Spring Break
Outside Observer | Barack Obama's cult of personality
By: Josh Prywes
Issue date: 2/22/08 Section: Opinion
Of course, Obama's worshippers will surely come up with some excuse for why Obama didn't just cast a "no" vote if he disagreed with the bill, but for the rest of us, those present votes add up. Either Obama is really naive, or he just chooses not to let anyone know his positions on important issues.
The second, and more relevant, storyline of the Obama campaign is the participation of college students in his rapid rise in popularity.
Pollster Frank Luntz asked college students at a recent focus group to name the candidate they were going to vote for. All of them said Obama, but when Luntz followed up by asking them to name a single accomplishment of the senator, they couldn't name one. Nobody could name a single accomplishment that Senator Obama has achieved.
I don't blame most liberal college students for supporting Obama - it's hard to get excited by Hillary Clinton, unless you're a Republican hoping for the chance to face her in the general election. The only thing lonelier than being a Republican at college is being a Hillary Clinton supporter at college.
They don't question his ties to the criminal Chicago developer Tony Rezko, his spiritual advisor Jeremiah Wright (who has said Zionism has an element of "white racism") or his repeated flip-flops on issues ranging from national security to immigration. We can't expect his supporters to know his position on immigration reform.
The message of Obama as an agent of change and hope is the only one that gets replayed by Obama's university underlings. Even The New York Times' Paul Krugman has written "the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality." This hero worship is not limited to college campuses. It's just particularly pronounced there, which isn't surprising given the "we can do anything" mentality of college students.
Hopefully, as Obama moves from being the presumptive nominee to the actual nominee, he'll finally offer some specifics rather than the same old cliches. Any Obama supporter needs to seriously consider why they are casting a vote for him. More than likely, it's a feel-good vote, not cast in favor of anything the junior senator from Illinois would actually do as president.
Josh Prywes is a student from Emory University.
The second, and more relevant, storyline of the Obama campaign is the participation of college students in his rapid rise in popularity.
Pollster Frank Luntz asked college students at a recent focus group to name the candidate they were going to vote for. All of them said Obama, but when Luntz followed up by asking them to name a single accomplishment of the senator, they couldn't name one. Nobody could name a single accomplishment that Senator Obama has achieved.
I don't blame most liberal college students for supporting Obama - it's hard to get excited by Hillary Clinton, unless you're a Republican hoping for the chance to face her in the general election. The only thing lonelier than being a Republican at college is being a Hillary Clinton supporter at college.
They don't question his ties to the criminal Chicago developer Tony Rezko, his spiritual advisor Jeremiah Wright (who has said Zionism has an element of "white racism") or his repeated flip-flops on issues ranging from national security to immigration. We can't expect his supporters to know his position on immigration reform.
The message of Obama as an agent of change and hope is the only one that gets replayed by Obama's university underlings. Even The New York Times' Paul Krugman has written "the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality." This hero worship is not limited to college campuses. It's just particularly pronounced there, which isn't surprising given the "we can do anything" mentality of college students.
Hopefully, as Obama moves from being the presumptive nominee to the actual nominee, he'll finally offer some specifics rather than the same old cliches. Any Obama supporter needs to seriously consider why they are casting a vote for him. More than likely, it's a feel-good vote, not cast in favor of anything the junior senator from Illinois would actually do as president.
Josh Prywes is a student from Emory University.
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