For months, I’ve read that Barack Obama isn’t giving enough specific information; that he’s just an empty rhetorical balloon.
If you’re looking for some meat and potatoes — if you really do not have a feel for the direction he’ll go, or what he’s thinking — then I strongly recommend viewing the video from the Reno Gazette-Journal. Before you hit the link, though, you should set aside a block of time, because it’s 49 minutes long. If you make the mistake that many seem to have done, and only listen to a minute or two of the interview taken out of context, you’re selling yourself short, and you’re going to get lost in some inconsequential partisanship weeds.
The full video is here.
For the record: I do not agree with every aspect of his agenda. However, one of the more frequent criticisms of the Democrats (from fiscal conservatives) is that they simply add taxes and bureaucratic layers to the existing federal monstrosity. Whether that’s true or not is beside the point; it’s a perception that has become ingrained as partisanship and polarity have increased.
If nothing else, the first ten minutes of this video should blow that perception out of the water… at least, in terms of Obama.
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Other reactions to various aspects of this video (and / or the Reagan mini-clip) that I found interesting (via memeorandum):
Eli Sanders, writing about leadership styles at the Slog:
What style of leadership gets more done, the “hands-on” approach or the “big-vision” approach? (I say somewhat academic because in reality, I think, anyone in the Oval Office is probably forced to use both approaches; they’re not mutually exclusive.)
Matthew Yglesias, responding to the “Reagan” interpretations:
Obama thinks — as do a lot of people — that the country may be primed for big change in 2008 the way it was in 1980 and that he’s the kind of person who can sell the country on that sort of big change. He may be wrong, either in his assessment of the times or in his assessment of himself, but those are exactly the sort of claims you want to see a leader make on behalf of itself.
Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House:
Obama’s surprising words about Reagan won’t garner him too many GOP votes. But it will soften his image so that he doesn’t look like quite the progressive ogre many on the right would like to paint him.
Added: digby at Hullaboo, with some insight into the dust-up in the progressive blogosphere:
Look, I know this is weedy stuff and probably doesn’t matter to the average voter under the age of 45. But to long time liberals who lived through this period as an adult, it’s like waving a red flag in our faces.