Slate Looks at Canidate Psychological Profiles

http://www.slate.com/id/2184696/pagenum/all/#page_start


"Hillary Clinton is a Guardian, and her specific type is an ESTJ, what Keirsey calls "the Supervisor." Supervisors are, Keirsey says, steadfast, cautious, methodical. They are the reliable, detail-oriented people without whom organizations and society fall apart—which is something ESTJs won't hesitate to point out....

Barack Obama—no one will be surprised to learn—is an Idealist. His specific type is an ENFP, what Keirsey calls "the Champion." ENFPs, says Keirsey, are "filled with conviction that they can easily motivate those around them." Champions work to "kindle, to rouse, to encourage, even to inspire those close to them with their enthusiasm." Idealists "usually have a tongue of silver" and are "gifted in seeing the possibilities" of institutions and people....

John McCain is an Artisan, and his specific type is an ESTP, what Keirsey calls the Promoter. The ESTP is, according to Keirsey, "practical, optimistic, cynical, and focused on the here and now." If the ESTP portrait gives you a feeling of déjà vu, it's because George W. Bush is an ESTP, too. They are a common presidential type: Both Roosevelts, JFK, and LBJ were ESTPs. "Artisans need to be potent, to be felt as a strong presence and they want to affect the course of events," writes Keirsey. They hunger to "have a piece of the action," "to make something happen" whether "on the battlefield" or "in the political arena.""

Obama Substance

This post is just to refer you to three items which discuss the Obama/Clinton "substance" debate:

1)
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/obama-actually.html

Excerpt:
"There he was, working for nuclear non-proliferation and securing loose stockpiles of conventional weapons, like shoulder-fired missiles. There he was again, passing what the Washington Post called "the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet" -- though not as strong as Obama would have liked. Look -- he's over there, passing a bill that created a searchable database of recipients of federal contracts and grants, proposing legislation on avian flu back when most people hadn't even heard of it, working to make sure that soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were screened for traumatic brain injury and to prevent homelessness among veterans, successfully fighting a proposal by the VA to reexamine all PTSD cases in which full benefits had been awarded, working to ban no-bid contracts in Katrina reconstruction, and introducing legislation to criminalize deceptive political tactics and voter intimidation. And there he was again, introducing a tech plan of which Lawrence Lessig wrote:

• "Obama has committed himself to a technology policy for government that could radically change how government works. The small part of that is simple efficiency -- the appointment with broad power of a CTO for the government, making the insanely backwards technology systems of government actually work."

"

2)
This second post is even more interesting. A woman known as "Grassroots Mom" actually went in and read the bills sponsored and written by both candidates in order to compare them. "I Refuse to Buy into the Obama Hype (Now a Supporter)"
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/20/201332/807/36/458633

Excerpt:
"Obviously, Hillary Clinton really knows her stuff on the issues of health care....

Now let's look more closely at Obama.

I was blown away as I started going through his record. I've already mentioned his bills on health care and energy. In addition he had introduced bills on Iran, voting, veterans, global warming, campaign finance and lobbyists, Blackwater, global poverty, nuclear proliferation, and education.

On Iran: S.J.RES.23 : A joint resolution clarifying that the use of force against Iran is not authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, any resolution previously adopted, or any other provision of law.

On votingPassed out of Committee and now on the Senate Calendar for Feb. 22, 2008
S.453 : A bill to prohibit deceptive practices in Federal elections Please check this out! This is a great bill. We need this. I can't believe that this time voter intimidation is not already illegal.

On veterans and military personnel: S.1084 : A bill to provide housing assistance for very low-income veterans;

On global warmingS.1324 : A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuel sold in the United States;S.1389 : A bill to authorize the National Science Foundation to establish a Climate Change Education Program; S.AMDT.599 to S.CON.RES.21 To add $200 million for Function 270 (Energy) for the demonstration and monitoring of carbon capture and sequestration technology by the Department of Energy. (This last one passed both the House and the Senate as part of the budget bill.)

On campaign finance and lobbyists S.2030 : A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require reporting relating to bundled contributions made by persons other than registered lobbyists; and S.AMDT.41 to S.1 To require lobbyists to disclose the candidates, leadership PACs, or political parties for whom they collect or arrange contributions, and the aggregate amount of the contributions collected or arranged.

On Blackwater S.2044 : A bill to provide procedures for the proper classification of employees and independent contractors, and for other purposes, and S.2147 : A bill to require accountability for contractors and contract personnel under Federal contracts, and for other purposes.

On global poverty S.2433 : A bill to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

On global nuclear proliferation S.1977 : A bill to provide for sustained United States leadership in a cooperative global effort to prevent nuclear terrorism, reduce global nuclear arsenals, stop the spread of nuclear weapons and related material and technology, and support the responsible and peaceful use of nuclear technology."

3) Finally, a graph from the New York Times covering Obama's State record:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/07/29/us/politics/20070730_OBAMA_GRAPHIC.html

Newsweek Fails to Find Salvation

One Robert J. Samuelson explains why he feels that Obama is lacking as a presidential candidate, in an interesting way. He seemingly claims that Obama's ability to impress in person means that his inability to provide policies that are similarly audacious makes him somehow worse than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain. Some good points are made in the process, and the article is worth reading.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/113672/page/1

Of particular issue is what he sees as a lack of detail behind Obama's rhetoric, and despite the occasional valid point, I’d pose his own argument against himself. He lists vagaries without providing backing rational – “If you examine his agenda, it is completely ordinary, highly partisan, not candid and mostly unresponsive to many pressing national problems.” What areas of his agenda qualify under these descriptors? I’d very possibly agree if I knew what items he was talking about.

