Should we say “What a difference President George Bush suggesting that Barack Obama wants to appease terrorists makes?” Perhaps we should…
The latest Gallup Daily tracking poll shows the Democratic Illinois Senator widening his lead even more of Democratic party nomination rival Senator Hillary Clinton — from 11 percent to 16 percent. The poll was taken during the time of the bro-ha-ha in which Bush made the controversial suggestion about Obama, GOP presumptive nominee Senator John McCain said Bush had it right, and Obama responded in a speech that slammed both of them and rhetorically sewed Bush to McCain.
And that incident also had another impact: it wiped Clinton almost off the news cycle road map, despite her whopping win over Obama in West Virginia on Tuesday. News buzz about that win was muted a day later when former Democratic nomination contender John Edwards endorsed Obama. The Bush attack, McCain pile on, and Obama response nearly edged Clinton coverage out of several news cycles.
Why can it be said that America is the world’s greatest social experiment? This article By Thomas Klau from Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland outlines the transformation that is bound to take place in and out of the United States the moment Barack Obama takes the oath and enters the Oval office.
“In the United States where the relationship between Black and White remains burdened by old guilt and fresh resentment, this marks a turning point in civilization. But the election battle now playing out in the United States will not only alter America.
“At the moment, it’s virtually inconceivable that a major party in any European country would elect a politician of Black-African origins to be their leading candidate. We Europeans - and particularly us Germans - live with this reality quite unconsciously and totally at ease; it seems normal and is taken for granted that the leading representatives of our country have the same skin color as the majority.”
“The day that Obama has the Democratic nomination in the bag, cracks will begin to appear in our collective innocence. It will shatter completely when a Black family moves into the White House in January 2009. And this shift in awareness which would go hand-in-hand with our shattered innocence, would not bypass the rest of Europe. Suddenly we would have to ask ourselves questions we have never asked before. Indeed - what would it mean to us if the child or grandchild of an African became a candidate for the chancellorship? The answer is a recognition that unless we want a society in which skin color predetermines the awarding of offices and influence, much of Europe will have to change its mindset.”
“It would be the strongest signal yet that the frenzied, paranoid jingoism - and with it torture, arbitrary detention and negligent wars of aggression - imposed by elements of the political right after September 11th 2001 - has finally lost its dominance. After eight years of George W. Bush, the rest of the world deserves such a signal just as much as the United States.
By Thomas Klau
Translated By Ulf Behncke
May 16, 2008
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)
If no giant scandal, assassination attempt or other misfortune occurs against all expectations and throws things into disarray, Barack Obama’s nomination as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate for the November 4th elections is secure. That in itself is an epochal step: Never before in the history of American democracy - or any democracy - has a Black candidate stood such a good chance of being elected to a country’s top position by a White majority.
In the U.S.A., where the relationship between Black and White remains burdened by old guilt and fresh resentment, this marks a turning point in civilization. But the election battle now playing out in the United States will not only alter America.
At the moment, it’s virtually inconceivable that a major party in any European country would elect a politician of Black-African origins to be their leading candidate. We Europeans - and particularly us Germans - live with this reality quite unconsciously and totally at ease; it seems normal and is taken for granted that the leading representatives of our country have the same skin color as the majority. But this normalcy also means that German citizens with a certain skin color must remain excluded - regardless of whether they have a German passport, were born in Germany, speak German, Swabian or Saxonian.
EUROPE TOO, MUST CHANGE
This is, if we follow this line of reasoning through to the end - racism. We tend to live with it rather uncaringly and unconsciously - unless of course we are of German-African origin. And it is precisely at this point that Obama’s success changes us as well. The day that Obama has the Democratic nomination in the bag, cracks will begin to appear in our collective innocence. It will shatter completely when a Black family moves into the White House in January 2009. And this shift in awareness which would go hand-in-hand with our shattered innocence, would not bypass the rest of Europe. Suddenly we would have to ask ourselves questions we have never asked before. Indeed - what would it mean to us if the child or grandchild of an African became a candidate for the chancellorship? The answer is a recognition that unless we want a society in which skin color predetermines the awarding of offices and influence, much of Europe will have to change its mindset.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. election.
When Senator Barack Obama responded to President George Bush and presumptive GOP Presidential nominee Senator John McCain’s suggestion that he would indulge in the “appeasement” of terrorists, it underscored several lessons — and several key changes — in the political, national and media landscapes.
For one thing, the incident revealed Obama’s quick-response style where he turned a defense into media-friendly offense — and is indicative of many Democrats’ determination to not be defined anymore by Republicans on national security issues.
TV talk shows, newscasts and many blogs have been having a field day with the White House’s shifting explanations of what Bush really meant. But there have been enough news reports now to solidify the fact that the remarks were indeed aimed at Obama. And it wasn’t just a Bush oversight that he swiped at the Democratic frontrunner while international news cameras whirred during his address in Israel.
First, it showed that despite the fact that Bush is winding up his second term and battling charges of lameduck-ism, he still an unmatched ability to drive the political dialogue in this country.
Make no mistake: This was a pre-planned strategy by the Bush campaign to re-inject foreign policy into the presidential campaign in a way that many Republicans believe will ultimately be beneficial to McCain. Deride Bush — and his strategic team — if you will, but remember that Team Bush managed to get their man elected president and then reelected in the face of growing concerns about the war in Iraq and declining popularity numbers. Bush’s political judgment since 2004 has proved somewhat suspect, but to dismiss his ability to understand and effectively analyze the political landscape could be a mistake on the part of Democrats.
That’s why it was so fascinating today to watch cable casts, listen to talk radio shows and read comments in blogs where the most lockstep Republican defenders of Mr. Bush insisted Obama and the Democrats were being paranoid. White House officials gave reporters various explanations of about to whom Bush was “really” referering, latest being that he was really referring to Jimmy Carter.
But you can now read Cillizza and any number of seasoned reporters covering this mini-firestorm and they’re not running the spin but calling it as it is. And bluntly.
The second lesson of the Knesset Kerfuffle is that the Democratic presidential nomination race is over. Amid all of the “he said, he said” between Obama and McCain/Bush, the one figure that has been almost entirely absent is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Can you imagine that happening even three months ago?
We’ve written about that since this story broke. It was instructive because (a) a day after former Senator John Edwards endorsed Obama and nearly wiped Clinton’s huge West Virginia win off the media’s stories-to-cover list, Bush made his comments aimed at Obama, (b)Clinton was out of this debate, (c)coverage of this news cycle shoved Clinton out of news coverage almost completely yesterday and today (except for her statement condemning Bush’s comments).
The third, and most important lesson, is that Obama is ready and willing to fight Republicans over foreign policy and national security concerns.
Bush’s remarks at the Knesset provided Obama with an interesting conundrum. Refuse to rise to the bait or engage full force in an attempt to begin to address concerns — voiced privately by some Democratic strategists — that the Illinois senator may not be able to win a general election that is framed as a referendum on which party can keep America safe.
Obama, to our mind, took the smarter course by not simply answering the inherent critique offered by the president but also pivoting to try and make McCain answerable for the foreign policy pursued by the United States over the last eight years.
Obama turned the proverbial lemon (being attacked by Bush and being put on the defensive and having to answer) into lemonade (going after Bush by rattling off specific criticisms, using humor and sarcasm and tethering McCain tightly to Bush one after McCain made a major speech in which the Arizona Senator tried to inch himself away from the most unpopular President in modern polling history).
But the biggest change is in the approach of Obama and the Democrats themselves.
As Cillizza notes, the Democrats usually would try not to aggressively challenge the Republicans on national security issues. They’d respond and quickly try to move onto domestic issues, such as health care, environment, the courts….figuring those were the party’s strength.
Rather than battle the GOP with the Republican’s choice of weapons, they tried to use other ones. But it turned out to be trying to counter a shotgun with a nail file.
Then there came the change, as Cillizza notes:
The 2004 election may well have signaled a sea change in that strategy, as Bush effectively turned the election into a referendum on the threat of terrorism and the importance of national security as Democrats were unable to mount an effective response.
In 2006, the Democrats began to engage the Republicans on what the GOP felt was its own national security turf even more…and saw results. Polls began to show that many Americans did not whoppingly trust the Republicans more than the Democrats.
