Primary thoughts.

[phamos]

I haven't poked around on too many sites yet, but it looks like the meida isn't particularly into Clinton's "turned a corner" spin, thank goodness. Clinton was always ahead in Ohio -- I think only one poll in the last two weeks showed Obama ahead, and that was Zogby, who has had a terrible track record this election. SurveyUSA, which has been much more accurate, gave Clinton a 17 point spread before the Wisconsin election, a 9 point spread right after Wisconsin, and a 6 point spread last week. On Sunday, they got it exactly right -- 54-44. So instead of framing this as losing 7 points in the last two weeks, they say they won 4 points in the last week. It's all spin. In two weeks, this race went from "Hillary HAS to win BOTH Ohio and Texas to even stay in the race" to "Hillary won Texas and Ohio over giant odds and is now the front-runner" -- huh?

Texas is definitely more depressing, because it looks like the people who decided in the last couple of days went heavy for Clinton. That's validation for Clinton's camp for it's strategy of going negative. Unfortunately, the campaign is now going to get ugly, because Obama's going to have to go ugly back. I really, really didn't want this to happen, and it's disappointing to me. One of my favorite aspects of Obama's campaign has been his reluctance to play dirty politics, so depending on how gross things get in the next few weeks, it might seriously temper my enthusiasm for him.


OK, end of partisan grumpiness. Congrats to the Hillary supporters on my list, and let's hope everything stays civil until Pennsylvania. (Seven weeks? Jebus.)

Comments

[phamos818.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think he'll be perfectly able to stand up to John McCain in a general election. The idea that the Republican machine is somehow singularly amazing at nasty politics is kind of a weird meme. I think the Clinton camp has proven in this election that Dems can play dirty, too. What's sad is that yesterday's results will only reinforce the idea that playing dirty wins votes, which is really disappointing to me. I wish that the American public expected more out of its politicians than that. But that's just drinking the Obama koolaid again -- people are more easily manipulated by fear than hope, apparently; I should have learned that over the last 7 years.

[clafount.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I've been a bit out of the loop on this last round of primaries and so I'm not that well-versed in the latest shenanigans of the Clinton campaign, so I can't comment on how successful it was.

But on another note, my Rolling Stone magazine had an interesting quote about the success of McCain's campaign...hang on...

Here we go..."he's survived because Onward to Victory is the last great illusion the Republican Party has left to sell in this country, even to its own followers. They can't sell fiscal responsibility, they can't sell "values," they can't sell competence, they can't sell small government, they can't even sell the economy. All they have left to offer is this sad, dwindling, knee-jerk patriotism, a promise to keep selling world politics as a McHale's Navy rerun to a Middle America that wants nothing to do with realizing the world has changed since 1946."

So anyway, uh, how is this relevant? Oh yeah, I think that analysis is spot on for McCain's appeal, and that worries me because I'm just picturing all the racist or sexist crap that will likely come out in the general election. Because I don't think selling victory in Iraq will be enough for him to win, and I think his campaign will resort (or at least, some on the right will...maybe swift boaters and the like) to some pretty low tactics, because IT WORKS so often. Like you say, people are more easily manipulated by fear than hope.

It'll be interesting to see what happens, in any case.