OVERBREADTH

As we continue to make the acquaintance of the Illinois Senator who is increasingly the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, it’d do well to look back at his accomplishments.

To make this fun, let’s keep up the Jimmy Carter comparison. In the last post, I noted how Carter was more a technocrat, policy-wonkish micromanager from an almost-inapplicable southern state. I compared this to Obama, who’s spent his time beating the bipartisan drum in Washington - a global, unity mindset as opposed to a Georgian, Democratic ideologue perspective.

But is Obama truly bipartisan? What has he really done in Washington?

Here’s a list of his accomplishments, reposted in part from an earlier entry on my blog - bipartisan efforts are in bold:

* Written two books

* Quit smoking

* Become the first African American to lead the Harvard Law Review

* Be elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996

* Gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws, sponsored a law enhancing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare, and led the passage of legislation mandating videotaping of homicide interrogations, and a law to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they stopped.

* Worked as a community organizer during most of the 80s and 90s.

* Co-sponsored the Obama-Hagel bill for nuclear arms limitation strategy.

* Fathered two children who seem happy and healthy enough.

* Tried to do something about giving relief to the Congo - about the most critical effort one could undertake in sub-Saharan Africa today.

* Travelled the world on fact-finding missions and in order to support the spread of Democracy.

* Expanded the Nunn-Lugar reduction of conventional arms act, limiting the spread of things like land mines the world over.

* Pioneered legislation to bring more transparency into political donations, the Coburn-Obama Act.

What does it mean, though? Is Obama actually liked and respected by those across the aisle?

Yes. Many prominent Republicans seem to go out of their way to praise him.

Like Dick Lugar:

Lugar praises Obama’s “strong voice and creativity” and calls him “my good friend.”

And like Chuck Hagel:

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said last night that, among the 3 remaining candidates (including McCain), he thought Barack Obama had the best chance of bringing the country together.

Even Hispanic Republican leaders…

Mr. Herrera announced his support in line with what he views as one of the most pressing needs in America today – new leadership that transcends racial and gender polarization — all ideals that Obama personifies.

…and conservative media figures like Susan Eisenhower, Joe Scarborough and Peggy Noonan.

“He doesn’t attack Republicans, he doesn’t attack whites and he never seems to draw these dividing lines that Bill Clinton [does]…”

These are not intellectual lightweights. Having men like them as mentors does not do him a disservice.

This is in contrast to Carter’s and Bush II’s wonkish advisors - though Carter did have some good foreign advisors, most notably his NSC. Bush didn’t even have that - he had campaign hires and out of touch proteges of his Dad’s generation. Rumsfeld was a gadget-geek joke around RAND when Bush was running in 2000. Pulling opinions from the upper crust of an intellectually bankrupt gang like the Neo-Cons doesn’t make one any smarter.

For that, you need graybeards like Biden and Lugar, Warner and Hamilton, and that, Obama has. He also has, as I noted with his worldly and open-minded - not physics and peanut-farming based - educational background, the wisdom and resolve to know what’s right.

The next President can’t be a Carter or a Bush - someone brushed off from a southern state’s governorship, filled with party pap and given a bunch of partisan-picked policy wonks to give him answers.

He has to go across the aisle for ideas, as Obama has done. He’s got to not only work for unity, but cultivate it with rhetoric and friendships, as Obama has done.

He has to know how to get things done as a leader. And looking back on his campaign organization, his short but significant term in the Senate, his amazing bi-partisan support and his integrity, one has to try pretty hard to not see that quality in him.

Tags: Diaries //