Obama on Instinct and Gut Decisions - The Joe Klein Interview
After getting kicked off the John McCain airplane, Joe Klein scores a big interview with Obama. In it, Obama discuss his instincts and his ability to make spot decisions to deal with unexpected events, such as the Rev. Wright affair:
[BO] Well, during the course of this campaign probably our response to those Reverend Wright videos had to be a spot decision, because frankly it was unanticipated and I hadn't seen those
incendiary videos before. The decision to make it big as opposed to make it small.
[Q] To make the [Philadelphia] speech.
[BO] To write a speech in two days and deliver it at a time when there was a singular focus on the topic I think is an example of having to make decision based on what in my gut would make sense.
[Q] What was your gut telling you?
[BO] My gut was telling me that this was a teachable moment and that if I tried to do the usual political damage control instead of talking to the American people like an adult--like they were adults and could understand the complexities of race that I would be not only doing damage to the campaign but missing an important opportunity for leadership.
On McCain "suspending" his campaign:
[Q] When people were saying to you that day that McCain suspending, he's going to seem above the fray and I know that some people felt that way, you didn't go with that.
[BO] I didn't believe it. I have to tell you, one of the benefit s of running this 22 month gauntlet is that you have been through some ups and you have been through some downs. And you start realizing that what seems important or clever or in need of some dramatic moment a lot of times just needs reflection and care. And I think that was an example of where my style at least worked. There are going to be some times where I think I won't have that luxury of thinking through all the angles. Obviously I wasn't President at the time which influenced my decision. I did not control all the levers of power. And I think that the one thing I have become pretty confident about is being able to tap into the smartest people on any subject and to draw together a lot of contrary or contradictory perspectives. And push people's arguments against each other, ask the right questions and figure out at a least a framework for solving problems.
The interview in lenghty and goes into detail on Obama's thoughts about Iraq and General Petraeus, energy policy, and taxes, as well as an interesting segment on how are agriculture system is based on cheap oil. It's a great read and can be found at:
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/the_full_obama_interview.html
Thanks for this link, Opus. The 2nd half - on energy & economy & environment - is well worth a read. Obama's at least thinking hard about this stuff, which is great. A couple of excerpts:
[Q] You talk about the need for an Apollo project... and if there is a unified big bang in theory in this election, it's a program that involved national security, jobs growth, environmental…
[BO] The biggest problem with our energy policy has been to lurch from crisis to trance. And what we need is a sustained, serious effort.... The biggest opportunity right now is not just gas prices at the pump but the fact that the engine for economic growth for the last 20 years is not going to be there for the next 20, and that was consumer spending..... Basically, we turbo-charged this economy based on cheap credit. Whatever else we think is going to happen over the next certainly 5 years... the days of easy credit are going to be over because there is just too much de-leveraging taking place, too much debt at the government level, corporate level and consumer level. And what that means is that just from a purely economic perspective, finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy.... (Then discussion of Pollan's article in the NYT on food, the financial crisis, etc.)...
[BO] The only way to do it (CO2 cap & trade) effectively is if you are building effective consumer rebates into the plan. The bulk, the lion's share of any revenue generated from cap-and-trade has to go right back to the consumer.... The payroll tax swap is one way of doing it. Just sending a pure energy rebate to folks is another way of doing it. We've got to figure out a simple way to do it but the point is, is that we've got to cushion consumers from those price hikes and then allow technology to catch up in such a way that whatever retrofitting has to be done pays for itself..... Essentially what we should be doing is setting the rules, setting the incentives, pricing pollution accurately, and then letting technology catch up the same way it did with acid rain. And the one thing that we probably will have to do, and this is where federal government expenditure comes in, we've got to pump a lot of separate players to make the initial investment.
We went to this company in Seattle, McKinstry, great little company. Not so little anymore. It started off as a mom-and-pop plumbing and HVAC operation. Somebody at some point in the family figured out... we could really just specialize in making businesses more energy-efficient. They ended up working this niche. They now have several thousand employees. They've got welders on-site who are making $80-90,000 union wages with full benefits. They've got engineers, all computerized designing completely remaking school buildings, hospitals, etc. This has been voted like one of the best companies to work for in Seattle. Here's the point. I asked them, I said what are your average customers saving. And their customers are saving 20-30% on their energy bills so they're recouping their cost potentially in 5 years time but in the current economic environment, a lot of great potential customers... aren't going to do it unless they get some strong incentives from the federal government..... We've got to help folks who know this is the right thing to do, do it. It's the same thing with - there are tons of people right now who want to buy hybrids. There's a huge market for it. But good luck getting a car loan to trade in your SUV for a hybrid. We've got to give some folks some incentive so they can start making the right decisions.
October 23, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really liked this part as well. Thanks for adding it to the post!
Real solutions to big problems. It's probably the biggest obstacle for Obama; it's difficult to compress complex concepts into tiny media soundbites.
October 23, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great link, Opus. Thanks for putting that out there.
October 23, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, the Palin stories are getting pretty old. Time to move back to some stories with substance.
October 23, 2008 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink