{"id":1536,"date":"2008-01-21T11:32:36","date_gmt":"2008-01-21T19:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2008-01-21T11:32:36","modified_gmt":"2008-01-21T19:32:36","slug":"the-new-yorker-the-clinton-obama-battle-reveals-two-very-different-ideas-of-the-presidency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/21\/the-new-yorker-the-clinton-obama-battle-reveals-two-very-different-ideas-of-the-presidency\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Yorker: The Clinton-Obama battle reveals two very different ideas of the Presidency."},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Yorker<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The alternatives facing Democratic voters have been characterized variously as a choice between experience and change, between an insider and an outsider, and between two firsts\u2014a woman and a black man. But perhaps the most important difference between these two politicians\u2014whose policy views, after all, are almost indistinguishable\u2014lies in their rival conceptions of the Presidency. Obama offers himself as a catalyst by which disenchanted Americans can overcome two decades of vicious partisanship, energize our democracy, and restore faith in government. Clinton presents politics as the art of the possible, with change coming incrementally through good governance, a skill that she has honed in her career as advocate, First Lady, and senator. <\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

It occurred to me that Clinton is a familiar kind of Democrat\u2014the earnest policy junkie, like Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, or John Kerry\u2014except that this is a wonk with a killer instinct and a passionate temperament under wraps. In our conversation, Clinton seemed to admit that she does not inspire through rhetoric and emotion. \u201cYou can also inspire through deeds,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can demonstrate determination and willingness to make difficult choices, to show backbone and courage, to confront adversity calmly and skillfully. A President, no matter how rhetorically inspiring, still has to show strength and effectiveness in the day-to-day handling of the job, because people are counting on that. So, yes, words are critically important, but they\u2019re not enough. You have to act. In my own experience, sometimes it\u2019s putting one foot in front of the other day after day.\u201d She cited her efforts on behalf of the health of workers at Ground Zero. \u201cIt\u2019s important to realize that, once the lights are off and the cheering crowds are gone, you still have to go back to the Oval Office and figure out how to solve these problems. It really does mean that the buck stops there. You can\u2019t delegate it, you can\u2019t outsource it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New Yorker: The alternatives facing Democratic voters have been characterized variously as a choice between experience and change, between an insider and an outsider, and between two firsts\u2014a woman and a black man. But perhaps the most important difference between these two politicians\u2014whose policy views, after all, are almost indistinguishable\u2014lies in their rival conceptions of the Presidency. Obama offers himself as a catalyst by which disenchanted Americans can overcome two decades of vicious partisanship, energize our democracy, and restore…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,152],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-politics","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4uks-oM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}