fixer, now indicted. Obama himself may be just a little bit too hungry a politician, wanting too much too soon.

He's looking to make his formal announcement just before Honest Abe's birthday, but Abraham Lincoln's home in Springfield is too small, too modest a setting. A Chicago columnist compares Obama to Lincoln who supposedly didn't have much experience either. Apparently Obama's still pushing this theme, first introduced a couple of years ago when he suggested he was an even greater figure than Lincoln. As Peggy Noonan put it then, Obama's resume is a "log cabin free zone. So far it also is a greatness-free zone. If he keeps talking about himself like this it always will be."

If we wanted to vote for someone very personable with a pretty face, little political experience and a good bio, why not support Oprah herself as our first black President? At least her rise is more substance than symbolism. Do we really want a President-in-training? It's the toughest job in the world.

And remember, Obama may come from a populous state, but Illinois right now is virtually a one party state where Republicans are essentially powerless and pathetically eager for a few kind words from the other side of the aisle. Illinois does not provide a tough training ground for national office, if you’ve never had significant opposition. His Senate election was a fluke, with both of his major opponents sidelined by sex scandals. Obama is a Hyde Park liberal, elected from an area with a lot of University of Chicago students, and while he may have bumped John Kerry off the burger menu in Harvard Square, it’s still an open question whether he’s even ready for a national campaign, not to mention the presidency. He himself has suggested that running a national campaign will be much like running the country. (!)

His campaign will be headquartered in Chicago, which is the natural choice. But while he has been in favor of earmark reform on Capitol Hill, he has fumbled on ethics reform, an area where Illinois has an especially bad reputation. Dead voters on the rolls come to mind. Machine politics. Numerous active federal investigations. And Obama has drawn unwelcome attention to himself by his association with the indicted Rezko, backing the corrupt machine choice for Cook County President, and most recently, celebrating Martin Luther King Day with a mayor under investigation for destroying evidence in a criminal case.

And while Barack may be able to berate NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd, I don’t think the bullies of the world will be impressed. Being an anti-war candidate is not enough, you have to come up with a better alternative. Obama is neither true celebrity, nor true statesman, neither fish nor fowl. At least not yet.

So maybe America will, in the end, stick with People Magazine for pure entertainment, and set their sights on someone else for President.

UPDATE: I would just mention to Blue Skirt Condi Rice, Colin Powell as prominent AND ABLE members of the Bush administration, chosen on MERIT, as well as prominent practitioners of other faiths as ambassador to Iraq and head of the RNC to name a few, so I think the White Christian assertion is unfounded. And I don't object to Obama as black, or as a person of faith, I object to him as a liberal. I would further say that for him, being black is an asset, perhaps his only political asset---if he were white, he'd be just another liberal son of privilege who went to Harvard Law, and did a little community organizing while filling in the time before admission.

UPDATE: Latest polling here. Also Rich Miller, Capitol Fax, via RCP on Obama's rock star aura, bringing to mind JFK.