Barack Obama received a huge lift. If not for that odd moment, he might not be where he is now, in the Oval Office, heading into a difficult reelection campaign in which his prospects nonetheless appear slightly more favorable week by week. What happened that day in the land of Lincoln was a matter of luck and chance. His future was pulled out of Old Abe’s stovepipe hat.
As with any successful politician, luck is often evident in the Obama biography, and we are seeing it again this year. He began his presidency with so many seemingly intractable problems that the most trenchant assessment of his dilemma came from the satirical Onion headline “Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job.” Yet now, how lucky for him that the Republican candidates maul one another in their frenzy to replace him. How fortuitous that they keep veering further right, giving the president the opportunity to seize the middle and possibly win back the persuadable voters who will decide this election.
All in keeping with a lucky streak that propelled him from obscurity into national prominence eight short years ago. That is when John Kerry, the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer, asked him to deliver the keynote address at the 2004 national convention and when his most formidable opponents for the U.S. Senate were knocked out of the race, one after another, by troublesome reports involving their treatment of former wives. Luck is the residue of design, the baseball wise man Branch Rickey once said, and there is no doubt that Obama had a political design that made it possible for him to take advantage of the breaks that went his way that year, just as he did four years later when he outmaneuvered Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain on his way to the White House. And just as he did when it came to the least appreciated of his many lucky moments — that September day in Springfield.
Here was Obama in the fall of 2001: He was 40 years old. Only a year earlier, he had been crushed in his attempt to snatch a Chicago-based U.S. House seat away from the Democratic incumbent, Bobby Rush. He was back in Springfield, frustrated, in his fifth year as a state senator trying to make his way in a chamber ruled by Republicans, unable to establish a legislative record that might lift him up and out of that downstate trap.
In the wake of the 2000 Census, the Illinois legislature established a commission to redraw the state’s 118 House and 59 Senate districts. With the House controlled by Democrats and the Senate by Republicans, the Legislative Redistricting Commission was divided, four from each party, and incapable of breaking a political deadlock as both sides realized that in politics, maps are destiny. The state Constitution provided an unorthodox solution: Have the secretary of state draw a name for a ninth commission member. Tie broken, problem resolved. The essential prop, a replica of Abraham Lincoln’s iconic stovepipe hat, would lend gravitas to an otherwise bizarre situation.
Luck? No, the media-village fawning over the emperor’s new clothes, shouting and drowning out the small voices that tried to point out “the One’s” nakedness. The messenger lay on the ground, bleeding as they kick him for daring to speak the truth..
Ditto: Agreed. Obama is a media creation. He’s actually had several identities; Indonesian bred Muslim; Hawiian raised middle class American; campus radical; Harvard trained lawyer who never published and never practiced. The msm will only present small pieces of each as they transform this largely empty suit into the black Lincoln.
Obama is a media construct…he’s not a cultural American; and probably not an actual native-born citizen. But nobody can talk about that. His past is verboten; except the past erected by his media.
I don’t mean to sound conspiratorial, but among the few contesting the standard media view were Breitbart, now deceased, and Limbaugh, hanging on to his commerical life by his fingernails. Coincidence? Maybe…but I think whichever view of Obama emerges over the next few months will determine the election. If the folks can see who he really is/was…he’s history.
This is the most important election since 1864.
@VoteOutIncumbents:
I couldn’t agree more. This is possibly the most important election in our history. Several of my friends have become militant leftys after several years of exposure to various agitators on the internet. The people don’t realize that they’re being “community organized”. Saul Alinsky’s name may be a buzzword on both sides of the political spectrum, but his “rules” are also Known as “the Delphi technique” (developed by the Rand Corp). It’s scary stuff. elaborate
The deliberate manipulation of people has been broken down to an exact science.
Google “Rand Corp and Delphi Technique”
One group in Santa Rosa CA has an interesting story ……
http://www.santarosaneighborhoodcoalition.com/delphi.html
These SOBs think that socialism is the answer to all of our problems just as Alinsky did. But he was a piker compared to the new masters.
If the American people had known the truth about Barack Hussein Obama, he would never been elected President let alone won the Democratic nomination. From questions of his birth to his association with marxist radicals, questions about his education, drug use and sexuality have yet to be fully explored by the media. A man with impeccable law enforcement credentials, Joe Arpaio, has investigated and claims the document Obama held out has his long form birth certificate is a computer created forgery. Why is it Arpaio is seen as a kook? Is it not possible the radical left, those who plotted against us during the 60’s and grew up, conspired to put this criminal if office?
Barack Obama will win a second term because he’s a far better choice for America than anybody the republicans are offering.
Newt? Romney? Santorum? Get serious. Each one of these guys has totally alienated at least one demograpic group that’s totally essential to any successful presidential bid. The republicans couldn’t be designing a more obvious path to failure if they were trying. Why they don’t see this is beyond me. My guess is that those who aren’t some sort of extremists understand perfectly, but only the extremists are getting any attention. Blame the Tea Party and right wing radio for that one.
Obama? Luck has nothing to do with it. The man is a gifted politician and natural born President.
I agree. Luck has a lot to do with everything.