Obama: In the belly of the beast

Posted at 2:27 PM on July 5, 2007 by Bob Collins

In its final season or two, the West Wing brought in Jimmy Smits to goose up a show that had lost its way. It did so by portraying Smits -- as Matt Santos -- the alternative candidate unlike all the other Democrats. He was to be the first minority president, and a pragmatic candidate. In fact, he even went to New Hampshire and told teachers there that accountability in schools is not a bad thing, that merit pay based on performance was something worth considering. The idea here is that his willingness to tell an audience what they didn't want to hear would set him apart as the refreshing alternative.

Fast forward to July 5, 2007 and, um, "real" life. Barack Obama today went to the NEA -- the world's largest teachers union -- convention in Philadelphia and told them that performance-based merit pay ought to be considered. (Watch)

Time for a Hillary check on the issue: She's against individual merit pay but in 2000 said she likes the idea of merit pay for everyone in a particular school. She spoke at the convention earlier this week and stayed with the tried-and-true: no vouchers for private schools and an end to No Child Left Behind. The teachers liked it.

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