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

[clafount.livejournal.com]

Has Obama really been that "above the fray" though? I mean, he's attacked Clinton on NAFTA and her health care plan, and I don't think that cost him any idealists. Although his overall message is a positive, idealistic one, it's not like he's been sitting on his hands only playing nice this whole time.

[phamos818.livejournal.com]

I think the difference is in his manner. He somehow manages to avoid coming off like a nasty trickster when he goes up against her, whereas she often looks pretty craven. There may be an element of media-related sexism in there, depending on how it's being framed in the news, but in general he just always comes off cool as a cucumber as opposed to her having little fits. Since I would prefer him to win, I hope he can keep that up.

Also there's the fact that his "attacks" have been on actual issues and haven't brought up any of her personal baggage. My fear is that if she keeps pushing the Rezko thing, we're going to see a lot of Clinton 1.0 garbage coming up again, which I would find disappointing but, you know, kinda only fair. Seriously, every time she mentions Rezko, I'm aghast that she has the balls to bring up shady land deals.

[clafount.livejournal.com]

Oh I agree that there's a difference in how he comes off. I guess my point is, do we really need to be concerned that he won't "fight back" come the general election? I don't think that we do, based on what I've seen so far.

[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.

[talamasca.livejournal.com]

The problem with comparing Rezko with Whitewater and other Clinton scandals is that the latter are old news. No, I'm not saying that they don't matter, just this. First of all, the Clinton scandals have been investigated several times now, and nothing new has come up about them in a while. Second--with the exception of people who lived under a rock in the 90's--everybody knows about these scandals already. If Obama brought them up, they wouldn't surprise anybody, 'cause a knee-jerk reaction against Clinton. People presumably have already thought about them, formed their opinions on their veracity and seriousness, and so have already decided whether or not the scandals affect their view of Hillary and their vote.

Rezko, on the other hand, is just coming to trial. There's potential for new information to come of this. This could either vindicate or implicate Obama, the problem being if it's the latter. (Or, it could do neither, and continue questions as to Obama's involvement, which is also a problem.) The trial will also keep this in the news, whereas presumably Whitewater isn't going to show up except as a retrospective or if Obama specifically calls her out on it. And Rezko is also new enough that many people will not have heard of it yet, and others will not have decided what they think of it. So there's potential for someone to hear about it and have an "oh shit, Obama has a scandal" reaction.

It occurred to me a little bit ago that Hillary may have actually done Obama a favor (unwittingly, of course) by bringing Rezko up in the primary. I mean, Obama's ties with Rezko aren't something made up by the Clinton campaign, or something only they would have been able to discover. It would have come out eventually. Bringing it up in the primary means that McCain won't be able to spring it on Obama, say, 2 weeks before the election date, perhaps causing uncertainty in Obama's ranks. Instead, people may have time to take it in and decide, perhaps, that there's really nothing to it (if indeed there isn't). They may have time to form informed opinions, instead of just simply reacting to cries of "scandal!"

[talamasca.livejournal.com]

Obama's taken at least some tentative steps toward attacking Clinton, such as at that debate where she mentioned Rezko and he then responded with her lawyering for Walmart. But there's still a perception of him as being the positive candidate, as not having slung any real mud. That perception can't last long, though, if he's forced to take the kid gloves off in the general election.

[clafount.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure that's true. McCain has plenty of spots to attack him legitimately, that won't look like "playing dirty." I mean seriously, 100 years in Iraq?

The attacks about NAFTA and her health care plan seemed like "real mud" but not dirty tricks. I don't see why he can't keep that up in the future.

I think it's one thing to attack another dem and another to attack a republican too. I hope his supporters aren't quite so "idealistic" that they want him to be all "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" when it comes to the general election.