I was a little disappointed.  It was a scattershot speech.  He was solid on each of the myriad points he made, but there was no overall message, no guiding principle that drove everything else.  It was an opportunity lost.  I think William Safire nailed it on NYTimes:

‘

Our 44th president’s Inaugural Address was solid, respectable, uplifting, suitably short, superbly delivered, but — in light of the towering expectations whipped up that his speech might belong in the company of those by Lincoln, F.D.R. and Kennedy — fell short of the anticipated immortality.

[…]

A good speech has to have a memorable theme, stated early and reprised at the end. It did not emerge in this address.

To mobilize people to collective action, you have to have communicate a single guiding principle.  Taxation without representation; “Free at last”; man on the moon by the end of the decade–that sort of thing.  This not only gives people a framework for understanding your policy, but guides their own decisions.  It gets individuals excited because they understand how they can change things.  If anything, Obama’s campaign was about change and grass-roots action.  Having a guiding principle in the speech would have been a perfect method for launching grass-roots change in support of his policy.

Shisol was glad that “there was no swinging for the rhetorical fences”.  I agree.  You win more baseball games by consistently hitting solid base hits than gambling on home runs.  Happily, Obama’s team demonstrates a lack of self-grandeur.  Still, you don’t have to have Lincoln-worthy rhetoric to ignite a movement. You just have to make a clear point.  If Obama had done that, I would’ve felt much, much more inspired by his speech, making me forget my unfair expectations of immortal oratory (my expectations are my mistake). 

All that said, I still can’t say the phrase “President Barack Obama” without a big ole satisfied grin spreading over my face.

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(poster designed by the talented Jonathan Hoefler)

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Here’s an example:  Across the lake from me, Darcy Burner is running for US Congress from Washington’s 8th district.  I really like Darcy.  Instead of just talking the talk about pulling troops out of Iraq, Darcy went and talked to a retired general who had overseen troops in Iraq to get his opinion, and that of other experts.  She put this all in an analysis paper she published on the web.  That’s ballsy, thoughtful, and proactive — all good traits I’d like to see more in Congress.  But I won’t donate to her campaign.  I don’t live in her district (I live in WA-7th), and I don’t know if she represents the 8th district’s thoughts and values.

I pointed this out to the canvasser.  He thought it didn’t matter: in DC, they make decisions on a national level, and not decisions specific to a particular district.  That’s true — they make national decisions by representing the values of local districts.  Each representative applies their local values to national problems.  It’s the diversity of opinions that makes a plurality work.  It’s what makes the wisdom of crowds work. 

Once upon a time, there was a very opinionated man named Sir Francis Gaulton.  Sir Francis believed that crowds just multiplied the ignorance of its individuals, thus producing horribly bad decisions.  One day he was at a fair and stumbled upon a contest to guess the weight of an ox.  Sir Francis thought that these uninformed people couldn’t possibly guess accurately.  The guesses ranged across the spectrum and a few were close enough to award prizes.  After the contest, he took all the guesses and did some math: he found that the median of all the answers was frighteningly close to true answer.  Since then, countless classrooms of students have guessed the number of beans in a jar and, despite class clowns and earnest over-achievers, the median is always incredibly accurate.  The diversity of opinions makes this work.

So, back in D.C., if you actually want Congress to work well, you want a broad array of opinions.  You get many opinions by making sure that representatives actually represent their home districts.  Anything that gets in the way of that representation — lobbyists, Party dogma, and yes, outside campaign donors — gets in the way of democratic decision-making working at its best.  I really don’t see any difference between my donating to a campaign outside my district, and big oil pouring money into campaigns. 

(Special thanks to the always fabulous RadioLab for the ox-weighing anecdote above.  Listen closely to the episode, and you’ll make out Oliver Sacks in the background doing all the voices.  There’s nothing quite like hearing one of our most celebrated contemporary scientists doing goofy voices).

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It’s always entertaining to watch as an adult cartoons that I’d seen as a kid.  It can be very disappointing (which is why I’ll never re-watch the classic Speed Racer cartoons).  Sometimes, though, it’s fascinating: seeing all the little jokes and subtext that no child can decipher.  Chicken Little just blew me away.  Sure, it’s the story of Chicken Little, but the political overtones are huge.  Watch it and think about politics over the last 10 years, or the recent economic crisis (or any recent crisis).  It’s a good example of how we retell stories to teach ourselves, and how to make a clear political point using creative media.  (Thanks to 4HWW for reminding me of the cartoon).

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Here’s a really interesting video that describes many issues and actually changed my mind on a few things:

Regardless of whether you’re for or against this, time is of the essence to influence your senators.  EFF has made it easy to find your senators & call them; just type your zip code in here. 

Myself, I think that if electronic surveillance were around in 1789, they’d have written it straight into the 4th Amendment.  Further, in this world where information is power, keeping FISA keeps a balance of power between government & citizens as well as between the branches of government.  As all the identity theft problems have shown: information is more important nowadays than physical belongings — if it takes a warrant to search my physical belongings, why should it not take a warrant to search or tap my information?

I used to think that we should give the telecoms immunity if it means we can keep FISA strong.  The video above changed my mind.  Immunity means no lawsuits, which means no investigations into what the government did, which means no way to hold the government accountable.  We have to hold everyone accountable to hold the government accountable. 

I just called my senators and it takes only about 60 sec.  Pretty amazing when you can defend your constitution in only 60 seconds (and a whole lot easier than what soldiers in Iraq have to do).

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The caucuses this afternoon were amazing.  Record turnouts.  I happened to drive from one end of Seattle (Ballard) to my house in Wallingford.  All along the way, I saw hundreds of people walking to their polling places.  It was the greatest display of community I’ve seen in years.  Yeah, I know it’s corny, but it made me feel all warm in side. 

At my polling station, a local church, the line to get in went around the corner then down the block (see pic: this is the line in front of me to the corner; the line behind me was longer).  They had to break us up and present to us in shifts.  Some precincts had to meet outside because there wasn’t enough room inside the church. 

Our precinct had a dramatic upset.  At first tally of votes, Obama won 4 delegates, Clinton 1, and 1 went undecided since we had several undecided votes.  Then, a couple made a passionate speech in favor of Kucinich and chatted up the undecideds in our group.  Their strategy worked: by the final tally, Kucinich picked up the final vote (their logic: send a few Kucinich delegates to the convention to force the big 2 campaigns left by courting the Kucinich vote). 

Myself, I stuck with Obama throughout.  Though both Clinton & Obama are excellent candidates, I think we need inclusive politics more than divisive politics.

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