Monday, May 29, 2006

Has Obama decided to run in 2008?

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post discusses indications that Sen. Barack Obama may be planning a presidential run in 2008. Specifically, he's brought in two Democratic consultants with experience in national races: Anita Dunn and Minyon Moore:

Dunn served as a senior adviser to Bill Bradley in 2000 and is playing a similar role for Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh as he weighs a run for president in 2008. Moore was involved in Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential race, served in the Clinton White House and led minority outreach for John Kerry's presidential bid in 2004.

Political insiders will continue to wonder about Obama's plans given the incredibly active travel and fundraising schedule he's maintaining. Obama has already visited 21 states to raise money for Senate candidates and raised better than $1.5 million into Hopefund in the first four months of the year.


My two cents: Obama is a good looking, well spoken man, who can speak off the cuff on a variety of issues and sounds like a moderate. He's been the recipient of a lot of good press and the incredible luck to have run against Alan Keyes. People I know who know Obama speak of him and his wife in glowing terms.

Obama's 2004 keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention introduced the man to the American public, and they liked what they saw and heard. The speech generated the first chatter about him as a possible presidential candidate. But he's always hemmed and hawed about the subject of a presidential run and insisted that as a freshman senator, his job is to learn the ins and outs and so on. It's this aura of humility that makes him all the more appealing to voters.

I believe that the instant the electorate get the idea that this guy is actually taking steps to run, the bloom is off the rose. It's at this point that the conventional wisdom switches from "Gee, that Barack Obama guy might make a good president some day" to "Gee, look who's gotten a swelled head."

In other words, Obama stops being a dream candidate in the public's eye as soon as he says he wants to be a candidate. I think this will be the case in 2008, at least.

I'm not one who thinks that Hillary Clinton has the Democratic nomination in her pocket. Still, the presidential nominees of both parties have for the past several election cycles been those candidates whom candidate conventional wisdom has said would win because of support from their party's movers and shakers (good thing we have primary elections, huh?). Still, if Obama is serious about seeking the White House, he might want to wait and prove he can win a tough statewide election, and then mount a run in 2012 or 2016, when he really can claim to be a seasoned candidate.

It's going to be hard to resist running. Obama was a first-hand witness to and beneficiary of the Illinois GOP's self-destruction brought about by decades of pinstripe corruption, which culminated in corrupt George Ryan administration. President Bush and a handful of GOP greed- and ego-heads seemed determine to bring down the Republicans on a national level. The conventional wisdom is that the GOP is going to loose control of one or both chambers of Congress this year and probably the White House. Obama wants to be in place when that happens, much as he was in 2004.

Hat tip: Bill Baar's West Side and Illinoize.

Cross posted at Peoria Pundit.

20 comments:

Anonymous,  10:41 PM  

I see the benefits, but could you analyze the costs of his running and not winning the nomination? What would this do to his political star and future in the Democratic party.

I'd be surprised if he ran against Hillary, but he probably could do quite well in the primary, maybe even Reagan in 1976. Gore would be of course be the strongest competitor to Hillary, but the word is that he's really enjoying private life.

Levois 11:27 PM  

For him to consider running would be a bad idea in 2008 for President. And I'll agree so far he's had nothing but easy elections. I want to see him run an actual race and not a blow-away like he had in 2004. Especially given the GOP's sad implosion.

Billy Dennis 12:47 AM  

Agreed. A solid win over a credible GOP opponent increases his cred.

Harriet 5:18 AM  

My guess this that he might be on some short lists as a VP candidate.

Harriet 5:18 AM  

ps to last: maybe he wants a shot at the statehouse in 2010?

Bill Baar 6:45 AM  

I'd sure like to see him get more of a record.

This is going to be a rough primary for Democrats. Obama is going to have offend someone in the party.

I think it will be worse if Dems take the house in 2006 and have Pelosi as speaker. She's a hard person to have on your side. Her mouth is a lot of baggage.

Anonymous,  7:51 AM  

Obama got lucky that Blair Hull and Jack Ryan married badly.
Obama is a media creation that fuels conspiracy theories.

Anonymous,  9:30 AM  

If Hillary runs, she will need a more conservative VP running mate as she is perceived by most as ultra-liberal despite attempts to move towards the right lately. The voters aren't that stupid.

Obama, also viewed as ultra-liberal would not balance the ticket.

So he either takes a run at the Big Job or nothing. And even the
ultraliberals would have to think twice about putting somebody with his lack of experience in charge of the world. Could be a disaster for the Dems. Could be a disaster for all of us.

