Objecting to Obama's Religious Tone

Jose Antonio Vargas in the Washington Post has a good report out today about the Obama fever on the internet. In his report there is this:

"I just can't stand it. Whenever I hear him speak, I shake my head, thinking, 'Are people hearing his campaign's overtly religious tones?' " says Michael Hussey, 29, an Internet entrepreneur who runs RateMyTeachers.com. Hussey is a libertarian, his politics a cross between Ron Paul's and Rudy Giuliani's, he says. After reading about the Messiah blog on the conservative site Instapundit, Hussey started a Facebook group where members post comments such as "I hear he shoots lightning out of his fingertips to smite the unbelievers!" The group has 37 members.

It is interesting how some are very sensitive and offended by Obama's political rhetoric. For them a political candidate should not talk about hope, a higher mission, or a call to service. They apparently want politicians to only express dry bureaucratic points. For them, politics is not a communal project that requires encouragement and inspiration but a secretive profession better left to technocratic experts. Or better, perhaps for them, politics should not even be a communal project requiring everybody's participation and passion. They are saying, perhaps, just leave us alone, don't try to manipulate us into caring about our neighbors, or looking at the world as if we have obligations to one another.