Alright. Obama won all three Potomac states by large margins and all last night pundits were madly parsing what it portends.
Over at Talk Left, Big Tent Democrat says that Obama must take either Texas, Ohio or Pennsylvania in order to get the nomination. He likens the situation to that Jack Kennedy faced in May of 1960 when he was the front runner but closing the deal for him rested on West Virginia.
The loathsome but savvy Dick Morris was already predicting an Obama nomination as early as Monday.
I’m cautiously optimistic based on yesterday’s primaries, but also because of stories like the one below. This is an account by a once-politically uninvolved woman named Michelle who together with her husband Andrew went to her first caucus in a tiny town in Maine because she and her husband believe that Barack Obama represents a different kind of political opportunity. In this way they are emblematic of the ordinary Obama supporters who made today’s victories possible and just may take him to the nomination and into the White House.
It was right downtown at the community center just down the street from our house. We walked over at the start of another snow storm with a plate of homemade cookies and big thermoses of coffee. I was really nervous. It was so much different than going over and casting a vote.We knew some of the most active democrats in town were Hillary supporters. We entered the room, Andrew had to change his Independent affiliation and I started to look around. We were some of the first people to arrive and our friend Paul was the Obama whip handing out stickers.
We had a total of 71 people arrive and as the independents filled out their forms they put on Obama stickers! [Our neighbors] who have pictures of themselves shaking hands with Bill and Hillary in their home office and are huge contributors to the democratic party arrived and came over to our table to get Obama stickers (They said that was then this is now)! Thats when I knew we had the Hillary supporters out numbered. People did not show up to change their independent status to support Hillary. After both sides spoke on behalf of their candidate, we broke off into camps to be voted the demographics became obvious.
Barack supporters spanned all ages. We had 18 year olds speaking passionately about the political process and finding hope. We had men and woman in the their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s,70’s and 80’s. The Hillary camp was mostly woman about Hillary’s age working in social services and the government and a couple of their husbands.
People gave the most heartfelt speeches in support of Barak. I teared up a couple of times. We even pulled undecided voters to our camp, and it was really the undecided people who opened up the real discussions. There was Bob (hippie from the 60’s) who rides a motorcycle with a Bordeaux wine crate bun-gee cord to the back and a bumper sticker that says “eat more Kale” on it. He said over the years he had given up faith-based causes and wanted more details than “hope” and “vision” about Barack. We told him, Barack’s vision is our vision since he got his money from lots of little contributers — that he can have a real mandate that reflects our interests, unlike his opponent who got her money from lots of big corporations.The Hillary supporters were very pragmatic, they think she can beat Mcain and she has the experience to be president. They did not sway anyone to change their mind.
Any way, it ended 3 to 1 in favor of Obama. Barack got 3 state delegates and Hillary got one from our town and best of all he won in the state overall topping off his winning streak over the weekend.
I can not imagine that he will not win the nomination. It will break my heart if he does not.
Last night, John McCain began to take swipes at Obama by calling his stump speech “platitudes.” Yet Tuesday night’s speech in Madison blows that little argument right out of the water.
(I’ll repeat my comment from another thread)
Lots of the classic “Obamaisms†but this one lays out a great balance between “inspiration†and “perspiration.†Head and shoulders above any presidential candidate in my memory, with the possible exception of Bobby Kennedy. Honestly, it’s been a long time but I don’t remember ever hearing anything from RFK that matched Obama’s skills.
I’ll add that while I’m nervous about the “frontrunner” thing, Obama’s success to date has been a remarkable political and organizational feat. The campaign itself has proven he’s “presidential” in a way that Hillary is not. The missteps of the Clinton campaign are keys to why a Clinton presidency doesn’t bode will for the country – the husband running around more than a bit unhinged, the “insiders” with long personal ties mismanaging while the candidate isn’t fully aware of troubles brewing and “loyalty” is the order of the day, a war chest that constituted much of the initial sense of “momentum” getting burned through by her “professionals” and surpassed by an “upstart” opponent relying on small donors, a segment of the party “establishment” that represents the most elusive and least inspiring that the Democrats have to offer providing political muscle at the same time key “old school” leaders are increasingly dubious and looking for new blood.
Hillary’s run a good campaign as these things go and still has a formidable operation, but when one looks at the advantages with which she started and where she stands to day, her potential as president strikes me as modest. The operation she put together to make her case is remarkably unimpressive at this point. Frankly, anyone who would send Mark Penn out in front of the public as official “emissary” shouldn’t be allowed, at the least, to oversee the State Department and if the deployment of her husband on her behalf over recent weeks is indicative, the notion of Bill Clinton as “advisor in chief” or roaming the world putting out fires holds less attraction than it once might have.
My mean-spirited line of late is that putting Hillary Clinton back in charge of the politics of universal, affordable health care is like asking Don Rumsfeld back to take another shot at occupying Iraq. She managed, by virtue of some combination of political incompetence and arrogance, to send the issue into the bushes for a decade and a half. I am increasingly of the opinion that Clinton’s alleged “strengths” are actually a huge weakness when examined. She’s “been there before” is what it all boils down to. Yeah…and look what happened to the Democratic Party in the context of Clintonism. It continued it’s long march to near-total emasculation and degeneration into “GOP-lite.” To the extent that Clintonism V.2 represents a departure from the rancid politics of the Democratic Leadership Council, it’s due soley to pressures from outside that circle – starting with the Dean insurgency. The “progressive window” that so many Democrats see has, in truth, been handed to us by the Bush administration and the descent into full-tilt ideological wingnuttery of the hard-core GOP. During this tenure, Hillary Clinton has shown tepid leadership at best. She hasn’t helped create the wedge and she’s done nothing to inspire the party or expand its base. It’s all a game of warmed-over, recycled politics and personalities, managed by some of the most cynical, dispiriting campaign pros in the business and the candidate, apparently, shielded by a bunch of longterm loyalists.
