Hope and Change

Barack Obama sounds like a populist.  In fact, his rhetoric often sounds like classic class warfare populism of a William Jennings Bryan where the poor masses are extolled while the rich are ridiculed.  But Obama's actually policy advisors are more mainstream academics, if still more or less left of center compared to the US population.

But the reality is that he runs on a populist program that says very little of substance, except that he represents hope and change.  But why can't he run on the more "reasonable" policies that his economic advisors are designing to address the economic problems he deems as vital for implementing a program of hope and change?  Is this because even a fairly left leaning but respectable economist is more 'right wing' from the point of view of the population than is popularly acceptable?  I guess the recognition of scarcity, the necessity of trade offs and the importance of incentives is just too much.

Comments

[John V]

Thanks. Blogged:

http://www.swordscrossed.org/node/2087

http://theforvm.org/diary/john/whats-wrong-with-substance

[Devin Snead]

What is really sad is that even libertarians such as Justin Raimondo are being hoodwinked into endorsing Obama, even though they totally disagree with his economic policies, because they think he is not a warmonger. It just so happens to be that his Senior Foreign Policy Advisor is none other than Zbigniew Brzezinski (i.e. the mastermind behind arming the Mujahideen [which included Osama bin Laden] to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan).

[Rafe Champion]

Join the club! Our new PM rode on a program that combined "me too" (fiscal conservatism) and "fresh and new" (an education revolution, a laptop computer for every child, 40% emission reduction by 2020 etc) and an attack on the Hayekian "brutopia". His critique of Hayek was delivered at the (Hayekian) Centre for Independent Studies and borrowed from a book by a lapsed communist who is looking for the Third Way between left and right.
The Kevin Rudd speech. http://cpd.org.au/article/kevin-rudd-cis:-introduced-david-mcknight
Critique of his "briefing notes". http://www.the-rathouse.com/2008/McKnight.html

[liberty]

His lack of substance, even more than his policies (whatever they are), frightens me. And it truly frightens me that he has such broad appeal when his words are so vacant. It is like he's being given a blank check - to just do whatever he wants as long as he "lifts America up" and "brings America together" and so forth. He could lead us right to fascism without anyone blinking an eye.

[matthew mueller]

See I think his inane and empty campaign rhetoric demonstrates his incompetence. Because of this, I consider him harmless; at least much more harmless than Clinton or Edwards.

Clinton and Edwards are very articulate, clear, and focused on just how they want to re-shape American society. With Obama, it is ambiguous, confused, and chimerical.

I would rather have a candidate repeating phrases like "the audacity of hope" than "rescue the middle class" and "punish the rich" which is what can be found among people like Clinton and Edwards.

[J.Lo]

Not sure it has anything to do with any sort of popular view of economists. If it did, I would expect mainstream Americans to be more supportive of a perceived rightward bias given their vehement rejection of taxes specifically and the liberal label in general. The Obama approach you describe might be just the thing to advance American economic progress: warm rhetoric for a constitutionally weak office, but with hard theory supporting him at the level of intervention. Let's keep in mind that the first job is to get elected, and that a useful way to do that is to advertise a product that is a refreshing alternative to the old one. At day's end, Obama and HRC differ very little in proposed approaches, but Obama appears to be doing a better job of using likeability to win the job of implementing those approaches.

Obama might be a much better economist than meets the eye.

[The Charters Of Dreams]

With the Ship Of State feeling more like the Titanic, no wonder people are grabbing onto Obama, but probably for the wrong reasons. I hope you're correct about a "rational" economic influence on Obama by his advisors.

However, many Libertarians, independents and convervatives (see Andrew Sullivan's "Conservatives For Obama:" http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/conservatives-f.html) support Obama because of his position on the war, and there again, too many people are focusing on "Hope and Change" rather than really kicking the tires and looking closely under the hood of Obama and asking "Where's The Beef?" (see: http://libertydesirebelief.thechartersofdreams.com/2008/01/trouble-in-liberal-paradise-de.html)?, i.e., he talks a good game, says all the right things that anyone against the war wants to hear, but -- remember the Democratic sweep in the midterm elections? Wasn't that all about the war? And where are we now? Can Obama really do any better (see: http://libertydesirebelief.thechartersofdreams.com/2008/03/the-war-the-probable-sad-delus.html)?

I would love, LOVE, to be wrong, but I'm afraid that on this issue, Obama supports are likely to be sorely disappointed.

[Kyle R. M.]

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Policies/dp/0691129428/

http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Hidden-Forces-Decisions/dp/006135323X/

[Carl Weathers]

Black Guy Asks Nation for Change:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/black_guy_asks_nation_for_change