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What If It Had Been More Than an Infomercial?
Obama's 30-minute broadcast was a squandered opportunity.
Americans know that they themselves can do better, that they can be better citizens. I hear it as I talk to people throughout the nation. Most would grade themselves a “B” in terms of citizenship, if that. They’re waiting for an invitation to step up, and many observers see Obama’s candidacy as just such an opportunity.
But he played it safe, sticking to the well-worn talking points and really, it seems, just hoping to make his points through repetition. I guess it is hard to fault someone in Sen. Obama’s position for steering a course that minimizes mistakes. After all, he’s trying to close the deal, and that’s a job not yet done.
But imagine if Sen. Obama’s campaign had instead seen these thirty minutes as an opportunity — not for his own campaign, but for the American people. He might have taken a different tack.
He might have gathered ten Americans from different walks of life — including, especially, people with whom he disagrees — and had a conversation with them. During this conversation he might not have spent the time trying to sell his candidacy, but instead to give voice to ordinary people, to probe what they want the public square to look and feel like. He could have even asked them: What will you do, to make this a better nation? This could have been a moment in which to make manifest the very deal Obama seems to want between government and citizens, an equal partnership.
Or, maybe, he might have spent the time weighing the relative merits of his and his opponent’s world views. He might have asked a co-host to present opposing views not in a demonic way, but with their best feet forward. After all, Sen. McCain is a serious person and his proposals are worth taking seriously. Why not examine them at their best, and explain why notwithstanding their good points, Obama would go in another direction? And why not point out the downsides of Obama’s own proposals — for everyone knows that there are upsides and downsides. This would just be leveling with the American people and telling them what they already know in their gut: there is no silver bullet and no one answer is undeniably the right one. This could have been a moment when the American electorate were finally being treated as the grown-ups they are.
Instead, Sen. Obama’s campaign chose to sell us a grill and a set of knives. It probably did his campaign good and it’s unlikely that it hurt.
But it could have been so much more.
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Brad Rourke writes a column on public life called Public Comments, produces an occasional videolog called Taxonomies, is a founder of the Maryland neighborhood blog, Rockville Central, and is in a band called The West End.
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37 Comments
1. President On Best Political Blogs » Blog Archive » What If It Were More Than an Infomercial?:[...] What If It Were More Than an Infomercial? Imagine if Obama had seen those thirty minutes as an opportunity — not for his own campaign, but for the American people. [...]
Nov 1, 2008 - 1:46 am 2. Saturday:The author amazes by placing the words
Senator Obama
opportunity
for the American people
in a single, continuous sentence. A truly dazzling literary technique.
Pardon, but Obama is for Obama…AND NO ONE ELSE.
Expediency for the promotion of Obama, at the expense of
* FAMILY,
* FRIENDS,
* CHURCH, and yes
* COUNTRY
That is why I shall vote for John McCain for President of the United States of America next Tuessday.
Nov 1, 2008 - 1:52 am 3. » What If It Were More Than an Infomercial? White House On Best Political Blogs: News And Info On White House:[...] If It Were More Than an Infomercial? Posted in November 1st, 2008 by in Uncategorized What If It Were More Than an Infomercial? Imagine if Obama had seen those thirty minutes as an opportunity — not for his own campaign, but [...]
Nov 1, 2008 - 2:06 am 4. el gordo:Well, yeah. But that would not be the Barack Obama I know. No townhalls for Barack. He has to control our image of him and – easy to forget – his image of us as poor downtrodden needful victims. And victims don´t question their savior.
It has been so all through his campaign. He has to control the horizontal. He has to control the vertical. And if you ask the wrong question you get denied access or ridiculed.
It´s the ultimate dream of any salesman: To make his pitch only to captive audiences. After four years of this, you will say Yes to just about anything.
Nov 1, 2008 - 3:13 am 5. SAF:I have two acquaintances that were for Obama before the infomercial and switched to McCain afterward. Obviously not a scientific study. They both thought it was content free. I was surprised by this as they were firmly in the Obama camp.
But the infomercial being content free isn’t surprising because has campaign is content free. I was amazed that these people woke up to that. And they wrote me to tell me about their change of heart, I did not ask them.
Nov 1, 2008 - 3:16 am 6. » What If It Had Been More Than an Infomercial? White House On Best Political Blogs: News And Info On White House:[...] If It Had Been More Than an Infomercial? Posted in November 1st, 2008 by in Uncategorized What If It Had Been More Than an Infomercial? Obama could have used those 30 minutes as an opportunity — not for his own campaign, but for the [...]
