fox | just a quick note --

I'm feeling better and better about Barack Obama.

I was leaning a little Edwards-... well, Edwards-ward for a long time, simply because I didn't have enough hope that enough of our fellow citizens could bring themselves to vote for anyone but a white man to think of Clinton or Obama as the best nominee. (Tortured syntax, I know. Lots of embedding. I'll give you a minute. Everyone back with me?) If we could make one of these out of the three of them, it'd be a walkover -- instead of a heart/head/hands trio, we've sort of got a sincerity/experience/electability trio, and an amalgam of the three candidates would be the perfect storm, wouldn't it?

Alas, candidate-grafting technology is still unavailable to us, so we have to pick one. And I know it's still early days, so Obama could still end up not being the nominee; and I'd be fine with either of the other two as the nominee, truly, because even Bill Richardson could probably beat the (with apologies to my right-leaning friends) clowns and whatnot the Republicans are trying to decide among. But the more I pay attention over the past few days, the more I like Obama, and the more I find myself (despite how wonderful the phrase "Madam President" would be) hoping he wins, and, because the guy is a tremendous orator with that kind of effect on people, daring to imagine it, not with "if", but with "when".

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even Bill Richardson could probably beat the (with apologies to my right-leaning friends) clowns

No apology necessary here. The Republicans have a pretty weak field of contenders. That said, I doubt Richardson could beat Ron Paul, let alone the forerunners.

hoping he wins, and, because the guy is a tremendous orator with that kind of effect on people, daring to imagine it, not with "if", but with "when".

He is quite Reagan-esque in that regard.

Reagan-esque

You will not succeed in provoking me with your fightin' words. :-)

Obama's rhetorical effect doesn't seem to work on me-- in fact it gets my hackles up and makes me suspicious. Partly, I think, because that is the effect that most oratory has on me, but also because Obama's piety makes his rhetoric feel very exclusive to me, and all political oratory feels threatening when addressed to someone who's been positioned as an outsider. Edwards is still the only candidate whose public expressions of religiosity seem like private convictions, and not like threats.

Edwards has been seeming more and more to be a little slicker than I'm really comfortable with. Which, I mean, they're all slick, they wouldn't have got where they are without being slick, but somehow on Edwards it's more visible. Which may just be the flip side of the only-white-guy thing that made me more confident in him before; I don't know. In any case, they're also all pious, of course, at least outwardly and probably genuinely. It's a difference between whether they describe the piety as what drives them or as what they think ought to drive you, which I tend to see as shaking out along party lines. [shrug] I hope if Obama does win you get more comfortable with him eventually.

It's a difference between whether they describe the piety as what drives them or as what they think ought to drive you, which I tend to see as shaking out along party lines.

As you say -- I'd rather live in a democracy run by theists than in a theocracy, though both of them get outvoted by the actual separation of church and state that's -- oh, wait, that's right! -- in the constitution.

I'm pleased by the thought of a president who (a) can speak in complete sentences, and (b) thinks I'm a human being who can be allowed some basic civil rights. Which means I'm fine with any of the democrats, really. Keep that bar nice and low.

I don't see having someone in charge who happens to be a theist as necessarily inconsistent with constitutional separation of church and state. (And neither do you, I know -- it's just that for now those are the buttons they have to press in order to get in the door. Some day, and maybe within our lifetimes, the candidates' religious convictions will be like how many children they have -- publicly available irrelevant information.)

Well, I'm supporting Edwards over Obama mostly on economic policy-- I get my news from text sources; the only rhetoric I've heard from either of them is the 4 seconds of NPR news I can't avoid before I turn the volume down and wait for the music to come back. So, very small sample size w/r/t oratory.

But generally, all rhetoric makes me want to watch my back, no matter who's speaking; I don't cope well with having my emotional strings pulled, even if unsuccessfully. For sincere conviction to read as less threatening to me than slickness, there has to be a much closer congruity between the speaker's convictions and mine than I think I'm ever likely to get with a viable national candidate-- compromises I'm happy to make on coldly rational grounds start freaking me the fuck out when you add in emotional appeals.

That's mostly me, though; I think the only time I've ever felt an appeal to patriotism that didn't make me start looking over my shoulder for the lynch mob was the Marseillaise scene in Casablanca.

Or, to simplify-- political oratory is inherently threatening to listeners outside its audience. The audience for political oratory, most broadly defined, is "people who can be swayed by political oratory." I'm always going to be outside that audience.

http://journalpix.com/NoDeepImpactSm.jpg

I am having the same reaction to Obama. I'm still undecided, and likely will be straight on til November, but he's in the running, and gaining strength. Unlike Edwards, who gives me the creeps. The same kind of creeps that beauty pageant contestants give me, you know? Which is, I guess, the same as you saying he's too slick.

just a quick note --

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