You Are Not My Typewriter, But You Could Be My Demon

As I was working my way through David Halberstam's The Fifties, I came across Halberstam's description of the 1952 Presidential race. In addition to his depiction of the reluctant candidacy of Eisenhower, I thought Halberstam's description of Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson's campaign was very applicable to the current Democratic nomination process, or as "The Daily Show" has taken to calling it: "The Long, Flat, Seemingly Endless Bataan Death March to the White House."

In fact, the similarities between Governor Stevenson and Senator Obama are striking. Both hail from the Land of Lincoln, both spent time at Harvard Law School (Stevenson dropped out after a few classes and Obama, well, he did much better than that), and both practiced law in Chicago before entering the political arena.

In fact, I'm going to remove Stevenson's name from the following passage simply to demonstrate how similar the critiques of Obama have been to those that Stevenson received.

[His] distinctive speaking style quickly earned him the reputation of an intellectual and endeared him to many Americans, while simultaneously alienating him from others. Although he employed a number of first-rate speech writers, [He] also wrote many of his own speeches. Although [His] eloquent oratory and thoughtful, stylish demeanor thrilled many intellectuals and members of the nation's academic community, the Republicans and some working-class Democrats ridiculed what they perceived as his indecisive, aristocratic air.

Even though that paragraph attempted to describe the campaign of an Democratic Presidential hopeful from Illinois 56 years ago, it could have been pulled from the pages of any newspaper, magazine, or blog today.