Newsweek has the first of a seven part series up on how Obama did what seems to be impossible on paper—-win the Presidency while up against not one, but two of the most popular politicians in D.C. while being black in a country where racism is still quite commonplace. If you’re a political junkie, this is great reading—-total inside baseball, all soap opera. However, just reading the first part, I learned something new and had an assumption I’ve been carrying around for a long time vindicated.
The latter has everything to do with why Democrats were smart to go with Obama over Clinton. My feeling was that both were capable leaders, though both were centrist Democrats whose asses we had to ride the second they stepped into office. And the fact that we had a woman and a black man running meant that we were voting to break the streak of white men into the White House either way. But for me it came down to the war in Iraq and the existence of Mark Penn. On the former, since Obama didn’t support the war at any point in time, he was able to address that issue with the public in a straightforward manner, instead of hedging and making excuses like Kerry did. This story vindicates my feelings on that. Obama apparently characterized the war as “stupid” from the get-go. It wasn’t just that he was against it, but also that he seems to realize what should have been obvious from the get-go, which is that this war will turn sour very quickly, and everyone who was associated with it will pay the price.