One of the signs of political savvy is learning from mistakes and adapting. The Democrats seem to have started to adapt in recent years — and if Obama’s response in this controversy is any indication the rules and responses in the game have changed. Cillizza again:
It marks a remarkable change in tactics that speaks to just how much the political landscape has shifted since 2004. McCain and Republicans are certain to work to frame the national security/foreign policy debate in their favor, but Obama’s initial response is a sign that they may have to adjust their tactics in the runup to the November election.
What’s changed are several factors, which can’t be applied to the most lockstep Bush administration supporters, but to many Democrats, Republicans and independent voters.
Simple spin won’t do anymore. Spin is a lot more to be countered by a press singed by duly reporting official Bush administration statements over the years and in some cases being accused of doing more stenography than journalism. The Bush administration now has a massive — and profusely documented — credibility gap. McCain has enjoyed much credibility but if Bush keeps roping him in, McCain will begin to morph into Bush Lite among more voters than just progressive Democrats, who never liked him to begin with.
2008 ain’t 2006 which wasn’t 2004 which wasn’t 2000 in terms of the mega-quick response time of the Internet, the growth and popularity of cable news talk shows, talk radio, and a mainstream news media that is trying to respond quicker and more decisively to breaking news stories in order to compete with the new media. Many newspapers now have excellent political weblogs.
So the Democrats are responding faster, they have a presumptive candidate who turned a trap into media and political gain, and the Democrats will find more rapid coverage from the new media and also be dealing with a mainstream media that has been burned by Bush and the Republicans over the past few years.
Obama may be no John Kennedy, but in this instance he proved he was no Michael Dukakis or John Kerry.
And Democratic leaders’ super-quick responses falling in line behind him also suggested that the Democrats of 2008 are….so far at least (and the campaign is still young)…not the Democrats of 2004.
Cartoon by Huffaker, Cagle Cartoons
A gathering of more than one-third of all full-time faculty members at West Virginia University voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to call on their institution’s president, Michael S. Garrison, to resign over his involvement in the awarding of an unearned executive M.B.A. degree to the daughter of the state’s governor.
The motion calling for Mr. Garrison’s resignation, which is nonbinding, was passed by 565 faculty members. Thirty-nine faculty members voted against the motion, and 11 abstained.
The measure considered at Wednesday meeting, which was open to all faculty members, was identical to a motion that passed last week by a wide margin in the university’s Faculty Senate (The Chronicle, May 6). The motion includes a vote of no confidence in Mr. Garrison, and calls on him to resign “for the good of the institution and for the benefit of our students.”
Says Stewart poking fun at Hillary, “Relentlessness ain’t free… ‘Here me now poor working class white people of West Virginia… SHOW ME THE MONEY!’” hilzoy says:
For some reason, what got me the most was hearing her ask for more money. She is, after all, an extremely wealthy woman. And she was asking those people she claims to be fighting for — the nurse on her second shift, the worker on the line, the waitress on her feet, the small business owner, the farmer, the teacher, the coal miner, the trucker, the soldier, the vet, the college student — to send her some fraction of the little money they have, for nothing. When she knows she can’t win. That sort of took my breath away.
Former Democratic Senator John Edwards endorsed Senator Barack Obama for the party’s presidential nomination — giving Obama a long-sought-after endorsement that both he and rival Senator Hillary Clinton sought…and raining on Clinton’s post-West Virginia primary political parade.
It was a sign of just how quickly this see-saw political drama can change, with Clinton last night insisting she’s in it for a while and can win last night, pundits seemingly rethinking Obama’s strength as a candidate even if he got the votes to be nominated, and the conventional wisdom seemingly starting to veer a bit against Obama’s electability, even though some poll numbers put Obama ahead.
But the main significance is this: in his endorsement Edwards came on a day when Obama picked up some more Superdelegates and added to the impression that the party is now starting to come together around Obama, even though the Illinois Senator was clobbered by Clinton — and blue collar voters — in West Virginia yesterday.
Over the past week many pundits wondered why more Democratic superdelegates and party bigwigs haven’t come foward to endorse Obama — and this could mark the start of Obama’s parade. It’s big news that in media terms is overshadowing Clinton’s win and the loss Barack suffered among several demographic groups in West Virginia.
Clinton needed to get a message out that she is still viable. West Virginia got her the media spotlight. Obama needed to the message out that he is ahead and can unify the party to start the battle against presumptive GOP Senator John McCain. Edwards’ endorsement now got him the media spotlight, and shoved West Virginia (for now) down in the news story rank.
