The Kareoke Candidate

Obama is the Kareoke Candidate. He presents well but every note is borrowed and his sound is the sound of overamplified overprocessed machinery.

Kareoke and disco became popular for the same reason: people with no talent and no discipline could pretend to be dancers and singers. As an old band mate of mine put it, 'it is the audience as the stars instead of the professionals'.

Populism succeeds in elections. It simply cannot govern. If we elect this man, we'll go from a ruthless DJ who only spins what he likes to amateur singers who can stay on message but not on beat. Meanwhile, the sucking sound in the background is our economy being flushed to syncopated blues notes.

Using Bill Richardson and other surrogates, the Obama campaign will keep picking 09-09-Race and giving it to the media kareoke masters of ceremonies for today's news spin cycle. The Wright affair and the Rezko trial are causing Obama's base to erode. That base is passionate about the race issue. His campaign will keep finding ways to hit that button. The best thing the rest of us can do is yawn. It isn't that the conversation isn't important, it is that this isn't a conversation. It is a one-sided attempt to guilt us into voting for Obama. Ignore it.

Barack Obama isn't the Manchurian Candidate; he is the Kareoke Candidate picking his songs from a playbook. He does that well. He is a good singer. That doesn't mean he is a good musician or a bandleader.