Nov 1, 2008 - 3:23 am 7. President On Best Political Blogs » Blog Archive » What If It Had Been More Than an Infomercial?:[...] What If It Had Been More Than an Infomercial? Obama could have used those 30 minutes as an opportunity — not for his own campaign, but for the American people. [...]
Nov 1, 2008 - 3:29 am 8. Emmet Sweeney:Mr Rourke, Do you really believe the nonsense you’ve written, or is this some kind of post-modernist irony? Obama certainly could have done much more – he could have told the truth about his past, his murky associations, his elitist contempt for the opinions of ordinary working people (which he of course shares with all socialists), his unbridled personal ambition, etc. Yes indeed, he could have done much more.
Nov 1, 2008 - 3:44 am 9. Rotwang:Obama’s biggest challenge has been convincing sissy-pants, bed-wetting post-9/11 Americans that he doesn’t have a forked tail growing out of his ass, a Koran in his pocket and a secret agreement with the Ghost of Elijah Muhammad to enslave the White Race and appoint Bobby Seale to the Supreme Court.
The infomercial presented him as calm, concerned, educated, “normal” and non-threatening, using all the conventional political trappings — Aaron Copeland music, real-people segments and super-nice 35mm visuals. Aside from the black candidate, it was indistinguishable from a docu-mercial for Ronald Reagan.
It may or may not have changed many minds. But, conceptually, at least, it was the perfect approach to blunt the looney-toon attacks and attempts to paint him as The Wild Man from Borneo. The Ayres-Wright-Khalidi-Communist-radical bullshit just doesn’t stick to a guy who looks like the President, talks like the President and seems about as threatening as the baseball players in Kevin Kostner’s Iowa corn field.
Nov 1, 2008 - 4:31 am 10. Ex-fetus:It doesn’t matter. Ohhhhh……BAAMA! can get 100% of the vote and 538EV’s and he still won’t be President;
http://newswithviews.com/Vieira/edwin84.htm
He IS NOT a “natural born” American citizen. The Constitution makes him ineligible to be President. So he cannot sign bills into Law, give rders or anything else POTUS does. He will be an empty suit in an empty office.
Nov 1, 2008 - 4:57 am 11. Herr Morgenholz:—Obama’s biggest challenge has been convincing sissy-pants, bed-wetting post-9/11 Americans that he doesn’t have a forked tail growing out of his ass, a Koran in his pocket and a secret agreement with the Ghost of Elijah Muhammad to enslave the White Race and appoint Bobby Seale to the Supreme Court.—
And indeed, many of us remain unconvinced.
Nov 1, 2008 - 6:36 am 12. JH:“He might have gathered ten Americans from different walks of life — including, especially, people with whom he disagrees — and had a conversation with them.”
Gathering and conversing is not the way Obama and his people have responded to “people with whom he disagrees.” What has been done with “people with whom he disagrees” is 1)investigate them (Joe the plumber) 2)STOP any further dialog (Barbara West/WTFT Orlando) 3)Shame and threaten to stop dialog (CBS 3 Philadelphia) 4)”Deplane” those reporters whose newspapers publicly endorse his opponent.
Either this quoted article statement shows an astonishing naivete or a clever, subtle highlighting of the absence of such cooperation from the Obama campaign.
I certainly hope it is not meant to be taken seriously.
JH
Nov 1, 2008 - 7:30 am 13. Jephnol:Obama doesn’t have a forked tail, he has a forked tongue–but that’s not quite the same thing is it.
I don’t vote for big government, social democrats who use expressions like “redistribute wealth”, hang out with communists and terrorists, have no executive experience, hide their records, form “truth squads”, call female reporters “sweetie”, beat-up citizens who ask tough questions, eschew interviews, claim they’re on the senate banking and finance committee to pad their resume, make trillion dollar promises, take every side of an issue, attend churches that are racist and toss around expressions like “god damn America”, refuse to salute the flag, won’t wear a flag pin then cave and wear one all the time, give $800,000.00 dollars to groups like ACORN but can’t take the time to visit wounded troops, accuses people of being racist because they disagree with his politics, will not release his donor list, takes multiple illegal small donations with a web site that uses no security measures to prevent fraud and foreign donations, etc. But I was going to pull the lever for Obama (until someone told me he was b-l-a-c-k).