Just look at some of the media coverage. MSNBC (linked above):
Democratic Senator Barack Obama apparently did feel the landslide of votes crushing against him in yesterday’s whopping West Virginia primary loss to Senator Hillary Clinton: today he’s out on the hustings, busily trying to shore up support among blue collar workers.
It’s a wise move, since Clinton, her supporters, and pundits will continue to talk about Obama’s very real blue collar problem. And, according to the New York Times, he is wasting no time to begin working on it:
How big a problem does Senator Barack Obama really have among white working-class voters? And what —if anything — can he do about it as he heads into the general election?
The Times notes that Obama’s campaign is pooh-poohing the idea that the West Virginia loss — which was expected — is that big a deal. But, just as Clinton hoped, the size of her victory underscored Obama’s weakness. Read the rest of this entry »
It had been predicted all week that Senator Hilllary Clinton would win the West Virginia primary by a whopping margin. Some said such a victory, highlighting flaws in front-runner Senator Barack Obama’s coalition, could make Superdelgates think twice while others others said it would be too late. So what has changed?
Hillary Clinton clobbered Barack Obama in West Virginia Tuesday, but her late win in a small state likely did little to slow rival Barack Obama’s march toward the Democratic presidential nomination.
Clinton won the overwhelmingly white state in a walk — by a landslide margin of 2-1, according to exit polls — and used the results to argue that Americans shouldn’t count her out yet.
So did it mean something or not?
That clearly depends on who you support.
With the exception of professional political analysts who strictly point to the delegate numbers so far and what is need to win nomination, many Clinton’s supporters say the big win is a potential game changer, while Clinton’s foes and Obama supporters insist it doesn’t change the total picture.
A look at weblog opinion gives a good snap-shot of this passionate, polarizing race — a race where each side’s reality is the other side’s denial.
May 13th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
This is a picture of a mountain in West Virginia. It has been mined for coal, which has been exported out of state to supply other states in the union, year after year for nearly 150 years.
This is only one of many mountain tops that have been ‘taken down’ for mining purposes in West Virginia.
Thousands of miners have died mining for coal to export to the rest of the USA. There have been over 150 large scale mining disasters caused by all manner of corporate neglect, also some very few due to operator error or sudden underground flooding.
The West Virginia Mine Disasters Record from 1884 to the present, lists 39 men lost at the Mt. Brook Mine in 1886… and in the years therafter, there were many many mining disasters in which over 100 men were lost each time. One of the last listings is a disaster in our own time, The Sago Mine Disaster…. one that most of us witnessed the mishandling of via the press, when it was announced on TV two days after the mine explosion, that all 13 miners trapped underground were alive.
The joy felt by the survivor families and the children of the miners –and the nation watching was so profound — and also shortlived. Shortly after the first report, in surely the worst heart-shattering correction any news agnecy has ever had to make, came the factual news: The earlier report had somehow been mis-stated: 12 of the 13 men were in fact dead.
West Virginians are diverse and dedicated and, joined with environmentalists and lawmakers, many want very much to see the state move away from doing the bone-breaking dirt-deep work of supplying the nation with coal…to instead develop and take on jobs that are not guaranteed to destroy health, that are not pre-destined to most assuredly kill the workers…by fire, by poison, by lung disease.
May 13th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
This is West Virginia’s Beartown State Park . It is 107 acres purchased in 1970 with funds from the Nature Conservancy and a donation from Mrs. Edwin G. Polan, in memory of her son, Ronald Keith Neal, who fought and died in the Vietnam War.
West Virginia is a place of odd and delightful place names. Beartown State Park is located on the eastern summit of Droop Mountain where a major battle of the Civil War was fought by West Virginians in 1863. Pearl S. Buck, the venerable author, was born only a few minutes away.
It seems fitting that Hillary Clinton will win West Virginia’s Democratic primary. West Virginia is a state whose major industry is extractive and destructive, to wit, coal mining and these days, often by strip mining. So, in its tradition, Hillary proceeded by simply discarding the Black and educated “overburden” of the Democratic party and going right for those valuable ores and nuggets: older, less educated, hard-working White Americans.
