August 29, 2008

Palin v. Obama on reforming politics

Palin's record in turning out the corrupt, nepotistic old guard in Alaska will allow her to legitimately go after Obama's role as a facilitator of the Rezko-Blagojevich corruption in Illinois. With the whole world to choose from, Obama chose to become a Chicago politician, and not one of those Quixotic reformers who pop up there intermittently, such as the former junior senator from Illinois in 1999-2005, Republican Peter Fitzgerald. Obama's predecessor was dumped by the local GOP after one term because he insisted on bringing federal pitbull prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) to town, who has since sent to prison Republican governor George Ryan, bipartisan fixer Tony Rezko, and, maybe someday, current Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich.

Obama sure hasn't made that mistake of using his federal power to help clean up Illinois.

When you understand Illinois politics, Obama's emphasis on "bipartisanship" takes on a sinister air, since in Illinois the central faultline undermining the commonweal is not Republican vs. Democrat but Politician vs. Public. As ex-Sen. Fitzgerald told John Kass of the Chicago Tribune:

“In the final analysis, The Combine’s allegiance is not to a party, but to their pocketbooks. They’re about making money off the taxpayers. And all these guys being mentioned, [in the Rezko trial] they’re part of it."

Obama's ostensible cause was not "fixing the broken politics" of Illinois, but getting a bigger cut of the boodle for his race. Obama's indoctrination in Saul Alinsky's cynical "Rules for Radicals" left him no room for Fitzgeraldian idealism. Alinsky taught that you must question people until you discover their self-interest, then you go from there. In reality, of course, Obama mostly just succeeded in promoting himself. The abstemious Obama appears to have been less interested in money than in the power he could garner as the clean face of the Combine, covering for allies like legislature godfather Emil Jones and Richie Daley (whom Michelle went to work for in the early 1990s). His most obvious slip-up was bringing Tony Rezko in on his mansion purchase, which I would guess was done for Michelle, who is far more materialistic.

Chicago politics is a combination of the boring (the scams are mostly nickel and dime stuff, just done over and over) and the seemingly bizarre (e.g., the brother of Richie Daley, the brother of Tony Rezko, and the son of Elijah Muhammad teaming up to fraudulently get a $10 million minority set-aside contract from Southwestern Bell for pay phones in Cook Couny jails). Illinois represents the triumph of post-everything politics: at the highest levels, race, religion, ideology, character, being a terrorist, endorsing the Manson murders, none of that means anything as long as you are an insider with clout and are willing to play ball.

Obama played ball. The media have paid little attention to it, but Chicago politics are a huge part of the Obama story.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Palin's record in turning out the corrupt, nepotistic old guard in Alaska will allow her to legitimately go after Obama's role as a facilitator of the Rezko-Blagojevich corruption in Illinois."

EXCELLENT ANALYSIS. I've been listening/reading talking heads today and no one else has made this observation.

Pathetic that Sailer is banned by mainstream media!

Anonymous said...

Steve Sailer: Alinsky taught that you question people until you discover their self-interest...

Apparently Obama & Bill Ayers grilled themselves over this very question, and came to the conclusion that the answer was "JUNETEENTH!"

What Lurks in the Ayers-Annenberg Files?
by Clarice Feldman
August 29, 2008
pajamasmedia.com

...The CAC files show the organization funneled money to activist organizations and did so on ideological grounds, favoring applications that focused on ethnic identity and bilingual education and turning down grant proposals which did not. Thus, CAC funded a Juneteenth effort by the South Shore African Village Collaboration and a peace school but rejected proposals by the Chicago Algebra Project aimed at increasing student achievement and the District 5 Math Science Initiative which was trying to increase the math and science competence of Hispanic youngsters...

Anonymous said...

Oh man oh man oh man, the VDARE crowd is gonna love this chick:

Sarah Palin—Buchananite
Posted by Richard Spencer
August 29, 2008
takimag.com

...Pat Buchanan brought his conservative message of a smaller government and an America First foreign policy to Fairbanks and Wasilla on Friday as he continued a campaign swing through Alaska. Buchanan’s strong message championing states rights resonated with the roughly 85 people gathered for an Interior Republican luncheon in Fairbanks... Among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage...

