Posted by
Matthew on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 6:15:51 PM
For those who may be entering the arena of politics for the first time this season ... oh, wait, most of them probably aren't reading over here.
Ah, well. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to elect really bad presidents, so let's take a look at the history of Chicago politics.
Wikipedia does a sanitized summary, missing all the details that make it interesting. But I found
this article from US News and World Report to be particularly instructive. In short, the rough and tumble of Chicago politics has honed the presumptive Democratic nominee. He isn't naive, and he is certainly not anything new as politicians go. He is as cold and calculating as they come, and he has a knack for recognizing just where to turn to ride the tides of the electorate.
Scary stuff for those of us who don't care for the prospect of him as the leader of the free world.
But there is a chink in his armor that has been emerging more of late. The video of him trying to defend Johnson, now a former member of his triumverate of veep-vetters, shows a man who is not very sharp when an unscripted moment comes along. And even some among the MSM are beginning to recognize that the avoidance of unexpected questions is not borne out of some mysterious self-assurance. The fact is, he can't put together a coherent sentence if it hasn't been rehearsed.
Thank goodness there appears to be no shortage of opportunities for Barack to speak unscripted. Which brings us back to Chicago.
The reason I have some confidence in the Democandidate's ability to lose the election is that he learned his politics in a city where one could reasonably assume that everyone else in politics was dirty; so he doesn't really look that closely at the people around him. I feel relatively certain that there will be an endless parade of embarassing associations between now and November.
His most devout followers want to think this is all a Republican smokescreen ... but the smoke is not from Republican fires. The fires are the natural consequence of selecting someone from the dirtiest city in US politics.
Burn, baby, burn.