The announcement that Sen. Hillary Clinton will end her campaign Saturday, along with Sen. Obama's wrapping up the needed delegates for the nomination, has produced a deluge of "how he won"/"how she lost" post mortems.
Two that gave me a lot of good information were Chris Cillizza's blog and Sabato's Crystal Ball blog. The Cillizza [horrible misspelling corrected, sorry!] piece is a good rundown of the strategies and philosophical approach of Obama's campaign, while the Sabato piece (written by Justin Sizemore) is full of crunchy goodness such as charts, graphs and plenty of numbers. Both are good reads and very informative.
There's been some talk in the comments about the likelihood of Obama picking Clinton as a running mate. I would say the chances are extremely slim. Obama just named a three-person team to manage the selection process, which I take as a sign he's going to be very deliberative about this and let the "Dream Ticket" talk die down a bit. Hopefully it will, because it's hard to imagine Sen. Clinton being a good fit. The Clintons of course come as a matched set, and they tend to overshadow anyone else in the room. Obama doesn't need that. I see the appeal of the Obama/Clinton ticket, but I also see the risks, and they really look overwhelming to me. Just my 2¢.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Garbage Time and Trash Talking
I hesitate to raise this point. Supporters of Sen. Clinton have taken her loss very hard, and they have every right to feel that she deserves respect and credit for the incredible race she ran. I was very impressed by how she finished so strong in the last month or so.
But I do think this talk of "winning the popular vote" is a bit disingenuous. By the most fair count (including all caucus state estimates and excluding Michigan, which was not a fair election by any stretch of the imagination), Obama won the popular vote, albeit narrowly. Still, there's nothing wrong with Clinton supporters being proud of her big wins at the very end--IF they also acknowledge the reality that Obama had this thing wrapped up some time ago. That reality seems a little hard to grasp for some.
There's an expression in sports which I think applies here. "Garbage Time" is often referred to in basketball games and football games as a time in the game where the outcome is not in doubt, but the winning team is just running out the clock, while the losing team is doing everything they can to make the score respectable, or pull off a miracle win.
Sound familiar?
(Of course I don't mean to imply that any candidate or state or voting group is garbage. Let's make that clear.)
But In the last month of the campaign, Obama was transitioning to the general election, engaging the McCain team on a series of issues and going to swing states to address voter concerns there. Sen. Clinton, on the other hand, was still campaigning full bore in the final states. Obama could have decided to continue to fully contest the primaries and leave the national stuff 'till later, but I think he was right to move on. If Obama had really contested every state, those popular vote totals would be different. Not that it matters much. But it's a little annoying that even at the end, Clinton was making that "we won the popular vote" claim. It's not true, and even if you accept the Clinton campaign's fuzzy math, it would only be true because of garbage time.
Now that I've offended the few (any?) Clinton supporters who read this blog, I'll move on to John McCain's speech Tuesday night.
Hooo boy, that did not look good. Forget the comparison with the dynamic Obama or the impassioned Clinton, just watch the thing for what it is. An extremely uncomfortable man giving a leaden, awkward speech. The weird thing is, I don't believe the speech was badly written. McCain just seemed incapable of delivering it in a convincing manner. The refrain "That's not change we can believe in," should have been a rallying cry, a phrase with some anger or at least determination behind it. McCain treated it like a punch line in a weak joke, plastering on fake smile every time he repeated the line. I thought maybe he was trying to go for a Reagan-esque, "there you go again," genial feel; but it totally didn't fit the material.
McCain has been trying to talk tough in the early part of this national campaign, trying to make Obama look young and naive, trying to raise fears of appeasement or weakness. But if you're going to trash talk, you better sound like your heart is in it. Because it wasn't Obama who looked weak Tuesday night.
But I do think this talk of "winning the popular vote" is a bit disingenuous. By the most fair count (including all caucus state estimates and excluding Michigan, which was not a fair election by any stretch of the imagination), Obama won the popular vote, albeit narrowly. Still, there's nothing wrong with Clinton supporters being proud of her big wins at the very end--IF they also acknowledge the reality that Obama had this thing wrapped up some time ago. That reality seems a little hard to grasp for some.
There's an expression in sports which I think applies here. "Garbage Time" is often referred to in basketball games and football games as a time in the game where the outcome is not in doubt, but the winning team is just running out the clock, while the losing team is doing everything they can to make the score respectable, or pull off a miracle win.
Sound familiar?
(Of course I don't mean to imply that any candidate or state or voting group is garbage. Let's make that clear.)
But In the last month of the campaign, Obama was transitioning to the general election, engaging the McCain team on a series of issues and going to swing states to address voter concerns there. Sen. Clinton, on the other hand, was still campaigning full bore in the final states. Obama could have decided to continue to fully contest the primaries and leave the national stuff 'till later, but I think he was right to move on. If Obama had really contested every state, those popular vote totals would be different. Not that it matters much. But it's a little annoying that even at the end, Clinton was making that "we won the popular vote" claim. It's not true, and even if you accept the Clinton campaign's fuzzy math, it would only be true because of garbage time.
