Whatever capacity she is allowed to have in the Obama campaign, Hillary Clinton will doggedly fight for him through till the fall. Why? She really doesn't have any other political choice. She has a future in the Senate and perhaps as Governor of New York. If she does not fully support Obama she will become a pariah within the party.
Sometimes we say boneheaded things. We all do. Senator Clinton recently made remarks considering the timeline of other nomination contests one of which being the Robert Kennedy's win in California in June of 1968 only to be followed, tragically with his assassination. Her invocation of the event was stupid. But it was not the political football that some have chosen to make it...Keith Olbermann took a nearly 11 minutes of air time to attack the NY Senator for her remark.
Just one more quick hit before I must away. Oregon and Kentucky have been at the polls all day. Early returns are coming in, but the the press is already carrying Obama's water for him. His campaign initially had planned to announce victory of sorts today after winning the majority of pledged delegates. As the month rolled along they decided instead to back off as the media seemed to be minimizing Senator Clinton on it's own.
Barack Obama's status as the first African-American front-runner for a party nomination for President has in many ways overshadowed an equally momentous event. Just as no one wants to talk about race, it seems fewer want to discuss gender - and the truly colossal achievement of Senator Clinton as the first female front-runner for a nomination. She has broken through the glass ceiling with two fists and a knockout right hook. So, why my sudden epiphany? Take a look at this Goodyear tire advertisement from the 1970s that I saw today, and think about what it's taken for women to earn the respect they rightly deserve. According to this ad, how could a woman ever be president if she can't be trusted to drive a car? Oh, right. She'll have Air Force One, a presidential motorcade and an entire nation at her disposal. Nomination or no, whatever her tactics, Senator Clinton is to be applauded for her success and for earning a place in history that isn't tied to the infamous affairs of her spouse.
George W Bush is everyone's favorite punching bag. And at slightly below 30% approval I say why not. Senators Clinton and Obama have taken shots early and often at the beleaguered POTUS. But it if imitation is the highest form of flattery then Senator Clinton is praising W to the heavens. Over the course of the last week, we've heard her say things like, "I'm not going to cast my lot with economists." when challenged to name one credible expert who thought the gas-tax holiday was a good idea. Essentially putting herself above and beyond things like fact and logic, not unlike a certain someone we've come to know and love.
Then of course there's everyone's favorite middle eastern straw man. Iran. Despite our own country's National Intelligence Estimate stating that Iran was not presently developing nuclear arms, Senator Clinton decided to threaten to "totally obliterate" Iran if she attacked Israel with nuclear arms. A credible presidential candidate might have pointed out facts, instead direct threat of force was he stand of this presidential candidate. Given the chance to back off the comment she simply restated her threat. Ah yes decisive cock-sure leadership, the kind Americans crave. The kind President Bush has provided.
Am I trying to equate Clinton with Bush on policy, no. But when it comes to leadership style, I was struck by a certain feeling that I had seen this movie before...
Policythought is not the first blog to jump all over the gas-tax holiday fiasco. Senator McCain came up with this terrible idea, then Hillary Clinton supported it. I must say it has tremendous bumper-sticker appeal. Unfortunately, it won't provide any relief from high gas prices this summer.
Barack Obama is on the ropes today after his vigorous denouncement of Rev. Wright's comments. A quick read of the comment boards shows citizens lining up in two camps. Those who think Obama harbors some of Wright's feelings and has been hiding it (the majority) and the Obama supporters who think this is just a huge distraction.
One thing is certain. This mess has dethroned Obama from the place of hope and new politics he was in a year or even 6 months ago. Obama needs to explain his association with Rev. Wright, and give a sit down interview with a real journalist for an extended period and explain his relationship with Wright. Frankly, I would recommend the "Full Ginsburg." Obama's speech on race was eloquent and a perfect description of race relations in America. But people want to know more about Obama and Wright could have been so close for so long if Wright harbored all these policies Obama despised. I am not the only voter that wants an explanation.
If you say you should choose hope over fear...and if your wife is running fear-based advertising...then by your own statements, President Clinton, you should choose the other candidate.
Barack Obama has been getting slammed for being elitist, mostly because he accurately described a voting trend among midwestern and rural voters. Hillary Clinton and John McCain have wasted no time pouncing on these ill-chosen words. But I want to clarify a few things here, because I just don't think the media is covering these developments accurately.
1. The media needed to hit Obama for something. Rev. Wright seemed perfect, but then Obama gave the speech of his political career and squelched that beast, at least for the moment. This was an easy comment because it fit a media narrative. Obama is a liberal elite, who will always have problems with "downscale" voters. Nevermind that he was raised by a single mother, paid his way through school, and passed up high paying jobs to become a community organizer.
2. The story got legs because the narrative that Hillary was dead was getting tired, this story gives the media a way to revive her. At most this problem knocks Obama down a few points. It certainly doesn't gain her any especially nationally.
3. Hillary Clinton made up a story about landing under sniper fire and told it exactly the same way three different times. The media has treated Obama's poorly chosen words with the same credence and Clinton's fabrication.
