It's more insidious still.
The Clintons floated the idea, in hopes that it might catch on, that the Obama supporters, rather than the candidate himself, are a "cult."
Okay, where's the Kool-Aid?
But while it's true that his support is strongest with the young (you know, idealists with unformed minds easily led into cults) and that his speeches move people in ways they have not been moved by a politician in forty years (unlike Clinton's self-aggrandizing...and now money-pitch speeches), he's actually a guy who's thought things through and has smart plans, a guy with a 60-page "Blueprint for America".
Andrew Sullivan nailed it today in "The Unemotional Case For Obama":
A meme is developing is that support for Obama is all emotion, fantasy, hysteria, etc. There's no question that the emotions behind Obama are powerful. And any fool can see why. His oratory does what oratory should. He is the greatest public speaker in American life since Reagan. And the shame and demoralization of the Bush-Cheney years - when we launched a war with reckless indifference to planning it, when we tortured prisoners and called it "enhanced interrogation", when we saw a government rendered so utterly useless that a hurricane made the US look like the third world, when conservatives added $32 trillion to the debt of the next generation, when a president made sophomoric jokes about not finding weapons of mass destruction he leveraged American global credibility on ... if you don't feel emotions in wanting to put this disgrace of an administration behind us, then you are not being rational.
But the strongest case for Obama is not emotional; it is as coolly rational as he is. I tried to express it in my "Goodbye To All That" essay. On the most critical issues we face - Iraq, the war against Jihadism, healthcare, and the economy - he makes more sense as a president than Clinton. And when you watch the knee-jerk opposition to him, I think it is actually more emotional and less rational than the support for him. Fear is more emotional than hope.
He finishes off on the experience issue, the more spiteful Hillary stuff, but he closes with a video that a friend of mine forwarded separately to me, so I thought I'd embed it here. It definitely challenged my own assholish assumptions when I started watching it, but in a funny way it's a metaphor for the entire Obama campaign, that if he wins it'll be by excelling, because he had to, because the tie never goes to the challenger. You really have to prove it, against all odds, and earn the respect by acquitting yourself wonderfully:
So if this is the type of involved citizen Obama is imploring us all to me, I'd say there's reason for hope.
There's also an undeniable emotional element to each American citizen's relationship to her or his President. With Bush it's curdled, but with FDR it was very special, even with Reagan for those who supported him, even our own mental bargain with Bill Clinton. The most powerful emotion in a citizen is when the intellect is won over and the eye just completes it.
Like with this woman who saw Obama in Seattle today:
Although I was somewhat lukewarm on Obama and I certainly do NOT believe the only way America can experience "change" is by moving the "older woman" out of the way to make room for "something young and new," I gotta say, Obama pretty much said everything I wanted to hear. Now, this is scary and I don't believe a lot that comes out of a politician's mouth. But Obama is certainly a shot in the arm.
I was about to fall asleep before he started speaking. I was already worn out. Can I say that I didn't sit down for a solitary second the whole time he was speaking? From what he said about healthcare and Iraq, to education and yes, all that fanfare about "believe" and "hope" and the whole sack of cats, he made it sound real, do-able, and there is an effect he has that rings genuine to me. My hands are sore from clapping...
...I'm sure that several of Clinton's supporters can eviscerate me and ask me what Obama did - Obama, who I gave a chance to see live and in person - that Clinton can't do - a candidate who I haven't yet seen in person and will probably not have a chance to.
Well let me tell you this, and I'm putting my neck on the chopping block by doing so, I know: I went to see Obama, but I ended up seeing a president. He IS a shot in the arm. He IS something new. With all respect to Clinton, I do feel that you are a part of the past. I'm sorry, it is just going to come with the territory. Now, if she gets the nomination, I will be singing her praises and I will be casting my vote dutifully in November for noneother than our beloved Democrat.
Jus' sayin. Obama has "President" written all over him. My tongue's not wagging out, I don't have Obamamania; I'm just a woman who's done some research and I think this guy can take 'em on.
McCain's toast.
The Obama campaign is letting all Democrats, especially you "super delegates" out there, that this has already become conventional wisdom.
Don't screw it up.
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