Clinton-Obama: Behind the Sound Bites and Bucks
Barack Obama won the fund-raising contest for the past quarter, but Hillary Clinton “won†the Democratic debate Thursday night and holds a big lead in the polls.
In the coming months, we may be seeing a contest of “new politics†that isn’t quite what analysts have been predicting. Their demographic newness is obvious–first woman President, first of color–but Clinton and Obama bring deeper divides than their half-a-generation age difference to the Party and national table.
Sen. Clinton has been winning debates the old-fashioned way with carefully prepared images and sound bites: “The American village has failed our children†and “If HIV/AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country.†Cheers and applause.
Obama has been criticized for lagging in the sound-bite battle, but that may be a matter of choice. He seems more intent on creating a framework for his candidacy than scoring points and is sometimes telling voters what they may not be eager to hear.
Thursday night he noted that “it is absolutely critical for us to recognize that there are going to be responsibilities on the part of African-Americans and other groups to take personal responsibility to rise up out of the problems that we face.â€
On AIDS, he said “one of the things we’ve got to overcome is a stigma that still exists in our communities. We don’t talk about this. We don’t talk about it in the schools. Sometimes we don’t talk about it in the churches. It has been an aspect of sometimes homophobia that we don’t address this issue as clearly as it needs to be.
“(A)ll the issues we talk about–the problems of poverty, lack of health care, lack of educational opportunity–are all interconnected. And to some degree, the African-American community is weakened. It has a disease to its immune system. When we are impoverished, when people don’t have jobs, they are more likely to be afflicted not just with AIDS but with substance abuse problems, with guns in the streets. And so it is important for us to look at the whole body here…â€
That kind of talk will not draw applause from African-American audiences any more than some of Obama’s analyses of problems like health care are getting from others.
But for the longer haul, cheers may be beside the point. At the moment, supporters are voting with their money–258,000 of them in the past quarter giving $32.5 million. Unlike Clinton, Obama has a long way to go in getting Americans to know him. So far, many of them like what they see and hear.
Cross-posted from my blog
8 Responses to “Clinton-Obama: Behind the Sound Bites and Bucks”
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. Richard Armitage, who actually leaked the information, walked.
Armitage went to the Special Prosecutor and told him that he was the leak. The Prosecutor seeing his cushy multimillion dollar book go down the drain refused to listen and instead embarked upon a witch hunt which netted Libby.
And the Fricking Democrats still don’t have the leaker in jail. They wanted Cheney or Rove. Armitage is not worth their time. This in and of itself proves that the Democrats were on a witch hunt. The man that admitted to the crime and can prove he did it is not even being talked about, considered or up for possible prosecution.
They wanted Cheney and are content with Cheney’s go to guy.
This was not about JUSTICE…..this was about revenge. The proof is in the fact that the self professed leaker of Valerie Plame’s secret is still walking the streets and the Democrats/liberals/antiwar don’t care.
lol can somebody splain to me how I quoted from another post and my post ended up here?
I hear the twilight zone music playing.
Another reason I like Obama over Clinton. When he answers questions he seems to actually have an understanding of the underlying problems and can communicate that. When he’s done talking I feel like I understand the issue better than when he started. Clinton just regurgitates pre-approved talking points. Like most other politicians she doesn’t make you think about it when she can just find something you already know and reinforce it for you.
Sam, Clinton is as informed or more than Obama, who seems fluffy. However, Obama does seem to be more open and honest. I believe Clinton is going to get the nomination (and if asked, I’d say she’s more than 50% likely to be our next President), but Obama obviously appeals to more than just the lefty-kiddles, the starry-eyed and lefty-activist types. All that money, and many of you on the Left have made it clear it’s unlikely he’ll accept being Hilllary’s VP. (If he draws that much attention, and he does have his own agenda, Hillary will likely not choose him; she doesn’t want to share power nor attention.) He does seem to be welcome in a “kinder, friendlier, slicker Perot” kind of way, albeit less noteworthy than Perot was at this time. He is a phenomenon; I thought about that this morning while in a smaller Midwest city downtown and passing by a car with an Obama bumper sticker on it.
I hear you. But I’m not saying Clinton is ignorant or anything, its just I feel she operates like just about every other politician in the field. Check the polls, give vague answers that I swear I’ve heard a million time before in line with those poll figures, move on to the next junket. Basically I think she’s just a status quo candidate. I’m hoping that people are fed up enough with that kind of politician they might take a chance this election.
However, I hold the democrats in only slightly less contempt than I hope the GOP, and most of that stems from them not having been in power this decade so their opportunities to screw things up has been limited. I also think Hillary is the likely candidate but I still hold out hope for what I see as a change. And if she does get the nod for presdident I think taking on Obama as VP really secures him as president in the next cycle and that would be a smart move for the party. Which is precisely why I think the dems won’t do it.
Sam:
Remember that after 1992 she lurched well to the left of where she portrayed herself during the election. If anything, she’s showing herself as even more establishmentarian, “mainstream,” “moderate,” “centrist” this time. (Kind of an up-to-the-moment “Third Way” DLC-DNC stage act — with criticism of Bush added.) I’m certain she’ll lunge leftward again after she is elected. I believe what she does may depend on what she wants to achieve, as legacy items (or achievements to use for her re-election in 2012). But I’m certain she’ll move to the left again after election. So you may yet be satisfied.
Ironically, when it comes to what she may attempt, one thing, health care, would probably work out better for her if she chose something more radical than her earlier fascistic HMO “alliance” federal takeover attempt (which critics on the left hated for being business-based, though the federal government was in control and they didn’t seem to want to use the correct term “fascistic” to describe a Democratic plan). The more radical, more leftist federal Medicare for All agenda actually is simpler and probably appeals to many more Americans!
*** NOTE: Readers, see side note below. ***
I’m not a lefty, but I can tell you that my very lefty friend in DC has really gotten down on Hillary Clinton, mainly due to her pro-war position. (Don’t know about how my friend’s view of Hillary’s business-community campaign contributions, suspect it is negative.)
I’m unsure what liberals and Democrats can do, because they’re much less likely to vote GOP than non-liberals are to consider a Democrat.
Or in 2016. I always thought Clinton-Obama would be the ultimate combination in 2008 for the Democrats (try not to gloat after the degree by which you win), but given Obama’s continued fund-raising success I have to think more about it and I wonder if Hillary Clinton would accept sharing the limelight, and would Obama accept being suppressed for not only four but eight years?
** NOTE **
For those readers who don’t know, fascism keeps much business nominally private but is far from corporate ownership of the nation that critics claim. In fact, private property rights are compromised and what matters, not ownership but control, lies with government. The “corporatist state” has nothing to do with corporations and everything to do with the nation as an organic whole (a body, or “corpus,” the source of the term) and all individuals and individual decisions, and their property and their use, are subordinated to the State (the nation, the body, the organism).
So what you see, of course, is bureaucracy.
Take the following, from a book snuck out of Nazi Germany — look at the “Graphic on Autos” page and consider this to be an example under either a) HillaryCare post 1992; b) Republican government health care (if you prefer the common attack on the GOP with the Nazi term).
What’s ordered? 5,000 units of type X (certain kinds of physicians, certain kinds of hospital beds). Weeks later and many steps later, what do you get? 1,000 units of type X and 4,000 of type Y.
Increasing the number of units in Nazi Germany