Oliver Kiefer, Suchita Shah, and Justin Rabbach have all provided intelligent reflections (and beautiful pictures) of yesterday's Obama event. Beset by lectures and work, I was unable to attend, but the student press and blogosphere have been abuzz with their own perspectives of the event. Be sure to check out UW Students for Obama's recap.
Chiming in, as can be expected, are veteran bloggers The Critical Badger and Something Verbose. Critical Badger took several pictures at the event, and proved (among other things) that Sara Mikolajczak's name is very difficult to spell. Additionally, the post does a very good job of conveying exactly who it was that showed up yesterday.
Something Verbose spends more time focusing on the content of Obama's speech itself, asking tough questions of Obama's ability to implement his vision for our nation, beyond the rhetoric he offered in his speech. Having not attended the event, I can't really offer an alternative evaluation of the speech itself, but I'm not really convinced that political rallies of marginal political consequence are the best places to explain the "nitty gritty" of public policy. I've always felt that rallies serve more to, well, "rally" supporters with uplifting messages, while leaving concrete policy discussion for candidate websites and mass media consumption.
By virtue of connections to organized labor, I've had excellent views at John Kerry's October '04 speech on West Washington Ave., and Al Gore's on the capital square in 2000. I honestly have no recollection of what either candidate talked about during their time, except for a number of uplifting messages that got the crowd moving. And when I saw John Kerry before that, he mistakenly referred to Main Street Brats – that's all I remember. In the near-term, these events serve to excite more than educate. I would hope then, that that excitement translates to a willingness among students to determine which candidate best serves their values and interests, precipitating a political dialogue that encourages greater understanding of candidates' proposals.
However, I do sympathize with SV in a broader sense, beyond the scope of just this speech. For quite a while now, a popular right-wing media narrative has been that of a Democratic Party sans ideas. Obviously, we hold the opposite to be true (a subject outside of the scope of this post), and demonstrating why will be crucial to the eventual media tone that election coverage will take on. For those interested in concrete policy discussion, be sure to check out John Edwards', Hillary Clinton's, Barack Obama's issues pages. And don't stop there; the primaries and caucuses are still a ways off, and you can never be sure who will begin gaining traction in such a deep pool of candidates.
[In the interest of full disclosure, I am currently undecided with regards to a presidential candidate.]
Chiming in, as can be expected, are veteran bloggers The Critical Badger and Something Verbose. Critical Badger took several pictures at the event, and proved (among other things) that Sara Mikolajczak's name is very difficult to spell. Additionally, the post does a very good job of conveying exactly who it was that showed up yesterday.
Something Verbose spends more time focusing on the content of Obama's speech itself, asking tough questions of Obama's ability to implement his vision for our nation, beyond the rhetoric he offered in his speech. Having not attended the event, I can't really offer an alternative evaluation of the speech itself, but I'm not really convinced that political rallies of marginal political consequence are the best places to explain the "nitty gritty" of public policy. I've always felt that rallies serve more to, well, "rally" supporters with uplifting messages, while leaving concrete policy discussion for candidate websites and mass media consumption.
By virtue of connections to organized labor, I've had excellent views at John Kerry's October '04 speech on West Washington Ave., and Al Gore's on the capital square in 2000. I honestly have no recollection of what either candidate talked about during their time, except for a number of uplifting messages that got the crowd moving. And when I saw John Kerry before that, he mistakenly referred to Main Street Brats – that's all I remember. In the near-term, these events serve to excite more than educate. I would hope then, that that excitement translates to a willingness among students to determine which candidate best serves their values and interests, precipitating a political dialogue that encourages greater understanding of candidates' proposals.
However, I do sympathize with SV in a broader sense, beyond the scope of just this speech. For quite a while now, a popular right-wing media narrative has been that of a Democratic Party sans ideas. Obviously, we hold the opposite to be true (a subject outside of the scope of this post), and demonstrating why will be crucial to the eventual media tone that election coverage will take on. For those interested in concrete policy discussion, be sure to check out John Edwards', Hillary Clinton's, Barack Obama's issues pages. And don't stop there; the primaries and caucuses are still a ways off, and you can never be sure who will begin gaining traction in such a deep pool of candidates.
[In the interest of full disclosure, I am currently undecided with regards to a presidential candidate.]
1 Comments:
Yeah I absolutely think the argument that Obama didn't get into the nitty gritty of policy details at his rally is ridiculous. That would have bored people to tears. Debates and Sunday morning talk shows are more the venues for that (although sadly they are rarely more substantive than rehashing talking points and conventional wisdom).
But I have to wonder, would this point have ever been made about a Hillary Clinton or John Edwards rally? I really couldn't argue they ever go into greater policy detail, it's almost always the same talking points. I'm not an Obama supporter but I do think a lot of the media and apparently blog coverage of him reflects a media narrative that he is an empty suit. Incredibly hopeful and idealistic but really no substance. There may be some truth to the idea that he is relatively inexperienced but the idea that he lacks substantive ideas just isn't fair.
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