Obama identifies the source of our problems not as a failure to pursue specifically liberal policies that he believes to be correct, even if controversial. Instead, the source is corruption, cynicism, a kind of spiritual malaise that we must collectively divorce ourselves from by endorsing him and his optimistic message.

But instead of seeing a romantic optimist, I instead see a typical politician, a man with great faith in himself that he hopes others will endorse without asking too many questions. He is also a man that is all too plastic, willing to avoid controversy because his number one issue is not Iraq or welfare or immigration, but himself and his salvific mission. Obama wants to be President not because he wants to commit to any particular policy but because he believes his mere presence will elevate our politics and his native intelligence will be able to see him through any particular issue on which he has not taken a stand. He finds it unseemly and constricting to commit himself to the liberal policies he has endorsed his entire career when it was safe to do so. Most tellingly, he has voted “present” on a number of controversial votes, including those related to gun control and partial birth abortion in his time as a US Senator. This is all packaging that reveals someone for whom winning will trump matters of high principle and accountability.

Ironically, Bush too portrayed himself as someone that would clean up our political culture. He noted that he wanted a foreign policy that was humble (in contrast to the “arrogance” of Clinton’s) and was willing to work with Democrats in the House to pursue policies that furthered the common good. He specifically invoked his record as Governor of Texas, where he did enjoy a record for bipartisanship and comity with the unusually conservative Democrats in the Texas legislature.

Bush, Obama, and every president in recent memory that talks about elevating our politics is engaging in the worst kind of hubris; those that vote for them on this basis are engaging in an all too human kind of wishful thinking. This thinking is particularly common among those that do not follow politics closely.

But is this his message? As a Democrat “more liberal than Clinton” according to liberals, isn’t he stumping for the welfare state? (This is not a rhetorical question. I don’t, for various reasons, follow presidential politics all that closely, so I don’t know the answer.) Is this guy getting the best of both worlds by preaching nannyism while at the same time wooing voters like cminmd who are impressed with his own, personal rugged individualism?

I fail to understand how Obama is removed from Middle America? Obama is an entirely self-made man. His father abandoned him and even his mother left him alone with his grandparents for his teens. He did not get money, connections or help into college from his parents. Everything he has, he earned by the depth of his intellect and the sweat of his brow. His wife is also a self made woman who turned a great education into a very comfortable, but working class lifestyle. Working class means you can afford to live the lifestyle you have as long as you keep working. You don’t have a trust fund or inheritance or investments that you can fall back on as a cushion should you never go back to work. While they have a little money saved up from the book he worked on and wrote, they could not go for long without his pay as a senator. Just because they have high paying jobs does not make them not working class. He is the perfect example of the middle class dream I hope for my children. That if they study hard, excell in school and avail themselves of opportunities this country provides an enviable lifestyle for those who earn it.

Alright, so it goes. I disagree with our current President’s policies. I also found his rhetoric to be, in general, worthless to me. But it was clear that it was valuable to other folks. The thing is, as far as I can tell, those folks are not the folks I want as my civilian leaders: provincialists. Is this elitist of me? Sure. I also consider farmers to be a an earthly elite, and soldiers to be a physical elite, and I value many more elites than that. (I think this is actually part of my conservative streak.)

I believe Obama is clearly part of the tradition that has yielded our best leaders.

The idea of separating Mr. Obama from his racial identity is interesting, but of ultimately limited usefulness. Just as much as with our current President, you, or I, he is who he is because of who he is. To think otherwise is weird.

Exactly. I have never seen him as a particularly anti-establishment candidate. Just being folksy doesn’t make you so.