Comments on: The Warren Harding Error

By: Joseph

Joseph — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:36:39 +0000

Blast from the future – I just googled Harding Error and Obama, and this post of yours from last year came up. The odd thing is, I’ve been thinking about Blink since about the same time as your original post, but in a different context: the first time I got a good look at Obama and heard what he had to say, every last ‘thin slice’ I took gave me a ‘you have GOT to be kidding!’ response. And ever since, I’ve been trying to explain that reaction to myself – and the past year and a half have only made it stronger.

So, yea – serious Harding Error going on here. My thin slice is based, I believe, on my experiences in college and grad school – I’m just a working class boy who thinks it is far beneath my dignity to try to join the ‘better’ classes – and, over the course of my academic career, I got all kinds of sensitive to pompous, arrogant professors and their toady, sycophant students. I did not like these people. I also noticed that the wannabe social climbers were especially likely to overestimate the intelligence of the vapid, smug professors that were everything they aspired to be.

Barak Obama brings all of that back with a bang. Note that I did, of course, run into plenty of genuine and intelligent professors and students, and number several of them among my lifetime friends. But I think I can tell the difference.

Warren Harding + intellectual pretensions + compelling minority story = our current president.

By: couldabeen

couldabeen — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:11:38 +0000

As for the candidates, I have been back and forth, but I made my decision on this:

I read Hillary Clinton’s book and Obama’s 2 books. I looked at their websites (and McCain’s) and I signed up for email alerts from all three of them. I like Clinton the best b/c
1) I found Obama to not patriotic enough. I am not big on flag waving, etc. but I think the president has got to be pretty patriotic. I saw that in Clinton and McCain. They really love America. Clinton is honest about the problems, which McCain seems blind to, but I don’t question that both care about the country as a nation. I don’t know that I am saying this very well, but Obama seems more like a local politician, good with people, but not the big picture. And he seems to kind of hate that he is biracial, which I found odd.

2) Clinton sends me the least email. McCain sends me tons. It’s overkill, but I learn a lot. The problem is, I don’t like what I read.

So I would like to see Clinton run against McCain, but from there I don’t know. Probably Clinton, but I like to keep an opened mind.

By: Natalie

Natalie — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:16:53 +0000

I have been thinking something like this for a while. I used to be really passionate about politics. I was so happy to be the Democrat in a sea of ignorant Republicans. And then I realized that they weren’t all that ignorant. A few years after that, I realized that I didn’t really enjoy arguing about politics as much as I used to so I stopped doing it. Now, I find that I don’t know anything about what’s going on in the current race. But I do like Barak. But do I like him because I like him or because he seems like a personification of the word, “Progressive?” Which is a term I am a sucker for…

So, I want to do my research this time around. Thanks for posting this!

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:02:16 +0000

This isn’t exactly what you were talking about, but it’s something that I’ve wondered…One of my teachers in high school said that the largest percentage of voters came from the senior citizen age bracket. That was ten years ago and I wonder if it’s changed now, since you could argue that it’s been in the last ten years that the generations have changed (I mean, obviously every ten years a new group of people are becoming senior citizens, but in the past ten years the Vietnam era generation has moved fully into that category). With the new election, you’ve got two generations of “controversial” (I’m not including either World War or the first Iraqi war) war-era US citizens able to vote–something that’s never happened before. I’m interested to see how that plays into things.

By: kinsley

kinsley — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:48:55 +0000

Nope. Haven’t read it, but I’ll check it out. Thanks for reading.

By: couldabeen

couldabeen — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:50:19 +0000

Did you ever read the wonderful novel My Search for Warren Harding? It’s great.

I like your post, which is very interesting.