My favorite Iowa swing voter is:
By Thoreau
Kerry Howley, who is getting a lot of crap from her commenters for this:
On the other hand, I’m reasonably hopeful that Obama will emerge a calculating and not at all honorable politician, thus talking the protectionist talk and doing nothing to advance an economics of resentment. I have a largely unjustified faith in Obama’s faithlessness, which is why I am voting for him.
She is confident that a politician is going to do the exact opposite of what he promised, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet. However, she recognizes that it isn’t a guarantee–every now and then they keep a promise, and generally the sort of promise that sane people wish they would break.
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Comment by Kevin B. O'Reilly —
October 19, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
Yeah, maybe he’ll break his promise to end the war in Iraq. That’s what kind of calculating politicians Ms. Howley admires tend to do. Oh, well!
Comment by bryan —
October 20, 2008 @ 2:19 am
protectionism is bad because look at how well your economy has done without it.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
October 20, 2008 @ 11:48 am
I think there are or were a fair number of people on the left who think or want to believe that Obama is a closet lefty. Of course rightwingers suspect this too, but they’ve thrown away any chance of making a rational argument for this by focusing on the idiotic Ayers issue. But Obama is friends with Rashid Khalidi, which is apparently a deeply suspicious thing to some conservatives and liberals because he’s Palestinian. And then Obama went to Wright’s church (good for him) and only managed to become offended by Wright’s opinions when they got too much publicity.
My own guess is that Obama is an extremely intelligent opportunist. If he’s anything it’s a centrist with slightly liberal views who will say what he needs to say to win. Maybe Hari says it better–
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/16-5
Comment by Iron Lungfish —
October 20, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
My own guess is that Obama is an extremely intelligent opportunist.
Well, no shit, Sherlock. He’s a successful politician who’s about to become president. My own guess is that water flows downhill.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
October 20, 2008 @ 5:48 pm
Glad we agree, lungfish, but you don’t seem to realize that the opinion we share isn’t universally held. I guess that’s what makes us such famous detectives–you’re the bad-tempered one, I see.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
October 20, 2008 @ 5:51 pm
I am curious why you’re so angry about it, come to think of it. . Employing every neuron I have (both, in fact) to this deductive task, I tentatively conclude that there was something else in my post that annoyed you, besides the statement of the bleeding obvious.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
October 21, 2008 @ 10:35 am
The only thing Barack Obama has “promised” in regards to trade is to include labor and environmental standards in future deals. All the rest of his rhetoric has been pain-feeling.
Which is to say, substantively, he supports the centrist wing of the Washington Consensus, instead of the center-right wing.