Howard Dean: A Window into Obama's Future
Posted: Friday, June 06, 2008
by Shan-ul-Hai
Globally Rational
It's common for a Presidential nominee to replace the chair of his party with one of his own people. Although Barack Obama's recent decision to keep Howard Dean as the DNC chair was minor news at best, I think it's much more important than the media has made it seem. I think the foreshadowing is undeniable; this will tell us a lot about what a potential Obama presidency would be like. Here are some things that jump out at me:
- Obama did not install one of his cronies, which would be a huge change over past Presidencies. In fact, some people at the University of Chicago (whose law and economics programs are among the best in the world) are worried that Obama will steal all of their best professors and put them into his cabinet.
- Howard Dean (a licensed physician) and Barack Obama (a Harvard-educated lawyer who was offered a tenure-track faculty position at one of America's best law schools) are both highly intelligent and highly educated. This gives me hope that we're approaching an America where politicians work together and make intelligent decisions for the benefit of the country instead of trying to benefit their own respective political campaigns.
- A lesser-known fact: Obama and Dean have both strayed substantially from their parents' life views, which suggests to me that they embrace change and positive development. Howard Dean grew up in a conservative family and Obama has written (among other similar things) that "my mother's confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn't possess... In a land [Indonesia] where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship... she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism."
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)A very interesting perspective and an excellent read. Perhaps you will be proven correct. The future holds the answer. Thanks for sharing your view.Well, I don't usually write optimistic articles, so I hope I turn out to be right the one time that I do take a crack at it...
Shan-ul-Hai, We finally have a presidential candidate who understands how to build a coalition and he will surround himself with intelligent people when he governs. Most people on this site ruled out his candidacy after Reverend Wright appeared and now there is a deafening silence. Great article about a candidate who proposes real change who will build a winning team. With a disasterous foreign policy and economic situation, the time for change has emerged.Yeah... I'm hoping that people can look past the random distractions (i.e. Reverend Wright) and start looking at the essence of Obama's message, they'll see that he's really genuinely better than the other candidate. Honestly, I think the only reason why Wright became a big deal is because people couldn't find any other legitimate mud to sling at Obama (although they tried many times... i.e. "he's Muslim", "his middle name is Hussein", "he wore a Somalian garb once when he was visiting Somalia, etc.).
p until this commnet you had me. This gives me hope that we're approaching an America where politicians work together and make intelligent decisions for the benefit of the country instead of trying to benefit their own respective political campaigns. Yes work together but for whose gain, agenda ideology? yes another good article though. You write well. Best wishes.
I certainly don't understand all of the political issues of today, but I think that, like most people, I have a small subset of issues that I believe that I really do understand. On those issues it seems to me that Obama is making " intelligent decisions for the benefit of the country instead of trying to benefit their own respective political campaigns." Very interesting article, Shan.
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