4. There is a legitimate critique to be made about Obama's comments. The candidates all recognize them and have pandered to them since the election cycle began. They've been in a race to prove who has a stronger faith in God. Hillary Clinton tells gun stories like she grew up on the frontier. Obama runs around condeming trade as if it were to blame for all the countries ills. Both candidates wrapped themselves in knots trying to answer simple questions pertaining to illegal immigration.
5. There is one question to be asked of America's working class. What's more insulting? Having a candidate accurately describe a voting trend? Or having candidates (like our current president) use their deep seeded faith in God or their dedication to tradition against them for decades. What is more insulting? Being reminded that you are bitter about how our economy has treated you? Or having a candidate who has made 109 million dollars since her husband left the White House pretend to be like you by playing to your stereotypes, that all you do is drink boilermakers, bowl, and shoot guns?
This story will have life until the debate on Wednesday and the recaps Thursday. Let's hope we don't have to hear about it again until the fall.
Forget the kitch value of this made for YouTube movie. The editing is superb and brilliantly demonstrates the exciting drama of this year's Democratic primary (albeit in a ridiculously satirical fashion). This time, Senator Clinton is Apollo Creed...and she is most certainly "The Master of Disaster." Enjoy.
Sarah Silverman told Jimmy Kimmel she's f'n Matt Damon. Kimmel retorted that he's f'n Ben Affleck. Now, Hillary's f'n Obama. Yikes.
Who doesn't find this post from The Huffington Post's 23/6 blog at least mildly hilarious:
"Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people."
What Hillary might not realize is a) Rocky didn't win until the first sequel, b) in Rocky IV, he was nearly beaten to death by a Russian and c) after that, people stopped watching. Still, 23/6 looks ahead to The Illinois/Arkansas/New York Stallion's upcoming campaign poster:
As if Brooks and I were on the same page, I stumbled across yesterday's column...
Jake Tapper of ABC News reports in his blog yesterday that the Clinton Campaign is pursuing the "Tonya Harding Option." Essentially that we have all missed the point first raised by Politico and then repeated by the pundits on the Sunday talk shows, Hillary Clinton cannot mathematically win this nomination. Tapper's interview with a high-ranking DNC official sums up this way-basically we are all missing the point. Clinton can still win the nomination its just a matter of what she is willing to do to win the nomination. Her not-so secret "kitchen sink" policy, is to stop at nothing to tear down the Obama campaign, from now to the convention.
So I come to the Super Delegates of the Democratic party and I ask them to carefully consider what kind of a party do they want to have going into this critical election cycle? It is easy to dismiss the Obama campaign for being based on nothing but rhetoric, but if that is the greatest flaw in a campaign is that really enough to dismiss it? In this week alone, Hillary Clinton has lied about her international experience, has called into question the role of pledged delegates in deciding the nomination, and reintroduced the Wright controversy to the campaign. All in an effort to win this nomination at any cost. If she somehow achieves this despite her negative rhetoric, her use of fear mongering, her pattern of bringing race just to the surface and then squashing it before real debate could ensue, it would be a travesty.
But there is something worse that would come of it. Her nomination would energize the McCain campaign more than anything he could muster himself. But Senator Clinton knows that, she sees the same polling numbers we do, and she knows how high her negatives are, and so she will tear down McCain the same way she's trying to tear down Obama. She will find subtle, yet constant ways of reminding us of his age, she will stop at nothing to tear down a decent man on her way to the presidency and in the process energize the republican party against her much the way her husband did. We will face another 4-8 years in Washington of gridlock and divisiveness as Clinton would have scorched much of the democratic party and enraged the entire republican party on her way to the presidency.
You all have the choice, you can undercut her monstrous rhetoric like Gov. Richardson did last week, you can stand with an agent of real change like Ted Kennedy and Senator Kerry have. You can support a nominee who is uniquely positioned to talk to voters across demographic lines, not just as a candidate, not just as a nominee, but eventually as President of the United States.
Or we can relive the battles of the 90's and George Bush's tenure in the White House, we can win in an electoral squeaker, and suffer through another presidential term or two that gets nothing done, where the huge problems of our times go unsolved. The choice is yours, but remember one last thing. If the choice were up to the pledged delegates, or the popular vote, we'd already know who the nominee would be.
Are we watching the Democrats implode again?
The 2008 election was supposed to be a romp. Every pundit and poll from NY to Cali proclaimed the same thing. The nation is dissatisfied with the incumbent powers and its very hard for a party to win a third term in the White House. Ergo, the White House and probably congress are a lock to turn blue, reversing the course of the majority of the Bush era.
Now we begin to watch the implosion. Week by week as the primary contest goes on, the democrats give John McCain a stronger and stronger chance of winning the White House. Let me be clear, I am all for a protracted contest between two excellent candidates to determine the best nominee. The problem lies in tactics and in the Clinton machine's reflexive instinct to kneecap their opponent no matter who it is. The Clinton campaign continues to inject race into the campaign (largely through surrogates) and then when they're called on it they claim reverse racism. But their contradictions and abysmal actions extend further.