We, the White, God-fearing citizens of Rock Ridge wish to express our extreme displeasure with your choice of sheriff. Please remove him immediately. The fact that you have sent him here just goes to prove that you are the leading asshole in the state.
Because, of course, that is exactly what Hillary is pitching to the Democratic primary voters of West Virginia (and presumably Pennsylvania, Ohio, and soon Kentucky) is that like the “White God-fearing citizens of Rock Ridge,” it is perfectly cool… no, it is laudatory, that they should not wish to live under the governance of a Black man– any Black man. Simple as that. She said it. This is why she should be the choice of the super-delegates, because, despite Obama’s significant lead in delegates and votes, (1) he’s still a Black man and hence cannot win a general election, and (2) his big lead is as a result of overwhelming support among Black voters, who, since they are not the target demographic, should be discounted accordingly.
Any Republican who dared make such a statement might not be forced to resign immediately, but could certainly count their career as over. I’d like to think the same of both Clintons, but I know better: the Democratic Party has always been forgiving of them, no matter how destructive they are, have been or will be, to their own party.
And for what? For West Virginia’s lousy 28 delegates? The margin is not yet known, but even if Hillary wins 75% to 25%, she’ll only edge closer to Obama’s nearly 150 delegate lead by, at most, around a dozen delegates… big deal. Four more superdelegates went to Obama today alone. Why the rest of them continue to sit on their haunches while the Hill-Billy Mining Company despoils their party’s environment to the point where it may not be habitable much longer… remains a mystery to me. But there you have it.
Congratulations on a glorious and Pyrrhic victory for Sen. Clinton in West Virginia. Hillary, you earned this one… and you won it West Virginia clean: clean like a slurry run-off.
The polls in West Virginia have just closed and NBC quickly projected that Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton will win today’s West Virginia Democratic primary by a big margin.
On MSNBC, Tim Russert said Clinton will win the state by a two-to-one margin and hope that her big victory there will give wavering pledged delegates and superdelegates pause so that she can compete in the remaining five primaries.
NBC’s just-up news story says:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was projected to win the West Virginia primary Tuesday, NBC News said, beating Sen. Barack Obama by a wide margin even as her rival edged closer to the Democratic presidential nomination by picking up more superdelegates.
The loss did not threaten Obama’s lead in the race for the nomination. He conceded defeat in advance in the state, looking ahead to the Oregon primary later in the month and the campaign against John McCain.
“This is our chance to build a new majority of Democrats and independents and Republicans who know that four more years of George Bush just won’t do,” he said at a campaign appearance in Missouri, which looms as a battleground state in the fall.
Clinton is expected to give her victory speech — look for a particularly good one given the size of her victory and because her campaign knows they will have substantial live air time — within the hour.
And the impact?
The key tonight is whether the media covers the win as a big one or a pro forma one where she was expected to win anyway due to the state’s more than 90 percent white population. Some Clinton supporters already see signs that that the media will downplay the victory. Writes Jeralyn from the pro-Clinton blog Talk Left:
The media is focused on Barack Obama. Even his flag pin is more important than the West Virginia primary. MSNBC is running Obama’s delegate numbers at the bottom of the screen. Fox News is reporting on various state elections. My local news is talking about Roy Romer’s endorsement of Obama today.
Matthews even says Obama’s speech tonight was bad. Olbermann mocks McCauliffe’s characterization of her speech. [More…]
CNN analysts discuss Obama’s speech. MSNBC is discussing McCain and Obama. Olbermann says to the Governor of West Virginia, “lets look past W. Va.” The Governor, who is an uncommitted superdelegate, wants to talk about how high the voter turnout is. Olbermann responds by asking what West Virginia has to change to be able to have a November win for Obama.
The media is diminishing West Virginia reporting mostly how white, rural, poor and uneducated the voters are.
Polls close in 45 minutes. I wonder if they will even report the results as they come in like they’ve done with every other primary. I suspect they’ll call the race for Hillary at 6:31 pm and then go back to discussing Obama.
Clinton’s speech will be carried live, YouTubed and run in snippets on cable. But much will depend on the size of her victory (it didn’t help when a supporter earlier said Clinton really needed a 80 percent win to send a message to the Democratic party’s powers that be) and the demographics. But many analysts feel in terms of the numbers, the race for the Democratic nomination is already effectively over.
