Obama the Washington Outsider. Plus, a Comment on His Reagan Quote.

I love this response from Obama regarding the red herring that he isn't ready to lead because he doesn't have "Washington experience."

"I'm running because I don't want to do business as usual," he said. "People say 'Well, he may have good ideas, he may be inspiring, but he hasn't been in Washington long enough.' They want to season and stew me until they boil all the hope out of me, like everybody else."

As if that's a bad thing, to be a Washington outsider!! He may not have the "experience" that the entrenched Washington D.C. politicians like but he isn't running for Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader or Majority Whip. He's running to not just lead all those cluby, jaded, out-of-touch politicians, he's running to lead America and last time I checked most of America live their lives outside the D.C. bubble.

America always bitches about politicians being too entrenched in the same old politics and yet when a true outsider comes along (like Obama) many say, "Meh, he can't lead because he doesn't know how Washington works." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? How can we change "politics as usual" if we keep electing the same old players who want nothing more than to play the same old game and build up more power for themselves. Of course he can lead!! Look at his success as a community organizer!! You can't organize and motivate people to vote unless you're a good leader.

And do any of you Obama critics who beat that drum of "he can't lead," blah, blah, "He doesn't know how international politics work" realize that he attended Columbia university, one of the most respected and critically acclaimed universities in the world? Where he gained a political science degree with an emphasis in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS!! And Columbia's international relations program is world renowned. So yeah, this "experience" bullshit is the biggest bait and switch game in this political season. But then again we know how good the Clintons are at playing politics. It's just more of the same old parlor tricks from a couple of entrenched Washington D.C. players who seem to mostly want the presidency for themselves, so that they can be back in power. And they're annoyed that many Americans don't want them around anymore. Like, how dare we not bow at the feet of the Clinton name!! "Don't they know that the Clinton name is sacred in the Democratic party? Don't they know that being a Democrat means liking and supporting anyone named Clinton?" I don't buy what they're selling one bit.

In other news, I need to address this Obama comment regarding Ronald Reagan because it is being blown out of context. First, here is what he said:

“I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom,” Obama said in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal.

GOI: O.k., so the meat of the issue here is that Obama is saying that Reagan was such a great leader because he was able to challenge the status quo. And you can't deny that he was a great leader in his party and managed to bring many Americans together behind his cause, one I disagree with--and one I'm sure Obama does too--but still, Reagan was able to tap into a country read for change and ready for a new direction. He was able to tap into the hunger and thirst that many in the country wanted for change and channel it into a movement that blazed a new path. Again, it was a path that I feel did a lot of harm but the point is that he was a great leader, a great organizer because he knew how to change direction and challenge the old political structure of his party. And that is what Obama is trying to do as well but only from a Democrats perspective.

Now Hillary Clinton is twisting the quote. She is claiming that Obama said the Republicans had better ideas than the Democrats. However, that's not exactly what he said. Obama said that they were the party of ideas, not that those ideas were good. You can't deny that the GOP has been whooping up on the Democrats for awhile now and that isn't all just election rigging. The Republican ideas have been winning, Americans have been buying their brand so to speak. What have we liberals accomplished? Not much, why? Because we don't know how to win and that means being able to go outside the traditional structure of the party that CLEARLY hasn't worked as we haven't won many major elections since 1994 save the 2006 mid-terms. And we barely won. The reason that Democrats haven't been able to block Bush since winning the House and barely the Senate is because we didn't win BIG ENOUGH in '06.

So now we need new leaders with new ideas and not just ideas but have an idea of how we are going to get there. We can't bring these ideas to fruition like the Republicans did with many of theirs under Reagan unless we are willing to scrap the old rickety song and dance which we keep losing on and embrace change to help bring in independents and yes even some Republicans. We need to believe again that something new can happen in America, that a new chapter is beginning and Hillary Clinton doesn't represent that new chapter. She would take us back to the old way of doing things for the party and that hasn't gotten us very far since Bill won. And yes, it was great that Bill won and he was an excellent president but times change and they have, there is a new dynamic in this country that requires a different way of approaching politics. The Clinton game plan worked because it was fresh, new and exciting much like bringing in a new coach does for a professional football team. But after awhile, the other teams figure out that coach's plays and schemes and start to beat that team. So, a new coach is needed with new plays, new plans and new ways of looking at the puzzle. Obama is that new coach, that team is America and we are the players.

“I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure," he continued. "I think part of what's different are the times...I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. ... he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

In other words, America is in that same position like before Reagan where many are ready for a change and so what we need is a figure like an Obama who can lead that change and funnel it into action. He is saying that the moment is ripe in America for a new direction and if the Democrats don't seize on that moment then the Republicans will.

Liberals are freaking out that because Obama said something good about Ronald Reagan that somehow that means he is going to what? Win the nomination as a liberal and then switch to being a hard right conservative like Reagan? It's ridiculous hysteria and of course the Clintons are right in the middle of this stirring the pot, fueling the fire of rampant, paranoid thinking. Playing on people's emotions and fears of anything conservative. Somehow you can't still be a good Democrat if you so much as say one good thing about a Republican? Come on!! That's how the GOP plays, that if you don't agree with everything a Republican says and if you dare agree with anything a Democrat did, does or recognize they're good leadership skills that somehow you aren't a true Republican. It's the Republicans who demand a lock-step mentality. We are supposed to be the party of open minds that ask the difficult questions to help create a new, bold reality.

Of course both sides are looking for weaknesses in the others campaign but the Clinton's seem like real vultures in this election. Bill Clinton looks like a bitter, angry man being the bulldog of the campaign. It's sad because Bill use to be the new player with the new ideas and now he's desperately clinging to power. It just looks sad. I hate to see such a great president like Bill Clinton get down in the weeds to dig up and sling mud. It's o.k. to be passionate and defend your candidate but he just looks like a rabid dog flashing it's teeth and salivating to attack and bite. Maybe I'm naive but I expected more from him. I wish he would just stick to talking positive about his wife and let someone else do the attacking. It just looks like they're a team scheming and doing whatever it takes to win, including tearing down the hope of all these new voters and young people getting passionate about politics because they dare question the entrenched leaders of the Democratic party.

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