The Chicago Tribune’s Paul West reports that Barack Obama plans to deliver policy speeches over the next few months, the breadth of which may depend on how confident he is that he will win. If a recent focus group moderated by Democratic pollster Peter Hart is any indicator, Obama may have to get specific:
“I just know ‘vote for change.’ I don’t know what change,” [Janet Mader, 32] says. “I know there has been a lot of media coverage, but I’m still waiting for the meat of it.”
***
Kimberly Aldinger, 45, of Seven Valleys, a dialysis technician who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary, is open to Obama but “until I see what he wants to change and how he’s going to change it, I am totally undecided.”
Sheryl Randol, 51, a single mother of three who works for a pharmaceutical company, wants to see the Iraq war ended but doesn’t know enough about either candidate.
Obama “has to show me that he’s got the intelligence and the people around him to make a difference globally,” she says. “I want to see concrete plans, not just spin.”
Back in January, I noted that month’s Pew poll on the general desire for “change”:
Overall, more than a third of voters (35%) rate the ability to bring about needed change as the most important candidate quality, followed by saying what the candidate believes (24%), having the best experience (19%), and caring about average people (15%).
The poll also showed a bipartisan agreement of the sort of change they would like to see — more bipartisan cooperation (39%) and reducing the influence of money and special interests (20%). Changes in domestic or foreign policy ranked below those two responses by a decent margin (17% and 14%, respectively).
A focus group is necessarily limited, but it may be that floater voters are in that slice of the electorate that does not buy into the fantasy that a new president will magically stop 200 years of partisanship and faction. That could be a problem for Obama if they are reresentative of a general electorate that rejects wealth redistribution and thinks the government is already doing too much.
Sounds just like Susan Sarandon …
What ABOUT hope? Where’s the discourse? Why all this concentration on change?
Wait. I thought we were the change.
We were, ‘feet, waiting for ourselves to show-up. After shifting our weight back and forth and side to side (chorus-like) for six or seven months now (has it been that long?) without anything showing up, we tired of waiting and left ourselves and went to look for a candybar down to the StopandShop. Maybe we’ll be back when things change?
Sdferr,
Personally, I drive past the StopandShop. With the radio on at night. ‘Cause I’m a roadrunner.
Karl, I think you nailed it with that last paragraph, specifically “that slice of the electorate that does not buy into the fantasy that a new president will magically stop 200 years of partisanship and faction.”
It has been ever thus, and anyone who has read the history of this country knows it. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. Besides, the ones who are screaming the loudest about “cooperation” (i.e., Dems) are actually wanting capitulation. A nontrivial difference.
Hell, I WANT the Congress tied up in knots. I think it was Thoreau who said “No man’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session”, and truer words were never spoken. The more deadlocked they are, the less likely they can harm me and mine.
And the notion at ObamaLamaDingDong is going to be able to “changeytude” this is ludicrous.
Bipartisanship:
“A state of affairs in which Republicans betray their supporters in order to mollify their political enemies and the editorial boards of The Washington Post and New York Times. Cf., capitulation, professional suicide.”
-Tony Snow
Karl, I’ve got a unsubstantiated feeling that’s an allusion to a pop-song lyric, but unfortunately, schwi-i-ing, it went sailing right over my head. My musical tastes are mostly stuck in the three centuries previous to the last, though I can add to the MusicMan allusions in ‘Dumbing Down’…….
Ice Cream. Ice Cream. Ice Creeeeeeam.
Sdferr,
You are correct; it was an allusion to Jonathan Richman (and The Modern Lovers’) fabulous “Roadrunner.” The drummer went on to The Cars; the 2nd guitarist/keyboardist went on to the Talking Heads. Richman is perhaps most widely seen as the street musician in “There’s Something About Mary.” At the moment, you can stream it if you have a high-speeed connection.
Obama’s campaign, in many ways, is like the campaign of John Kerry, without the “reporting for duty.”
The difference is that at his web site Obama actually does take some (negotiable) stands, but for the “great unwashed” it looks the same, quite amorphic.
Ah!
Then how about the sequentia to Ice Cream, sung by Baracky (solo in four part harmony):
How can there be any Sin in sincere? Where is the good in goodbye? Your apprehensions confuse me dear. Puzzle and mi-is-ti-fy, mystify tell me what can be fair in farewell, dear, while one single star shines above? How can there be any Sin in sincere? Aren’t we sincerely in love?
Thanks for the link, Karl. Gave it a listen. Do I hear a faint echo of the Lou Reed, John Cale school of music, or am I projecting from too small a sample?
Sdferr,
You are dead on target.
Jesus, talk about down in the weeds, that wiki thing is starting to get scary (though, of course no-one was talking about weed). My ex-wife used to make me listen to a Lou Reed song about how G.H.W. Bush was a motherfucker or some other such nonsense and when in a particularly prickly mood would pull out V. Underground Cd’s and pound me with them. Sigh. I think I’ll stick with Meredith Wilson, though J. Richman is certainly cheerier than Reed et al.
Yeah, Richman is generally much, much more upbeat than Reed or Cale. Reed is a bit of a shame because he’s known for his negativity, but his rare positive songs — like “I’ll Be Your Mirror” — are among his best.
Eh. Most depressing song I’ve heard lately is “Done Me Little Good”:
I’ve said before that the Reed album I like best is “Berlin” but it is so down I have to be in a certain frame of mind to listen to it. And it’s not a mental place I go to by choice.
If Obama is elected it will be in the main rotation, sadly.
Musical whiplash: “Chim Chim Cher-ee” followed by Hawkwind’s “Damnation Alley”.
[…] would be risking all of that to pick up centrists, some of whom may be looking to get out of Iraq sooner than later. Those numbers can probably be broken down […]