Obama has been knocked by an increasingly hysterical Paul Krugman for overseeing a “cult of personality.” In truth, there’s not been anything in recent memory for Democrats that matches the Clinton personality cult. As a Democrat I lived through a decade in which hope for some significant change was very quickly reduced to a posture that was all about defending the Clintons. Yeah, the attack dogs were unfair. They always are. They’ll be unfair to Barack. But the fact that these particular people were so vulnerable to these attacks, that the White House became the stage for a national soap opera (which will immediately go into reruns followed by a new season should Hillary prevail) and that “winning” for Democrats was at the end reduced to circling the wagons in the face of self-inflicted crap like the Lewinsky scandal rather than focusing on progressive legislation should be a deal-breaker for anyone with the proverbial “room temperature” IQ. With the Clintons, it does really tend to all be about them. This is obvious even in Hillary’s “closer” – MY 35 years, MY hard work, MY expertise, MY career. The same deal with Bill who, famously, feels our pain. The level of narcissism and backstory at work in the Clinton saga is, when you step back and examine it, staggering. (The funny thing is that Barack was able to squeeze a book out of his somewhat interesting, idiosyncratic family history and coming of age that is actually worth reading for it’s insights and elegance. The Clinton memoirs will be remembered as publishing events, not for anything revelatory or as literature.) A Clinton presidency would probably be a study in competence. Anyone this careful and calculating would do a decent job compared to what we’ve all lived through the last seven. Whether or not Bill would embarrass her at some point is an open question. I certainly hope not, but I’m not convinced. The difference between Clinton and Obama isn’t in the area of competence. Both clearly are. It’s tha Obama offers the chance of shifting the narrative so that liberal values are resurgent rather than recycled “Reaganism.” Bill Clinton governed in Ronald Reagan’s shadow. Hillary has the advantage of following Bush, but she’s inevitably a “back to the future” candidate, invoking nostalgia for the ’90s. That’s the deal she offers. Obama offers the possibility of America telling itself a different story about who we are – connected to but reshaping the old ones for the 21st century – and finally giving Reagan the decent burial he deserves. One thing I can guarantee as regards the Obama story vs. the Clintons’. The political culmination of “Obamaism” won’t be Michelle coming back to us in a decade promising to get it right on stuff they screwed up or failed to deliver the first time around.
That Maine caucus story really says it all: coffee plus doughnuts plus conviction equals the will of the people. Wonderful.
The “cult of personality” Krugman thing is interesting because it points out how terminally disappointed people can get after a generation of whitewashing and bullsh*t in the White House. It suggests, among many things, that inspiration is for lightweights.
I’m with you, giddy despite the flu and freshman compositions.
Sally E nails what is so disappointing about Krugman’s dismissiveness. Ultimately he proves himself a wonky, elitist technocrat parsing policy details, which should be less surprising given his own background and political history than his more recent, self-styled role as a “conscience” for liberals. Krugman has characterized his criticisms of Obama as all about playing into GOP “talking points”, then proceeds to call Barack a liar (on his blog) and the center of a personality cult. Krugman has been one of my heroes in the mainstream press during the Bush years. But I’ve watched Ron Dellums morph into a lackluster hack this past year (having little to do with his endorsement of Hillary) so I guess I can live without having any particular respect for Krugman (beyond his generally sound economic analysis) as well. Despite it all, I’m not feeling an inspiration deficit. Not even a little.
Dont’t forget this other “monkey wrench”, which can be thrown into the selection process.
“Debate intensifies over role of super delegates in Clinton-Obama race”
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-assess13feb13,0,1745410.story
‘
“and finally giving Reagan the decent burial he deserves.
Can I get a hallelujah !!!
‘
Whoever decided to have McCain speak after Obama should be run out of Big John’s campaign. I agree with Reg that Obama is getting more specific but, more to the point, he’s hitting McCain and his “Hundred Years of War” hard. And the contrast between the two was striking. There was the youthful and enthusiastic Obama surrounded by young and old and then, there was McCain and his band of AARP refuges looking like they just came from the “Early Bird” Special. And a limp and lackluster deliver that could put sominex out of business. No wonder Huckabee is still drawing as many votes as he is!
Hety, I’m an AARP member and I don’t support McCain!
What about the “Early Bird”?
In a speech, Obama praised McCain’s “half-century of service” – a euphemism for “he’s old.” Perhaps McCain should remember these words, “…I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
Last one: The NAACP hates Obama.
NAACP head wants barred delegates seated
In a Feb. 8 letter to DNC Chairman Howard Dean, NAACP chairman Julian Bond expressed “great concern at the prospect that million of voters in Michigan and Florida could ultimately have their votes completely discounted.” Refusing to seat the states’ delegations could remind voters of the “sordid history of racially discriminatory primaries,” he said.
What did the Clinton’s promise him?
Well they’re hardly the Mississippi Freedom Democrats now are they?
This situation “isn’t fair” from any angle you resolve it – to the states or to the candidates – but a decision was made and agreed to, the state parties went ahead knowing the consequences, the candidates all agreed to sit the vote out. Bond is making an utterly bogus claim. The voters of Michigan and Florida were, in fact, left out of a legitimate electoral contest so the actual votes are a sham. My guess is that the votes in real primaries held later would have been a wash – with Hillary leading in Florida and Barack taking Michigan. The number of folks who actually went to the polls to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan, where Barack wasn’t on the ballot and the election had already been declared a “non-event” by the DNC was remarkable.