Through a bizarre sequence of random surfing I found myself on the Website of Field & Stream Magazine, which is running an interview with Barack Obama. Quite an interesting read, actually - he does an excellent job laying out and explaining his conservation policy, and handles the flap over his remark about “clinging to religion and guns” pretty effectively, I think.

What impresses me most, as always with Obama, is his deep and easy familiarity with policy detail, and to a slightly lesser degree his ability to translate that to the values and interests that center in people’s lives. Really, any serious aspirant to the presidential level - there are two on the Democratic ticket this year, and at most one, though even that’s looking shaky, on the Republican one - should be expected to be conversant with the issues of the day. But some are better than others, and I think Obama rivals the Clintons in sheer competence on policy matters. Never mind whether you actually like the policies, he at least knows what he’s talking about; he calmly takes questions on almost any issue and invariably produces detailed and nuanced responses that demonstrate that he’s not thinking about that thing for the first time, or simply faking his way through.

Look at his response to a slightly hostile question in the interview above, on gasohol: in a few sentences he details the relationship between two competing land-use policies, explains how fuel ethanol fits into long-term energy policy, rattles off half a dozen alternate sources of ethanol and touches on their financial implications and relative energy density, and then addresses how ethanol affects the economics of food production and water-use policy - with references to the relevant federal legislation. This is all off the cuff, unprepared. Other questions touched on national parks and the outdoors (he recounts personal visits to several different places, with specific references to distinct aspects of them he liked), oil drilling (he discusses long-term energy policy and the relative yield of different potential oil reserves, naming places he would and would not support drilling and giving specific reasons why), and whether he would have “sportsmen” in his White House (he answers with an analysis of the importance of having an outdoors enthusiast, as opposed to an energy executive, as Secretary of the Department of the Interior for its functions and its relationship to other Cabinet departments). And he very forthrightly addresses a whole series of questions on the 2nd Amendment and gun control, discussing them effectively and in detail even while pushing for more regulation than the gun nuts would like. He knows his shit. And outdoors issues are not even one of the things Obama is particularly noted for - these are the issues he is weak on!

Especially coming in the middle of the Palin fiasco, and the gross insult to the nation that she represents, it’s so refreshing to hear from someone who knows his stuff, discusses it intelligently and in detail, and isn’t afraid to treat the public as also being intelligent enough to engage in such a discussion with him. The novelty of competence is so overwhelming that it is startling. And Obama brings it to the campaign so effortlessly. As his running mate once said, somewhat (I hope) less gracefully, “That’s storybook, man!”

I’ve never been totally sold on Obama as a “new kind of politician”. But something is different about him, that’s for sure. And it’s long overdue.