Comments Posted By Francis W. Porretto
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To me, the Obama campaign is disturbing not so much because of the exaggerated emotional responses it draws from a substantial fraction of its adherents, but because Obama and his strategists appear to have steered their campaign deliberately into those waters. They've eschewed substantive matters in favor of the sort of weeping, fainting adulation teenaged girls once gave the Beatles...and somewhat older women gave Tom Jones, Wayne Newton, and Engelbert Humperdinck.
The first half of the Obama for President campaign, in other words, amounts to: "Love me."
If this strategy should succeed, it will have elevated its man to the highest office in the land on the strength of the sort of emotion that propels lonely women to bury themselves in Harlequin romances. It will be both principle- and policy-free. It will never have committed itself to anything -- and therefore, President Obama will be free to do anything, without fear of being accused of having gone back on his word.
The second half of the Obama for President campaign, in other words, amounts to: "Trust me."
Reflecting on that four-word platform -- could the Democratic National Convention force Obama to commit to anything more? -- should make any mature adult shiver in his boots. It's the essence of the Cult of Personality -- a pure distillation of the force that raised Adolf Hitler to the rule of Germany, minus that nasty stuff about killing all the Jews. But how many mature adults will go to the polling places in November, if their choice is between Barack Obama and self-worshipping anti-Constitutionalist John McCain?
Pray.
Comment Posted By Francis W. Porretto On 9.03.2008 @ 05:29
