What To Make Of Obama

One aide to Barack Obama has accused me of bias because I haven't joined the orgy of adulatory press coverage three days after Iowa.

Well, that's probably because, as a rule, I tend not to post items unless they advance some new thought or add value to thoughts already thought.

The truth is, it is hard to describe what happened in Iowa in a fashion that comports with the skepticism I try to bring to cause and effect.

For example: I asked David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, to explain the Iowa victory, and he said, "People wanted change."

Well, yes. Maybe that's where Axelrod's curiosity ends, but mine goes deeper.

For example: there is something about the Clinton brand that a younger generation of Democrats does not buy. Younger votes in Iowa did not choose Hillary Clinton.

There is something about Obama's appeal that eluded previous process-oriented reformers (Babbitt, Hart, Tsongas, Bradley). It's not just his race -- that seems to me to be a marker for liberals of generational change. It's not just the amount of he's raised. It's not that he's a man of the world.

In sum, maybe it's just that Obama is more than the sum of his parts. And that's hard to describe.

His crowds in New Hampshire are amazing. 3000+ in Exeter. 2500 in Nashua. 1500 (including 500 who were turned away) in New Hampshire on a Sunday morning.

i think we're falling into a recession