Märchenkönig

The conventional wisdom in certain European press rooms is that Obama can’t win. Spiegel, at least, assumes that pushing for him is for kids. A Berlin editor with the same institutional wisdom told me last month that the idea of Obama as president was just a “märchen” among left-wing European journalists, a fairytale told by wishful thinkers who were out of touch with American sentiment. Obama, he said, lacked middle-class support. I said he had a surprising amount of middle-class support — the problem would be winning the South, or rural regions that rarely see black skin. And then Iowa happened. I don’t predict elections for a living; but can any American out there imagine, say, Jesse Jackson taking Iowa? I wonder if European journalists understand that history has already been made?

UPDATE: Ben Perry links to a description of Obama’s legislative style, which strikes me as a grown-up’s game.

     posted 5 January 2008 by Michael Scott Moore

  1. I won’t be surprised to see Obama win the election. I will be surprised if he fails to win the Democratic nomination.

    The problem with winning the South is there for any Democrat. What matters in American politics are the swing voters, and right now, Obama is reaching them more than any other candidate.

    The interesting thing is that a sizeable number of Republican voters seem to like Obama. Until Iowa, that was based mostly on anecdotal evidence, put I saw some polling that supported this idea, too. The Iowa caucus provided more evidence, as some Republican voters (and many more independent voters) turned out for Obama.

    — Peter Hoh    Jan 6, 09:06 am    #

  2. I was surprised by that — he can lure as many swing voters from the right as McCain can from the left (or even more?), because McCain’s run such a right-wing campaign this year.

    What worries me (he said, only half-jokingly) is that no Democrat without a Southern accent has won the White House since 1960. Gore and Kerry just weren’t down-home enough. Obama’s great strength may be that he can talk about God more convincingly than Hillary or even McCain; but he also has an urban Harvard-trained style that apparently went out of fashion after Kennedy.

    — Mike    Jan 6, 12:07 pm    #

  3. Kennedy’s style: urban or urbane?

    Kerry was just an awful candidate. The Democrats deserved to be spanked for nominating him.

    The fun now is on the Republican side. The conservative media elite hate Huckabee, but I think Huckabee is well positioned to get the nomination. And then there will be all these wonderful quotes from Rush Limbaugh, et al, about how Huckabee is the new Carter to hang around their necks.

    As long as McCain, Romney, and Giuliani all stay in the race, they will keep splitting the non-evangelical vote in the GOP primaries. And the more they go after Huckabee, the more evangelical voters are going to be motivated to turn out to support him. There’s a possibility that Fred Thompson could emerge as a consensus candidate, but he’s actually have to start campaigning with some more energy. Maybe he’s pursuing the rope-a-dope strategy, but I doubt it.

    — Peter Hoh    Jan 6, 11:12 pm    #

  4. Mr. Moore, I can safely say, after living in Europe for 14 years that Eurpoeans DO NOT know American History. If they have any inkling of it at all it is filtered through the agendized lens of “thinkers”like Howard Zinn. Europeans revel in the bloody history of the United States and yes, they do outright despise Americans.
    I lived in Germany for six years, Italy for four years and Paris for another two years before heading to Ireland. Out of all those countries, Italy and Ireland were the most compassionate and also the most tolerant of Americans. With regard to that, however, there is still fervent distrust and hate for Americans in much of the mainstream Roman society.
    Great blog.

    — Scheitzen    Jan 7, 06:30 pm    #

  5. Thanks Scheitzen. My German friends don’t actually despise Americans, but the less well-traveled the German, in general, the more anti-American the German.

    — Mike    Jan 8, 12:19 am    #

  6. Mike, you might be interested to see this take on the GOP’s Southern Strategy and how it plays out in this election.

    http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/01/its-class-and-r.html

    — Peter Hoh    Jan 8, 11:01 pm    #