UPDATE I: ABC News looks at exit polls and the race factor — and noted a whopping number of Clinton supporters who say they’ll vote for McCain or sit the race out if Clinton doesn’t head the Dem ticket: Read the rest of this entry »
ABC’s Jake Trapper, in a post on his blog almost written in dismay, notes how former President Bill Clinton is on now the hustings in rural West Virginia delivering a tough message that’s essentially divide-and-rule politics — the same he has delivered throughout much of the political season.
Trapper’s intro to the quotes nails the situation that is making the Clintons a political team that seemingly has decided to continue unabated to work to polarize their own party in order to generate poll turnout and then (presumably) plans to get in power and try to govern a unified country. Bill Clinton’s present campaigning and comments will likely seized upon as “proof” those who insist the Clintons (without proof) that the Clintons are really trying to lay the groundwork for a 2012 run, after a bruised Obama (largely bruised by the Clintons) flops at the polls.
Bill Clinton has the right to say whatever he wants, of course. But he’s a smart man. Brilliant, even.
He can do the math. He must know that it’s quite improbable that his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., will be the Democratic presidential nominee.
So what purpose does it serve for him to barnstorm a state like West Virginia and tell rural voters that Obama and his elitist political/media cabal allies are mocking Appalachia?
He’s using the kind of language Democrats typically use against Republicans — as in, stuff you say when you don’t want voters to vote for the other guy under any circumstance.
Senator Barack Obama got mired in the controversy over his former pastor. Senator Hillary Clinton got bogged down on her comments about dodging dangerous fire in Bosnia. And both of them took political hits that lasted a while and did some damage.
Now, Clinton is clearly — and truly — bogged down in her comments about white voters liking her more than Obama, even though her aides now insist that she regrets the comments.
The damage to Clinton’s image seems profound. And what better evidence of THAT then the once-unimaginable development that one of her most ardent African-American supporters Rep. Charles Rangle would bluntly denounce her remark?
One of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most important supporters, Charles Rangel, repudiated her claims she has broader support among “white Americans,” calling the comments “the dumbest thing she could ever have said.”
The Harlem congressman’s criticism of Clinton came as rival Barack Obama Saturday took the lead among superdelegates, the group that will decide the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
Speaking to reporters before introducing Clinton at a Manhattan fundraiser Saturday, Rangel chastised the remarks as “very poorly worded.”
But the barrage doesn’t end just there. On newspaper op-ed pages from the U.S. to Great Britain Clinton is being denounced, usually on several key points: (a) her comments make her a more polarizing figure than ever, (b) her comments are unlikely to help her achieve her goals of winning the nomination and unifying the party and (c) her comments damage the Clinton’s legacy of good ties with black voters — a legacy already greatly strained by some of Bill Clinton’s race-raising comments.
A look at some of articles and recent columns indicates that if getting “good ink” and “good air time” is a goal, the Clinton campaign has been derailed even more than the 2000 original version of Republican Senator John McCain’s Straight Talk Express. Here’s a sampling: Read the rest of this entry »
It’s as though anxiety around the world over the ongoing battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is just as strong as it is among U.S. Democrats.
“There are moments in life in which a person must make a decision, even if you don’t know what decision is the right one. You can weigh the pros and cons, draw on the council of friends or see a fortune-teller. But calculating the probabilities only gets you so far since no one can know all the variables. All of which is why one must act on the basis of the information available at the time.”
“If Hillary Clinton can’t recognize when its time to concede, then the remaining undecided superdelegates should offer a helping hand: with a swift vote in favor of the candidate who has emerged as the winner of primaries held so far: Barack Obama.”
By Sabine Muscat
Translated By Ulf Behncke
May 7, 2008
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)
Philadelphia: It’s about time that the superdelegates put an end to the clash between presidential candidates Clinton and Obama - even if Clinton doesn’t realize that it’s time to stop.
There are moments in life in which a person must make a decision, even if you don’t know what decision is the right one. You can weigh the pros and cons, draw on the council of friends or see a fortune-teller. Calculating the probabilities can only get you so far since no one can know all the variables. All of which is why one must act on the basis of the information available at the time.
