Pep Talk in Cleveland by Barack Obama

Yesterday, Barack Obama dropped by the Cuyahoga Community College as part of his last stop in his initial leg of his trip for the Democratic Party nomination for presidency. An interesting trip, to say the least. For one, the Tri-C (which the Cuyahoga Community College) is actually a pretty nice place. A lot more ritzy compared to, say, John Carrol University, which is relatively run down. The traffic there was terrible, though. Traffic was downright terrible. It took me about 25 minutes to drive about 1 mile from the highway to get to the campus. But not only that, all of the parking spots were taken. I'm not sure if it was a poor choice in the location (a 6-lane and a 4-lane intersection at the campus by a shopping mall), or if it was the fault of the police who didn't even bother to direct traffic, but yeah, the logistics in traffic just didn't work.

The way the rally worked here was that Obama would speak in the gymnasium (which I expected to be really small), and the extras were stuck in "overflow auditoriums." Those who couldn't make it to the auditoriums were stuck in the hallways with various television kiosks. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase. I was fortunate to get an overflow seat at the front of the auditorium, because he actually visited the room about 15 minutes before the actual speech at 8:00pm. And I got to shake his hand.

That aside, it's odd. Obama doesn't seem to be bigger than life the media makes him out to be. He just seems to be an ordinary guy. A bit flaccid on the handshake, but I suppose you don't want to kill your hand shaking all the hands on the campaign trail. The one thing that really struck me, though, was his willingness to walk out and meet the people not in gymnasium, where his actual address would take place. If I'm allowed to label it as anything, it shows a guy willing to go out of his way and do something extra. And if he did take the time to visit us, he probably visited the other auditoriums as well. It honestly surprised me and a lot of other people around me when he did pop up.

Another thing I noticed was that his speach seemed to be truely genuine. Perhaps it's a product from the repeatition of Bush's platitudes of how the country is just peachy and the world is out to get us. His demeanor is also a sharp contrast compared to 2004's Kerry. His rhetoric is also refreshing. Unlike the boring speak of seasoned politicians like Kerry and (lately) Bush, he has the ability to capture his audience with fairly keen language. Unfortunately, his oratory has much to go, since, while his speech to the auditorium I was in was pretty solid and smooth in getting a grass roots movement out, his speech in the auditorium was an unfortunate roll of bumbling phrases for the beginning half. Perhaps he was really excited, but he needs to be careful, since words can easily get minced and end up like Kerry's soldiers in Iraq "joke." However, he does have a tendency of having good catch phrases. In this speech, he used the line "The No-Child Left Behind [Act passed by Congress] left the money behind." Another memorable line from November was "The Republicans have a monopoly on tough and dumb" on the war in Iraq. Hopefully, he can keep his oratories fresh and not fall into the typical stump speeches that all politicians fall under on the road.

Onto Obama's issues, that I got to notice.

Overall, his policy is very populist-centric. However, he has made some very bold promises that have a very small chance of happening when he is in office. One is universal healthcare. In my opinion, this is an essential issue that needs to be addressed by the next President. Obama needs to come up with an ideas on how to do this properly, but I'll let the details slide, since it's so early in the race. However, to start balls rolling, anti-illegal immigrant policies and legislation will not help to make sound universal healthcare policy, since it will drive more illegal immigrants to the emergency room with health crises, as opposed to having proper preventative care and checkups in the clinic, which would significantly drive up costs of medical costs.

But I digress. He noted global warming openly, which at least hints at an open mind to some sort of scientific openness. However, he seemed to be a bit too eager eager to pick up the renewable energy bit, nor did he bother to talk about increasing the gas mileage standards on vehicles. I also disagree on his point on a sudden withdrawl from Iraq. While it may be convenient to dump Iraq to do more productive things in Afghanistan, Iraq is in our hands whether we like it or not. If are to be pulled out of Iraq within 13 months, negotiations need to occur with neighboring countries, including Syria and Iran. But since we know this current administration's habits so well, that will not happen, and the withdrawl will most likely make things in the Middle East even worse. I am also somewhat alarmed by his rhetoric on domestic policy to help American workers. While outsourcing does help lower production costs at the sacrifice of a number of jobs domestically, I just hope he doesn't become protectionist.

All in all, Obama looks like a full-blooded Democrat. I would go further and say that he is 2008's Howard Dean in the sense that he has an early jumpstart that got the demographics that supported Dean in 2004. His rhetoric is also very similar to Dean's. To be honest, I wouldn't mind a guy like him in office, but Obama runs a very real and dangerous risk of alienating his non-Black base and flaming out like Dean did. A lot of stories and images he presents are very African American-oriented. Frequent mentionings of the Civil Rights movement, slavery, Jim Crow. Now, I'm not a segregationist by any means, but to continuously hear this kind of speaking from him alarms me on who he is looking out for, and it can be a sticking point to a lot of racial demographics in that Obama may unfairly favor his Black constitutent over other minorities. It can also alienate the White base, who can resent such a campaigning pattern. He needs to tread evenly and carefully if he wants to have a solid support for the Democratic Party nomination. He will have to do it even more so if he is to win the Presidency. To be honest, Obama will have to fight a hard battle uphill. There's a lot of underlying racial tensions in this country and it will be part of that friction towards 2008. In my honest opinion, this country is not ready for a Black president because of how this country has been historically and even today on race. However, a Black president may just be what we needed to help fix those very same racial problems.

About a week late... heh

Yes, a week late... I need to get into the habit of updating this blog more frequently.

Anyway, as many of us in the Plains/Great Lakes/New England states got to experience last week, we got absolutely snowed in by a storm for about 24 hours. CWRU shut down for the whole day, which was a first in the six years I've been here. Unfortunately, I was also at CWRU when they decided to do so. Living about 15-20 miles away is sorta bad when this happens, especially when there was snow piling up to about 8 inches on the roads. I tried to drive my car to my lab from teh library, but got stuck making a simple right hand turn onto a main street. That told me that I would probably get stuck in snow on my way back to the apartment, which was not something I wanted to entertain. So I stayed at CWRU overnight.

One good thing did come out of the overnight stay, though. I FINALLY TURNED IN MY THESIS. Seriously. Hell froze over last week. Both ways. Not only that, but House was incredibly uncanny in its prediction for snow to get dumped on SPAD. Ah, yes. Mine was great, thank you very much.