Political preferences do give hints to background and personalities, but they’re not an ultimate decider and it’s a shame that the UNITED States is so horribly devided on the matter at the moment.

People are being blindly optimistic for the hope that things are about to change, and whilst that’s not smart it’s certainly understandable.

Whilst it’s important not to forget what democracy SHOULD be about, it’s also worth being realistic about how it works. These 2 points go together fine, there’s no point name-calling (“sheep”) and belittling to try to gain the upper-hand.

A strength of the left-wing/liberal standing is that we try to understand others and use reason, not negative tactics, to bring people together. And the US could really do with some mutual understandings.

It’s a bummer.

But it wasn’t. It was a stupid move, even by purely Machiavellian standards–just bad tactics.

1. If you want to make a strategic shift to the right, how about making a move you haven’t already promised you wouldn’t make? Don’t flip-flop.

2. If you want to stand up to the Left wing of your party, get ready for a conflict and prepare yourself to look good coming out of it. Obama left his campaign volunteers and staff sitting there saying, well, yeah this is bad but McCain is even worse. There’s a word for statements like that: “negative.”

3. Don’t ask your base to give up on its values. The Republicans never do this. They take the trouble to at least TRY to convince their base that they’re standing up for what’s right.

4. If you’re going to take a stand against your own party’s values, come up with something convincing to say about the alternative values you are embracing and why. Get ready to meet the Left wing’s criticism (you knew this was coming, right? tell me you knew this was coming) with some of the values you’ve been espousing–”courage,” “change,” “putting fear behind us.” Obama can’t link it to any of these, because it’s more of the same and the politics of fear.

5. Take a stand on something that doesn’t look like playing footsie with corporate special interests and lobbyists. Hint to Obama campaign: Granting retroactive immunity to big companies looks like something the lobbyists just might have been grubbing for.

Yeah, it bothers me that Obama is just another scheming, calculating politician. I never believed in the hype. But it also annoys me that he’s not even GOOD at Machiavellian machinations.

Even on a purely strategic level, he has played his hand very, very poorly.