They claim Barack Obama doesn't have the expereince to be commander in chief, but somehow he is qualfied to be Vice President, one heartbeat away from the big chair. They find a variety of ways to say he doesn't deserve to be here, defining his campaign as nothing more than plagiarized words.
This gives rise to both Obama and Clinton playing the politics of victimhood. Obama faces racism, clinton faces sexism. Meanwhile John McCain stands and takes his lumps like a man. He sits on his perch as the presumptive nominee and snipes at both calling them "liberal democrats." in a "right of center nation."
All the while a Democrat governor gets caught up in a sex scandal. The kind that seems to stick to Dems, and bounce of the GOP.
If you are very quiet, you might hear the sound of Howard Dean's scream.
Hillary Clinton on her posse have taken the week since her victories in Texas and Ohio to float the idea of the once unthinkable "Dream Ticket." Some democrats are taking heart in this idea. This latest pivot from the Clinton camp isnitjibg more than a cynical ploy. The ploy has both short term and long term goals. Both are deceptive to the voters.
The short term goal was Mississippi. Voting in the heavily black state has tilted to Obama. This ploy was way of peeling voters away from Obama and perhaps cutting down on the delegate lead. We don't know how successful this was.
The longer term ploy is more cynical and proves the adeptness of the Clinton machine in playing the politics of the system. The next big state contest is Pennsylvania on April 22nd. This state polls well for Clinton and is likely to be a narrow victory for her. However, because of the ballot proportioning, it will do little to change the delegate totals. That means the Super Delegates will ultimately decide who is nominated. Clinton will be able to say she won all the big states. Obama will counter, rightly, that he won more delegates and likely the popular vote. Hillary Clinton will at that point require a massive shift in the Super Delegates to win the nomination. The shift will be seen as a manipulation of the system, and a thwarting of the will of the voters. That perception is likely to kill much of the enthusiasm Obama's campaign has generated among the youth and the independents who were never likely to vote democrat. Hillary knows this is a net loss for the party and in a further attempt to sway the "Supers she is floating the idea of a "dream ticket" that she knows will never happen. Its a twisted ploy to tug on the heart strings of voters.
Its a promise that will never be fullfilled. And even if it were true, we all know who would be the real VP.
Lets cut the games and get real about this nomination, and start talking issues again.
There's only one thing more ridiculous and laughable than Senator Clinton's "3AM" advertisement: this hilarious spoof from Chicago creative firm Coudal Partners.
In January and Iowa victory for Obama didn't lead to a win in New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton's wins of NY and California didn't push her to victories for the rest of February. And last night, despite winning 11 straight contests across the country Obama couldn't seal the deal in either Texas or Ohio, giving Senator Clinton the ability to soldier on despite a murky path to the nomination.
Some questions to ponder over the next seven weeks until Pennsylvania.
Delegates-despite her big state wins, the margins weren't very wide, so the delegate math stay squarely with Obama. His campaign will be quick to point out that she will need to win 70% of the remaining delegates just to tie Obama's delegate count.
SuperDelegates-They were with Clinton when she was the main name in the pack. Obama's surge in wins gained him a portion, but the vast amount are undecided. Can they be courted in the time before April 22nd?
Michigan and Florida-The uncontested victories for Senator Clinton came in contests that weren't supposed to matter. The Democratic party will need to come to some arrangement. The media will get bored between now and the next major contest. Expect them to shine a little light on this problem, as now the Clinton campaign has time to make its case.
What narratives do the candidates choose?
Obama will have a higher popular vote and more delegates for the next seven weeks no matter what the final tallies are today. This is likely to be his narrative. Senator Clinton can say she has won all the big states and many of the swing states, the ones you need in the general election, how could she not be the nominee?
How much does this help John McCain?
Now that he is the sole contender left on the GOP side, do these seven weeks serve as time to build his reserves? Can he coalesce his message? Solidify his base? This is critical building time for him. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Imagine the Democratic candidates as brands, if you will. Like Brawny and Bounty. Or as The New York Times would suggest, Mac and PC. From a marketing/advertising perspective, Hillary is clearly the lesser in terms of brand warfare. And this AdWeek Article from ad critic Barbara Lippert offers a number of rationales for her brand blunders.
At first, being in advertising by trade, I reviewed these articles and a plethora of additional blog posts and I found myself apt to agree. Now I really just wonder if it's really awful timing.
It's not so much bad branding for Hillary. It's that, first female powerhouse nominee or no, she's still a product of the last generation of politicos. At the same time, Barack isn't a new brand of politician. He's a new kind of politician. He's not a Mac. He's an iPhone. A next-generation of convergent technologies for a new generation of voters. And when it comes to experience, in terms of products like iPhone, it's experience be damned - how many people really said, "I'm not going to buy an iPhone because it's not proven yet" and actually followed through? Even with its flaws, and even among the most ardent Apple fanatics who held out (including our own blogmaster Bedell), the iPhone has become a ginormous hit. Why? Because it's simply a game changer. Like Barack.
It's not the branding. It's the product. It's not that Hills is the PC to Obama's Mac. She's the cell phone to his iPhone.