Nov 1, 2008 - 7:42 am 14. Barb:Mr. Rourke,
Nov 1, 2008 - 8:13 am 15. OldSarg:You are way off the mark if you think for a minute that Obama cares what people who disagree with him think. He has made it loud and clear that nobody is allowed to disagree with him. IF this article had been written about McCain missing the mark in not calling on Americans to give to their countrymen (and I do NOT mean more taxes!) I could have bought it. All I can say is “Hogwash!”
I tried to watch it. It was just too “Chavez/ Fidel” like. Every-time Chavez or Fidel are going to take something else away from their people they go on the TV and drone on and on. This was no different.
Nov 1, 2008 - 8:21 am 16. tom:as much as Obama tries, he can not sell the deal
American’s will get in the booth and say can I really trust him, is he really experienced, no
his own elitism has alienated all but those looking for an entitlement
Nov 1, 2008 - 8:42 am 17. Kurt:Well, OldSarg, at least you tried to watch it. I turned off the TV at 7:00 and stayed out of that room until 8:40, just so I wouldn’t accidentally catch any of it. I was calling it “Barack’s Big Brother Show” shortly after I first heard about his plans.
Nov 1, 2008 - 8:51 am 18. mina:So your are also in a band. Well hopefully thats your day job. I wouldn’t quit it if I were you. Obviously you haven’t gotten the message yet.Candidate Obama will stop at nothing even reducing himself to infomercial status with the likes of Russ Whitney,Kevin Trudeau, Tony Little, Dave Del Dotto, Tom Vu, Ron Le Grande, and Claude Diamond. All the kind of guys you want to run out and throw your money at. Well for “just pennies a day” you too can join the new “American Patriotic Taxpayer Program” called socialism whether you want to or not. I can see it now, after destroying the credibility of the Presidency what next? “The Obamanation Hour” loosely modeled after the “Savage Nation” starring of course me and Michelle.
Nov 1, 2008 - 9:46 am 19. AnonymousPatriot:An hour of smoooth talking while we massage you with this handy dandy slip right out of your pocket automatic wallet remover which takes your money, while you smile with glazed over eyes of euphoria and believe you have gotten something for nothing.
It was a nice glossy piece of political propaganda for Big Government, Inc.
BHO was selling his view of America where everyone is poor and stupid. Trotting out all those people who were struggling in some way or another made me ill.
I’ve had to struggle and do without many times in my life too but I didn’t need nor ask for any government help; I relied on myself to fix the problems.
I believe it was meant to soften up the people whose money his administration is going to redistribute.
My .02
Nov 1, 2008 - 9:50 am 20. tanarg:You must be joking. Obama’s a communist with a personality disorder (or am I being redundant?). He’s not interested in any of the things you spoke of.
Nov 1, 2008 - 9:52 am 21. Jim Baker:Rotwang,
You actually have a couple of good points about the political savvy demonstrated by Obama’s infomercial. Unfortunately, you completely contaminate your discourse with vitriol toward people who don’t share your beliefs.
I totally oppose Barack Obama because his world view is, in my opinion, completely misguided. I sympathize with him on one level, that I know that we are all somewhat trapped by the viewpoints of the people we trust the most. In attempting to evaluate Obama as a potential President, I am forced to consider the viewpoints of the people he trusts the most. And Obama has done his utmost to prevent me from having any information to use in this area. I categorically reject any politician, no matter what stripe, who attempts to conceal his background.
McCain/Palin ‘08
Nov 1, 2008 - 10:39 am 22. twolaneflash:Mr. Rourke, I’m sorry The One didn’t trot out unicorns and fairies for you. I watched Obama’s patchwork of clips and rhetoric. The music was Hollowwood tear-jerky, the parade of victims was hilarious, and the ever-busy Obama goalpost movers had redefined rich yet again, to $200,000, now down to $120,000. Lipsticking this communist just leaves a pinko with red lips.
Nov 1, 2008 - 11:48 am 23. Ed Wallis:RED CHEEKS #9 –
“…a guy who looks like the President…”
* YOU MEAN THE GUY WHO REMOVED THE AMERICAN FLAG FROM HIS PLANE?
* THE GUY WHO CREATED HIS FAKE…AND POSSIBLY ILLEGAL…”PRESIDENTIAL SEAL” WITH ‘VERO POSSUMUS’ ON IT?!!?
“…talks like the President…”
* WOW…I GUESS I’D AGREE…AS LONG AS THE MORON HAS A TELEPROMPTER IN FRONT OF HIM…OTHERWISE HE’S “MISTER UHH…AHH…ERR…WAIT A MINUTE…”
“…and seems about as threatening as the baseball players in Kevin Kostner’s Iowa corn field.”
YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT. AFTER ALL, IT WAS ONLY HIS THOUSANDS OF THUGS WHO CALLED IN TO BLOCK THE RADIO STATION…*T*W*I*C*E*…
…AND IT WAS ONLY HIS LAWYERS WHO THREATENED THOSE WHO WANTED TO AIR CRITICAL TV ADS…
Maybe he IS okie dokie! /sarc
YOU FOOL. Go pick up your Axelrod Astroturfer check and leave us here to discuss matters seriously.
Nov 1, 2008 - 12:36 pm 24. NHGuy36:About the only thing we really know for sure about Sahib Obama is that we really don’t know a helluvalot about him.
Nov 1, 2008 - 12:40 pm 25. The Historian:ALLIED LEADERS:APPREHENSIVE ABOUT OBAMA?
Why is it that you can hear a pin drop in democratic capitals around the globe? Easy: major concerns over the Obama candidacy.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/allied-leaders- apprehensive-about-obama.html
Nov 1, 2008 - 12:43 pm 26. john from cinncinati:i don’t need someone that doesn’t give a rats tail about me trying to control my life. i have the experience to be able to screw my life up, don’t need the government to handle that for me.
Nov 1, 2008 - 1:18 pm 27. Edward A.:I have two acquaintances that were for McCain/Palin before the infomercial and switched to Obama afterward. I was surprised by this as they were firmly in the McCain/Palin camp.
Nov 1, 2008 - 1:32 pm 28. Saturday:Sorry, “Edward A.” #27.
We here know “SAF” (#5).
Your copycat troll-post doesn’t play. Ask Axelrod for a refund on your way out.
Nov 1, 2008 - 3:19 pm 29. JD:I along with several of my friends turned it off, threw out the Kool-Aid and voted early the next day for McCain. You finally got to see what a loser this guy was. The same old, same old. There`s nothing new here. Just more BS. Today I want your vote, tomorrow you can go to hell.
Nov 1, 2008 - 6:46 pm 30. Zeno:Obama’s new infomercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkBTHuZQ8xo
Nov 1, 2008 - 7:36 pm 31. Mandy:After reading some of these comments, I am more than ever convinced that many citizens of the United States do not DESERVE a President with the stature and character of Barack Obama. Luckily, all of you are about to be outvoted and will get better than you deserve.
Nov 1, 2008 - 7:39 pm 32. AdrianS:Obama’s support is falling fast. The polls have him BEHIND McCain and Obama is DOWN from one to several points.
All McCain ads are FULL STEAM AHEAD: Check-out the new ads from LET FREEDOM RING at
http://www.letfreedomringusa.com/pages/election-2008-tv-spots.
Let’s ELECT John McCain … PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Nov 1, 2008 - 7:41 pm 33. Shakes:Gosh..
Now that you mention it, both candidates could be spending their ad money encouraging me to donate to the Red Cross.
…What selfish jerks.
Nov 2, 2008 - 8:14 am 34. ML:Post#4 “el gordo” nailed it like a bullseye: Obama claims to be for the people but controls the message, the image, the press, and destroys citizens who dare ask his policies: vertical and horizontal control are maneuvers right out of Fidel’s and Chavez’ playbook. They were just as charismatic and inspirational to the masses; and once they gained control of the government….they changed the constitution and you know the rest…. With a trifecta of Dems in congress, senate and WH; we’re in for a lot of trouble. I suggest we begin rallying support for a nationwide amendment 11, as we are doing in California.
Nov 2, 2008 - 11:28 am 35. ML:Correction: Amendment 2 of Calfornia’s Constitution allows for a recall of their governor; other 15 states have the same amendment. Propostion 11 currently, will allow redistricting by a commission, that way politicians are not redistricting to elect themselves into office.
Nov 2, 2008 - 11:54 am 36. Jerry Cohen:Obama’s cult of personalty appeals mostly to the young, as well as those desperate souls searching for a cause or idol to lead them to the promise land. Those insecure folks willing to overlook his cadre of thugs, gangsters, and terrorists.
Fortunately, most Americans are mature, stable members of society. Whatever else, they must resist the intimidation from these many bogus polls. For THEY are the majority. If they just show up and vote for John McCain, this threat to our liberty shall pass.
Nov 2, 2008 - 6:07 pm 37. Dani:it’s scary how quickly people are willing to be followers to someone that says nothing, does nothing and believes in the total opposite of what most americans believe to be ” The American Way”
Nov 3, 2008 - 11:23 am