That should be exactly the course of action now taken by the U.S. Democratic superdelegates, in whose hands lies the power to bring the clash of rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to an end. The information we now have is this: Obama’s has the balance of superdelegates needed to obtain the Party’s nomination.
With his huge victory in North Carolina, he neutralized Clinton’s win in Pennsylvania the week before. Clinton was unable to catch up to and overcome him. And the enthusiasm that a clear victory in Indiana would have generated is missing as well.
U.S. Democrats had half a year to compare presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and to verify that both uphold the same core Democratic values. At present, which of the two stands a better chance against Republican John McCain on November 4 is anybody’s guess. What’s clear right now, however, is that the margin between both candidates and John McCain is shrinking. The Democrats should worry less about …
They must have run out of duct tape at Home Depot — or Hillary Clinton’s advisers must believe that an angry Bill Clinton arguing with a female voter who interrupted him in West Virginia is going to win over people who don’t already support Hillary Clinton. For a veteran politician, he can’t turn a lemon (being interrupted) into lemonade (handling it with skill to win over doubters).
Because here he goes again. Watch the clip below. Here he is arguing with a voter who disputed an assertion he made about Hillary Clinton’s claim that she improved health care under his administration. This IS red meat for those who already love Hillary and want her to fight and denounce Barack Obama all the way to the convention.
But to many independent voters, Republicans, Democrats — and probably superdelegates — when they watch this clip they will think: Do we REALLY want to allow this man to take virtual center stage for four — or EIGHT — more years? Oh, please, Mommy, make him go away…
Some Presidents become more endearing and their political skills actually blossom once when they leave office. They grow on people.
Bill Clinton is growing on many people like a fungus.
Make sure you watch the voter’s comment at the end. Presumably, the Clintons want to win over more than their current supporters, but you’d never know that from Bill Clinton’s defensive and angry response.
UPDATE: In fact, Hillary Clinton DOES deserve some credit for improving health care under Bill Clinton. READ THIS. But rather than rattle-off specifics, Clinton became angry and turned it on the voter, turning himself into a kind of radio talk show host. (At least you can TURN OFF the radio and not listen to talk show hosts.)
You know, I believe I have a certain familiarity with Hillary Clinton’s personality insofar as she is 15 years older than I, to the day… we Scorpios are often maniacally loyal (think about why she stays with Bill) and maniacally driven (I’ve completed 18 marathons, despite a complete lack of physical talent, and I continue to write my blog, week in, week out, six and a half years on, despite a lack of particular literary talent or tremendous popularity among blog-readers, while Sen. Clinton continues to run for President, despite an obvious lack of political talent or popularity among voters).
There: I said it. She doesn’t GET that her husband has more talent in his one little wagging finger than she has in her whole body (and Mark Penn’s too). She became my fair state’s junior senator solely on the strength of her famous husband. She somehow thought that being an otherwise underachieving back-bench senator and Bill’s wife qualified her not only to run for President, but to win her party’s nomination by acclamation. This led her to run a cynical and vapid campaign that just assumed that the nation’s Democratic voters would be as forgiving and fawning over she and her famous husband’s as New York voters were (in her decisive victories over political heavyweights Rick Lazio and John Spencer). Like George W. Bush, a man also in his current job because of a famous relative, Hillary actually believed that this nomination was hers, without having to earn it with actual voters. Which is why, presumably, she may well be living in a bubble where she actually believes that the battle for the Democratic nomination isn’t over. Read the rest of this entry »
First, if you’re wondering what I as a Hillary supporter think about Hillary’s decision to continue running after yesterday, the answer is I don’t know what I think of it as a strategy. Naturally I would like to believe that she could still somehow prevail. I am not sanguine. People are speculating that she is now running for the VP slot. We’ll see.
But — and this matters more to me — I most definitely admire her for her unswerving commitment to see the process through. Despite the pissing and moaning in the media, and whatever the outcome, I predict that the day will certainly arrive when people will look back with awe and amazement at Hillary’s insistence in going the distance against all odds and wish that they had chosen her. She is indomitable. I like that in a Democrat and so should other Democrats. Alas, many of them are so beguiled by the media myths about Hillary that they just can’t see what a force of nature she really is.
Obama could learn a lot from her and he’d be a better (future) president for it. Instead, I imagine we’ll be stuck with him in his current incarnation — all rhetoric, all the time.
