Herbert: Voters Want More From Obama

[fencesitter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/opinion/23herbert.html?adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1219503613-2xyMk7Anu81cJ7BAVhUPnw

By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 23, 2008

After being pummeled for weeks by John McCain, and losing some of his slender lead in the polls, the Obama campaign may finally be showing signs of life.

Barack Obama was always a long shot to win the White House. It’s no secret that some portion of the electorate will never vote for him because of his color. But he has made the odds even longer by running a campaign that, since the primaries, has seemed directionless, uninspired and addicted to the empty calories of generalities.

And the candidate himself has seemed flat. No fire. No passion.

I’m all for thoughtful, reasonable, even cerebral candidates. John Wayne has had way too much influence on our politics. (“Bring ’em on.” “Bomb, bomb Iran.”) But if ever there was a presidential campaign that cried out for a populist’s passion, this is it.

The last eight years have been calamitous. We’re struggling with two wars, one of which we never should have started. The economy has tanked big time. The housing market has collapsed and foreclosures have skyrocketed.
Motorists are reeling from high gasoline prices. The financial-services sector is teetering like a skyscraper in an earthquake. Robust budget surpluses have morphed into deficits stretching to the horizon and beyond. And cash-strapped, debt-ridden working families are viewing the future with high anxiety, if not outright fear.

Senator Obama should be invoking F.D.R., who wanted to make the U.S. “a country in which no one is left out.” And Harry Truman, who had no qualms about getting in the face of the political opposition. (“I never gave anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.”) And Robert Kennedy, who wanted the government to get behind a massive effort to rebuild the country and create millions of new jobs.

********
more!

[Doctor_J]

1. I am disappointed that Obama hasn't trumpeted more worker- and

middle-class-friendly issues. It leads me to believe no populist is ever again going to be president.

[hisownpetard]

2. Wha-a-a-t? Imo, Bob Herbert is losing it and has been, ever since he referred to the Victory

Column in Germany as "the leaning tower of Pisa."

He wasn't joking.

He must have been drinking some of McCain's Kool-aid.
What gives?