Anonymous said...

Obama voted for the Bridge To Nowhere. Palin killed it, with the words in the veto message "if we need a bridge, we'll pay for it ourselves."

THAT will resonate quite well, the reformer (Palin) vs. Insider (Biden-Obama). Plays up McCain's "Maverick" reformer tendencies which is a way to run against BOTH Bush and Obama at the same time.

Anonymous said...

This is ought to be one of the more interesting topics, but I just don't think that people who don't refresh ISteve several times a day (eg. when their code is compiling) will be able to follow the story.

For instance, there's a heckuva lot going on in just these two sentence:

The abstemious Obama appears to have been less interested in money than in the power he could garner as the clean face of the Combine, while allies like legislature godfather Emil Jones and Richie Daley (whom Michelle went to work for in the early 1990s). His most obvious slip-up was bringing Tony Rezko in on his mansion purchase, which I would guess was done for Michelle, who is far more materialistic."

Anonymous said...

Illinois is an odd state. The mayor of chicago is actually a much more powerful figure than the governor of IL, even though chicago, with less than 3 million people has less than half the population of the chicago metro area alone.

Obama's would be Republican opponent was totally thrown overboard by the official Republican party in the election where Obama was elected to the US senate. The papers launched a lawsuit against the guy to get his divorce records released publicly (he was married to the actress who played 7 of 9 from one of the star trek series). They heavily, heavily publicized a weird sex allegation from the divorce, pretty much hyping it up. The GOP officials from IL threw the guy under the bus minutes after the story came out. At the time I could not figure out if it was Obama's people or the IL GOP people who had given the papers the info to launch the lawsuit (I did not know that Obama's dem primary opponent had been gutted by the same tactic.

Anonymous said...

1/ I liked this column better when it was called 'The Front Page'.

2/ The VDare crowd won't like her because

a/ They will have to vote McCain to get her anywhere.

b/ Sarah Palin obviously believes in the d-i-y response to demographic challenges, instead of the whine and complain about others response of VDare.

Anonymous said...

Steve -- You were the first to point out the Jeremy Wright millstone/connection, the first to read Obama's books and point out their inconsistencies, and now you're the first to really explore the rat's nest of corruption Obama immersed himself in in Chicago. Our country would be so much better off if you had a bigger platform.

Anonymous said...

It was really Ballsy of McCain to chose Tina Fey as his running mate.

She seems like a good choice - an uncommonly good decision by McCain. Now if the Republicans could just pick someone else for the top slot on the ticket, I'd vote for it.

John McCain gets my g*dd*mn vote only after he builds my g*dd*mn fence.

Unknown said...

If Obama is elected, isn't whatever taint of Illinois politics he brings to the white house a rather negligible cost for removing those at the heart of malfeasance and incompetence of the Bush Administration? I'm skeptical McCain is going to clean house considering how eager he is to continue Bush's foreign policy agenda. Sarah Palin's reformist credentials might be useful for the soundbite politics of the campaign, but it's not as if she's going to have any real influence as a VP. Same goes for her other stances, it's going to be McCain's show.

Anonymous said...

We all know how this is going to end: the vast majority of white women will one day be Republicans, certainly by 2042 or whenever whites are supposed to become a minority. The rejection of Hillary by the Dems and the nomination of Palin by the Repubs is just one more step toward the inevitable.

Anonymous said...

"We all know how this is going to end: the vast majority of white women will one day be Republicans, certainly by 2042 or whenever whites are supposed to become a minority. The rejection of Hillary by the Dems and the nomination of Palin by the Repubs is just one more step toward the inevitable."

I was thinking that today, too; I wonder if the divide is becoming less about ideology, especially vis a vis religion and personal behavior, and more about race as whites become fewer in number. Of course, if one starts focusing on "their people", or family, that makes one more conservative. The GOP has been making inroads for awhile with the poor whites with each election finding the base income threshold lowered. The stark poverty I saw in 2004 while doing field work... Anyways, is it now going to happened with whiter people? Like starting with the Ferraros and other softer (older) whiter people? Anecdotal: my step-mom called family today to declare she is voting Republican for the first time in her life; she had already decided to not vote for anybody, a first, but was pulled to the conservative side. Will we be leaving the era of patrician, intelligent, white male domination? Palin seems like a great woman, a phenom and all, but I think she could only have been picked in an increasingly heterogenous and racially hostile time. McCain and everyone else intuited that a boring white guy probably wouldn't be enough to win, and thus, the recalibration to our new society.

