Unstoppable Obama?

Unstoppable Obama

Barbara Ehrenreich
February 14, 2008


When did you begin to think that Obama might be
unstoppable? Was it when your grown feminist daughter
started weeping inconsolably over his defeat in New
Hampshire? Or was it when he triumphed in Virginia, a
state still littered with Confederate monuments and
memorabilia? For me, it was on Tuesday night when two
Republican Virginians in a row called C-SPAN radio to
report that they'd just voted for Ron Paul, but, in the
general election, would vote for... Obama.

In the dominant campaign narrative, his appeal is
mysterious and irrational: He's a "rock star," all flash
and no substance, tending dangerously, according to the
New York Times' Paul Krugman, to a "cult of
personality." At best, he's seen as another vague
Reagan-esque avatar of Hallmarkian sentiments like
optimism and hope. While Clinton, the designated
valedictorian, reaches out for the ego and super-ego, he
supposedly goes for the id. She might as well be
promoting choral singing in the face of Beatlemania.

And, another view:
The attack of the liberals:
Interesting views on academic cultural myopia.

What's the Matter with Paul Krugman?

Scott Kurashige
Posted February 14, 2008 | 02:56 PM (EST)
The Huffington Post


On February 11, Paul Krugman touched off a mini
firestorm with his New York Times column, "Hate Springs
Eternal," which asserted that Obama supporters had been
infected with the disease of Clinton-hating spawned by
the right wing. "I won't try for fake evenhandedness
here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters
of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody," wrote
Krugman. Then, came the real fireworks: "I'm not the
first to point out that the Obama campaign seems
dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality."
While Krugman may not have been the first to compare the
Obama campaign to a cult (see this insightful piece by
Jonathan Tilove of Newhouse News), being the first to do
so in the pages of the New York Times raises eyebrows.
This came on top of his assertion that it was not the
Clinton camp, but the Obama camp that was playing the
"race card."

The moderate faculty

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics

The Liberal (and Moderating) Professoriate

Faculty members identify as liberals and vote Democratic in far greater
proportions than found in the American public at large. That finding by
itself won't shock many, but the national study released Saturday at a
Harvard University symposium may be notable both for its methodology and
other, more surprising findings.

The 72-page study - "The Social and Political Views of American
Professors" - was produced with the goal of moving analysis of the
political views of faculty members out of the culture wars and back to
social science. The study offers at times harsh criticism of many of the
analyses of these issues in recent years (both from those hoping to tag
the professoriate as foolishly radical and those seeking to rebut those
charges). The study included community college professors along with
four-year institutions, and featured analysis of non-responders to the
survey (two features missing from many recent reports).

The results of the study find a professoriate that may be less liberal
than is widely assumed, even if conservatives are correctly assumed to
be in a distinct minority. The authors present evidence that there are
more faculty members who identify as moderates than as liberals. The
authors of the study also found evidence of a significant decline by age
group in faculty radicalism, with younger faculty members less likely
than their older counterparts to identify as radical or activist. And
while the study found that faculty members generally hold what are
thought to be liberal positions on social issues, professors are divided
on affirmative action in college admissions.

More: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics

__._,_.___