The Obama hype certainly does provide detractors with a target for their criticism. There isn’t enough pressure from the media for Obama to address his plan details more publicly. If you don’t go to Obama’s website and read his Blueprint for Change, most of the details of the plans this author lists would be completely unavailable.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Blueprint_Obama.htm

I did find one particular item in the article odd, however, and somewhat explanatory of the weakness of the overall argument:
"Instead, Obama pledges not to raise the retirement age and to "protect Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries." This isn't "change"; it's sanctification of the status quo. He would also exempt all retirees making less than $50,000 annually from income tax. By his math, that would provide average tax relief of $1,400 to 7 million retirees—shifting more of the tax burden onto younger workers. Obama's main proposal for Social Security is to raise the payroll tax beyond the present $102,000 ceiling."

He first claims that Obama’s plan is not change, but pandering; suggesting that there is no possible way for the promise to be met. But then he goes on to detail some of Obama’s plans to actually make the pledge possible, and yet fails to take the opportunity to point out any flaws in them; his argument here does not appear to be that details are lacking, as he claims, but that he disagrees with the details given. He seems to think that cutting benefits and raising the retirement age are the only methods that could work to save SS, and thus any different ideas (the things he claims are missing) are then not true details.

Where is the math to show that raising the SS cap isn’t going to provide enough money to fulfill the listed changes? If he thinks Obama should say that cutting benefits is the only hope, then why not provide a rational for that stance, instead of just making a claim of what the candidate should have said?

Lastly, most of the article is about Obama’s lack of both details and of “independent ideas”, without considering the alternatives. If McCain and Hillary are not held to a higher standard because they lack in the effective rhetoric that seems to have caused this reporter’s initial excitement with Obama, then why are their similarly lacking plans somehow better? Given his stated concerns with these other two candidates, is the author's contention really that when confronted with two similar options, picking the one with a known list of shortcomings is better, simply because we know what they are?

Obama's Experience: Quality vs. Quantity

Since most of the anti-Obama claims I hear are about his lack of national office experience, I think it’s worth taking a critical look at what experience he does have:

“People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements….”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html

I’d also point people interested to a page about one bill he co-authored as a senator: to re-direct funding to the NATO destruction of conventional weapons caches actually being used against our military forces while everyone else was frantically screaming about WMDs. Ahh, the fresh scent of reality and sense:

http://fas.org/asmp/campaigns/MANPADS/2005/LugarObama.htm

Bush's Protection Racket

http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=638

Bush spoke first to the House of Representatives, then to the press on why the updated FISA bill should be passed in light of the expiration of the Protect America Act of 2007.

First let me note that Bush likes the Protect America Act - the provisional bill that was passed last summer as a stop-gap measure to allow the continued wiretapping of domestic communications while congress put together a more comprehensive bill, but the Republican house members voted against extending it another 21 days. Instead, they chose telecom immunity (a key part of the current draft of the new FISA bill) over the existing Protect America Act. The democrats chose to allow the Act to expire over the interests of telecom companies seeking liability protection via an Ex-Post Facto (read: blatantly unconstitutional) provision for handing over private customer information without a warrant.

Keep in mind that this simply means that the law in place since the 1970's is now back in effect - spying can occur, with cause and with a warrant from the secret FISA court. The only thing this expiry does is remove the government's right to spy on all domestic telecom traffic without a warrant for periods longer than 72 hours.


In my mind, this speech can be translated to:

"You should pay me what I've asked for. Or else something...you know...*really bad* might happen. I won't have anything to do with it, of course, I'm a good guy. But Johny, you see, over there, sitting in the corner...sometimes he gets violent, you know?

"All I'm trying to do is protect you, and you won't let me."

To head off arguments of the main weakness of this analogy: no, Bush doesn't have direct control over 'terrorists' as a mob head has over his hired muscle, but when any force is constant, control over the valve is control over the source.

A letter to my House Rep

Despite the fact that your votes against extending the Protect America Act suggest that you are in favor of the proposed telecom immunity that failed to come to a vote this week, I want to thank you for your role in rejecting said immunity.

While there is no doubt that passing an Ex-Post Facto law to provide telecom companies with safe harbor for actions regarding the transfer of private citizen information to the federal government without a warrant would increase the volume of data available for intelligence gathering, such myopic thinking ignores a vast majority of the effects this action would have on this nation and its government.

While we currently spend a hundred billion dollars per year in the name of fighting terrorism and protecting the roughly 250 US citizens per year that it kills, We spend a mere five billion on cancer research and helping the 500,000 per year that die from it. That's a $400,000,000 per death to only $10,000 per death.

What is the focus of our current War on Terror? Given the numbers above, it certainly isn't to prevent US deaths; such a goal would require the immediate re-distribution of WoT funds to medical research. What the billions of dollars appear to be doing is to help reduce the chance of death by violent act perpetrated by someone with an extreme ideology. To protect us from a rare method of death at the hands of another human being.

While noble, how much money is that worth?

How much freedom is the tiny fraction of useful information caught up in a telecom dragnet worth for the same noble but marginal goal?

What happened to the concept of a small government? Of Personal Freedom and Privacy as the root of a free democracy?