Anonymous said...

Obama's ostensible cause was not "fixing the broken politics" of Illinois, but getting a bigger cut of the boodle for his race.

Indeed. Lest you have any doubt: unlike Al Gore, the Obama's have made pretty sizeable charitable donations. Where did they go?

The couple paid nearly $1.4 million in federal taxes last year, and made $240,370 in charitable contributions. Their largest gifts were to the United Negro College Fund ($50,000), the international relief organization CARE ($35,000) and Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago ($26,270).

In other words, to black causes - a racist black church, a racist black scholarship fund, and an international charity that spends about half of its money in black parts of the world (and whose CEO is also black).

Obama has also co-sponsored the effort to signed on to the effort to raise foreign aid spending to 0.7% ($100 billion) of GNP annually.

Where would that money go? I have an idea...

They heavily, heavily publicized a weird sex allegation from the divorce, pretty much hyping it up. The GOP officials from IL threw the guy under the bus minutes after the story came out.

The allegations by Star Trek star Jeri Ryan were that her husband Jack, the senate candidate in question, had wanted her to go to various sex clubs and engage in orgies and/or wife-swapping. Pretty serious by modern standards, but, considering how good a candidate Ryan was, also a good argument for electing more pervs to office.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

The GOP has been making inroads for awhile with the poor whites with each election finding the base income threshold lowered."

The GOP has been screwing poor whites progressively more and more each election. They have promoted the outsourcing of whole industries, promoted the inflow of foreigners to this country, sent white boys off to die in a needless war, tightened bankruptcy laws, and acceded to the creeping demonization of traditional white american culture. If this is an attempt at fostering racial solidarity with whites, it is an odd way to go about it.

Anonymous said...

The GOP has been screwing poor whites progressively more and more each election...If this is an attempt at fostering racial solidarity with whites, it is an odd way to go about it.

True, but one hopes that eventually, like Edison with the light bulb, they'll stumble on the right formula. With a white woman VP candidate perhaps attracting the white women's vote, perhaps the GOP will finally realize in the fall that they are the white party.

Not that McCain will ever realize it, but perhaps the rest of the GOP will.

Anonymous said...

"like Edison with the light bulb": Edison was a marvellously prolific inventor, but the light bulb was the one on which he LOST his patent case. Now let us return to the business of the cunning old fox, Mrs Alaska and Baroque Obama.

Anonymous said...

like Edison with the light bulb: Edison was a marvellously prolific inventor, but the light bulb was the one on which he LOST his patent case.

It's an analogy. Everyone knows the story, even if it isn't true.

The possibility remains that, in this election in particluar, the GOP may stuble upon the secret formula it's been overlooking for years - LOOK AFTER THE INTERESTS OF YOUR VOTERS.

But so long as the GOP pursues minority voters (and the campaign contributions of their employers) by doing things that make them an ever larger voting block with every passing election, we are doomed.

Anonymous said...

"Obama sure hasnt made that mistake...to clean up Illinois." ha ha soo true! I rember when Fitzgerald first suggested P. Fitzgerald,what a huge tizzy erupted. There was outrage that he would dare nominate an "outsider" over all the good hardworking dear boys at home. The biggest "catch" of the previous giy was to railroad a mexican female,Miriam Santos, who had some kind of feud with Daley--they acted like they caught Dillinger! Pathetic losers.O'B's buddy Emil Jones,who recently proposed a raise for the Ill legislature even as the state is desperate for money--"I need a raise" he said,Licoln-like---had tears in his eyes as O'B accepted the nomination.I have no doubt he was thinking of the dear children!!:) I disagree a bit with Steves analysis of Ill?Chi politics as "post-racial." Its never postr racial. The ascendance of the black politicinas takes corruption,waste,fraud,to a hwole new level.

Anonymous said...

Check out this resource for Alaska's first lady:

http://www.grizzlybay.org/SarahPalinInfoPage.htm