On Sunday The New York Times' Kate Zernike and Jeff Zeleny discussed the contradictions between Senator Obama's blockbuster presidential campaign and his B-movie bit-part in the Senate in their article, "Obama in Senate: Star Power, Minor Role" which is part of their series on the presidential candidates called The Long Run. One quote, from Senator Obama himself, illustrates this contradiction quite well:
'“I’ve been very blessed,” Mr. Obama told the crowd [of Washington’s elite at the spring dinner of the storied Gridiron Club] assembled in March 2006. “Keynote speaker at the Democratic convention. The cover of Newsweek. My book made the best-seller list. I just won a Grammy for reading it on tape. Really, what else is there to do?” he said, his smile now broad. “Well, I guess I could pass a law or something.”'
The article goes on to compare Sen. Obama's "megawatt celebrity" and "multimedia sensation" with his lackluster record, most notably, the fact that there are "few examples of the kind of bipartisan work he advocates in his current campaign." On immigration reform, which is of particular interest to us here at NDN, Sen. Obama joined the bipartisan group led by Senators McCain and Kennedy offering Comprehensive Immigration Reform, "yet when the measure reached the floor, Mr. Obama distanced himself from the compromise, advocating changes sought by labor groups [and] the bill collapsed."
The political reality for Senator (could-be President) Obama is that a Senate voting record would be a potential minefield to his campaign, as has been demonstrated by his campaign's bludgeoning of Senator Clinton with hers (Iraq vote, for example). Yet, in this new phase of the campaign, which Simon discusses in his recent post, there will be more focus on the realities behind the media and campaign personalities of the candidates. Senator Clinton's argument has long been that she has been through this close scrutiny before (but isn't a rerun inevitable and is that anything we want to see: CNN paging Kenneth Starr)? For Obama, this scrutiny will be new and more intense and will continue to ask the question: But could he deliver?
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