Now that I've offended the few (any?) Clinton supporters who read this blog, I'll move on to John McCain's speech Tuesday night.
Hooo boy, that did not look good. Forget the comparison with the dynamic Obama or the impassioned Clinton, just watch the thing for what it is. An extremely uncomfortable man giving a leaden, awkward speech. The weird thing is, I don't believe the speech was badly written. McCain just seemed incapable of delivering it in a convincing manner. The refrain "That's not change we can believe in," should have been a rallying cry, a phrase with some anger or at least determination behind it. McCain treated it like a punch line in a weak joke, plastering on fake smile every time he repeated the line. I thought maybe he was trying to go for a Reagan-esque, "there you go again," genial feel; but it totally didn't fit the material.
McCain has been trying to talk tough in the early part of this national campaign, trying to make Obama look young and naive, trying to raise fears of appeasement or weakness. But if you're going to trash talk, you better sound like your heart is in it. Because it wasn't Obama who looked weak Tuesday night.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
The End of the Road
Remarkable. Extraordinary. Unprecedented.
Those are the words that come to mind when I think of the primary campaigns of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This has been a riveting, hard-fought race from the first caucuses in Iowa to the moment the final polls close tonight in Montana.
The Republican side was interesting in its own way, with a very colorful cast of characters and plenty of interesting issues to work out. I agree with the conventional wisdom that almost despite itself, the Republican party is nominating the candidate with the best chance of winning. Whether the base can really get behind McCain remains to be seen. I was visiting some conservative relatives recently and there was very little enthusiasm for McCain. I sense they will vote for him, but they are not excited.
But the D side is excited. Maybe a little too much so in some cases. I’ve been checking out some of the pro-Clinton blogs lately and boy, talk about some raw nerves. They are not happy with the media, with Obama supporters, and in some cases, with Obama himself. I keep hearing him say nice things about Clinton, but many of these HRC supporters are having none of it. They are, to borrow a word, bitter. I believe that will change.
But overall, this has been an historic primary on the Dem side, and both candidates have run admirable campaigns. Both have stumbled at times, but they both showed real resilience and strength of character. That’s just my take, but I don’t think anyone can disagree that this has been one for the history books.
I’ve felt for some time that Clinton simply was not going to win; that it was a case of too little too late. And I think that’s playing out about as expected. But give her credit for fighting to the last. We can argue about whether it’s good for the party or divisive, but the fact is she ended up coming very close, which is a credit to her. And she almost certainly will concede in the next few days, which gives Obama plenty of time to unite the party.
An African American is going to be the nominee for President from the Democratic party in 2008. And I would say he has at least an even shot of winning the general election in the fall. This is a good day for our country.
Prediction:
South Dakota: Obama 52, Clinton 48
Montana: Obama 58, Clinton 42
(Sorry I missed Puerto Rico — I was traveling and just couldn’t get something written.)
Those are the words that come to mind when I think of the primary campaigns of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This has been a riveting, hard-fought race from the first caucuses in Iowa to the moment the final polls close tonight in Montana.
The Republican side was interesting in its own way, with a very colorful cast of characters and plenty of interesting issues to work out. I agree with the conventional wisdom that almost despite itself, the Republican party is nominating the candidate with the best chance of winning. Whether the base can really get behind McCain remains to be seen. I was visiting some conservative relatives recently and there was very little enthusiasm for McCain. I sense they will vote for him, but they are not excited.
But the D side is excited. Maybe a little too much so in some cases. I’ve been checking out some of the pro-Clinton blogs lately and boy, talk about some raw nerves. They are not happy with the media, with Obama supporters, and in some cases, with Obama himself. I keep hearing him say nice things about Clinton, but many of these HRC supporters are having none of it. They are, to borrow a word, bitter. I believe that will change.
But overall, this has been an historic primary on the Dem side, and both candidates have run admirable campaigns. Both have stumbled at times, but they both showed real resilience and strength of character. That’s just my take, but I don’t think anyone can disagree that this has been one for the history books.
I’ve felt for some time that Clinton simply was not going to win; that it was a case of too little too late. And I think that’s playing out about as expected. But give her credit for fighting to the last. We can argue about whether it’s good for the party or divisive, but the fact is she ended up coming very close, which is a credit to her. And she almost certainly will concede in the next few days, which gives Obama plenty of time to unite the party.
An African American is going to be the nominee for President from the Democratic party in 2008. And I would say he has at least an even shot of winning the general election in the fall. This is a good day for our country.
Prediction:
South Dakota: Obama 52, Clinton 48
Montana: Obama 58, Clinton 42
(Sorry I missed Puerto Rico — I was traveling and just couldn’t get something written.)
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