Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Obamania & Philly's next mayor?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/07/070507fa_fact_macfarquhar

Great article on Obama. Fantastic article on an even more fascinating man.

I'm just upset that Obama weighed in on the Philly Election behind Chakka Fattah. He's good and all, but i like nutter a helluva lot better. Chakka has it right on attacking the causes of violence, and not just punishing the instances/patterns of it. Why do i like Nutter? Because Nutter isn't scared to do the unpopular stuff for what he thinks is best for philly. But Nutter is foolin himself thinking that searching and frisking "random" people will dent the rate of violence in the city. Knox is a facade, brady's full of himself, and i don't know much about Evans. But then again, all this means nothing because i've never met any of them.

Back to Obama: my favorite paragraph from the article:

"There are three things that Democratic political candidates tend to do when talking with constituents: they display an impressive grasp of the minutiae of their constituents’ problems, particularly money problems; they rouse indignation by explaining how those problems are caused by powerful groups getting rich on the backs of ordinary people; and they present well-worked-out policy proposals that, if passed, would solve the problems and put the powerful groups in their place. Obama seldom does any of these things. He tends to underplay his knowledge, acting less informed than he is. He rarely accuses, preferring to talk about problems in the passive voice, as things that are amiss with us rather than as wrongs that have been perpetrated by them. And the solutions he offers generally sound small and local rather than deep-reaching and systemic."
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