An aside, I don't think Gore is having a bad retirement but a long New Yorker article a year or so ago left the impression that he would give anything to be back
in the game. I think he is tolerating retirement but only because he has to.

Anonymous,  10:07 AM  

7:51, that line is a little tired, no? It wasn't a mano-a-mano contest with Hull. There was a statewide office holder with institutional support. A female county office holder. An African American woman who'd shown strongly in her bid for Lt, Guv.

And to attack him because his success is defined by his ability to raise gobs of cash and draw a crowd is to attack the game by attacking the participant. I would challenge most people asking what he's done to answer the same questions of their own sacred cows. It isn't a thought out answer for most - just a stock response.

He certainly has shown a willingness to reach across the aisle, working with Sam Brownback on the Darfur crisis, among others - and voting for Condi Rice for SOS because he felt the president had the prerogative of choosing his own cabinet (kinda blows out that whole "really liberal" thing).

Not saying he should or shouldn't run. Just saying few have made a legitimate argument. Just parroting what they've heard.

Anonymous,  10:17 AM  

Obama has said so many self-deprecating things about himself and how junior and how newbie and unexperienced in D.C. he is, it would be an admaker's dream to string all of them together into a thirty-second hit piece. He's not running. His best-case scenario would be to get drafted by Hillary for VP, which is a very plausible scenario.

Anonymous,  10:37 AM  

My dream team would be Mark Warner for President and Barack Obama as VP. I love Barack, but he isn't ready for the presidency yet. If Hilary wins I'll just prepare for another republician as president.

Harriet 1:12 PM  

Hillary isn't out of it as yet.

Ironically, she routinely gets blasted as being Republican Lite (mostly on her pro-war votes) by people on the left wing of the party.

Nevertheless, if she wins the nomination, I don't see her losing many Kerry voters and I see her as having the potential to pick up some of the more socially liberal GOP women voters.

Anonymous,  2:44 PM  

He's just as ready as G.Bush, Ronald Regan, The Clintons, Kerry, Gore, ad infinitum.

Anonymous,  3:19 PM  

G Bush, Regan, Clinton were all mutiple term governors. Gore was a senator and VP, and Kerry was in the senate for a long time. It would be hard for Barack to jump up to the presidency. That being said, if he did I would be the first to join his campaign.

Bill Baar 4:52 PM  

He hangs around with a bad crowd. He better be careful he's not taking boxing tickets from anyone.

Anonymous,  8:39 PM  

I would disagree strongly with the notion that the Presidential nominees in the last several cycles have been the candidates of conventional wisdom.

John Kerry was a dead man walking until after a surprise, come-from-behind win in Iowa. Until then, no conventional wisdom had him a winner. 2000 had incumbent Vice President Gore, and 1996 incumbent President Clinton. In 1992, no conventional wisdom had Bill Clinton getting the nomination until well after he was the "Comeback Kid" of New Hampshire.

Republicans are more predictable, but Democratic front-runners who aren't incumbents have a hard time historically making it to the finish line.

Extreme Wisdom 10:29 AM  

Given Obama's age, his best bet would be to run for Gov. in 2010, where he would get the opportunity to fix a state destroyed by Topinka/Blagojevich.

Nothing makes a person look better than fixing a broken State, and a liberal crusader like Obama slapping down piggish Public Unions while righting a bankrupt state offers some delicious "Sister Souljah" moments that would grease the skids for a National Candidacy (and landslide) in 2016.

Sadly, Obama probably suffers the same disease that all politicians do, and stupidly believes his own press.

His best paths to the presidency are either as governor, or as Hillary's running mate. If she loses (probable, if against McCain), Obama is "next in line" with all the same funding base and twice the charisma.

I'm hoping for a Gore v. Hillary smack down. Wathching the two most vicious (and vacuous)politicians in the nation spend millions tearing each other apart would be delicious.

JBP 10:48 AM  

Perhaps some of Obama's flyarounds with ADM could help explain his support for the ethanol import tax. Of course, that wouldn't be an ethical problem, as Sen. Obama is immune from those, per the press.

JBP

Bill Baar 2:58 PM  

Given Obama's age, his best bet would be to run for Gov. in 2010...

my thought too

Myclob 9:05 PM  

What do you think?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0705/p09s01-cogs.html

Why not an Obama-Romney match-up in 2008?
By Godfrey Sperling
WASHINGTON – It's early - but presidential political talk already is all around us. So I ask myself a few questions about the emerging presidential prospects:

I would like this a lot more than McCain vs Hillary!

Check out my site, and tell me if I'm wrong...

http://illinisans-4-mitt-romney.blogspot.com/

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