You won’t hear too much about it in the media, but Obama is currently undefeated in the Democratic nominating process (if you don’t include Michigan).
Iowa:
Obama 16
Clinton 15
Edwards 14Obama 9
Clinton 9
Edwards 4Obama 13
Clinton 12
Reporting the truth about the delegate race would change the national narrative, and not in Clinton’s favor.
I assume this is meant ONLY to point out deficiencies in the national media and is NOT meant as campaign advice to Obama to make an issue out of this. At least not overtly. Because that would be a political loser for him imo.
But you are right that if the media reported the race this way it would not favor Hillary Clinton. Maybe they don’t hate Hillary Clinton quite as much as everyone thinks. Or as much as some people hope.
I definitely agree that it would be a loser proposition for the Obama campaign to push this angle. But I do think it’s important to try to have whatever effect we can in terms of changing the narrative. I saw a Yahoo headline last night that read “Clinton has momentum”. I was thinking, “Looks like someone didn’t spend enough time on that ‘distinguishing fact from opinion’ lesson plan when s/he was in school.”
This sort of thing very easily becomes “self-fulfilling prophecy”, when people start wanting to back a perceived winner.
I don’t think it’s a losing proposition for a campaign to occasionally mention facts. You have to mention them in a self-confident way and them leave them there as if there’s nothing to argue about.
In fact the Obama campaign did that fairly well last night with the delegate count. They put the fact out there and then let it go. The media went to town on trying to figure out if it was right. By the time Hillary got to my city last night about 10:00 for her rally, the local media was reporting Nevada as a split decision. Which was about the best that the local Obama organization could hope for.
But I think a campaign making an issue of media reporting is a loser. It makes them look whiny and weak. Especially when Clinton got strong percentages coming out of Nevada (it doesn’t matter that the public doesn’t even understand what those percentages represent.)
Clinton does have the momentum, because of the final percentages coming out of Nevada. So all he can do is put a slight check on it and keep these facts in the background. And hope to change momentum in SC by a solid win. It would be bad strategy to complain about the media. It would be good strategy to make sure the media knows the facts just in case it wants to use them.
pointing out that you won the real contest does not really have that much downside. It’s largely about convincing the media that the race is even and convincing people to continue to finance your campaign.
It’s a fine line and differs if you are talking to the media/public or financial supporters.
With the media/public I think you have to point it out and leave it at that. Which seems to be what the campaign itself did. You can’t argue that you won the real contest. Because then you get into an argument about what the real contest was and do you really want to be on the side that argues that popular vote doesn’t matter? You want to see what a loser that is – watch the arguments break out on blogs, probably even in this thread. The Obama campaign itself doesn’t want to be in that argument.
To point out as you do that the media is missing a story and their narrative is more favorable to Clinton, yadda yadda – for a campaign to do it would not be good strategy.
As far as “convincing” financial supporters – that can be handled much more directly and, yes, they can make that argument in private. The small donors – more difficult. But making the argument to them through the MSM is difficult. You probably need bloggers for that 🙂
Different approaches.
I’m beginning to think of the Clintons as tabloid media icons … to some extent, any publicity for the Clintons is good publicity. They’re quite good at spinning bad news (or at least neutralizing it).
The media plays along with this. It guarantees good ratings, kind of like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton news.
“HILLARY IN HAIR-PULLING BRAWL WITH BRITTANY AND LINDSAY!!”
“With the California Primary approaching, Hillary Clinton drew the attention of voters with a late-night slam-bang brawl outside a club on Sunset Strip with two of America’s baddest girls, and came out on top….”
It’s more than just the media missing a story…this morning, I watched the cable news show report the delegate counts with superdelegates added in so that they could point to it and say that Hillary was ahead.
Marty Lederman has a bit more in depth discussion on the count. It certainly would have been nice if MSM/& cable had at least given an a serious attempt at the delegate discussion, but then again, they’ve trained their viewers so well to understand bumper sticker analysis how would they handle anything more.
For the intrepid
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/01/who-won-democratic-nevada-caucus-who.html
Just when you think they can’t possibly dumb things down any more, the MSM goes ahead and exceeds your wid expections, don’t they?
Hillary is ahead if you count in superdelegates. It’s a fact.
You might respond that superdelegates aren’t committed. True. But there is no evidence right now that they won’t vote for her. If the convention were held tomorrow they would vote for her.
You might argue that the media shouldn’t count superdelegates without explaining how superdelegates work. OK. But that same reasoning (that the media needs to fully educate the public) needs be applied to BooMan’s idea – explaining how Obama ended up with equal or more delegates despite losing the popular vote (which might lead to the conclusion that the system is unfair). Again, I don’t think that’s a winner for Obama from the PR point of view.
From a PR point of view Obama needs to win a state by a large percentage of the popular vote. I don’t know if he can. Maybe the Democrats are just too divided for that to happen.
But I believe he can’t if he continues using the strategy he used up until now. He isn’t getting enough Democrats to vote for him. Independents aren’t enough in a Democratic primary. So far they haven’t given him a huge win – even among delegates. All the rest of this delegate count talk is at best just a way to keep hope alive in his followers (and keep them contributing) and at worst a distraction.
Unlike BooMan I have made up my mind. I’m voting for Obama. But I have real doubts about his strategy for winning. Arguing he’s ahead because of technicalities in the delegate selection process is not a good alternative strategy imo.
I’m just pointing out that they were mixing things together, talking abut the outcome of the first 3 primaries, and throwing in superdelegates on top. The casual observer would glance at the teevee, wouldn’t know the difference, and would think the whole thing was over after the 3 races when they saw the 2-1 advantege in delegates shown. No campaign advantage to whining about semantic differences, though.
After the last week or two, I’m thinking I totally understand why people get so turned off by politics that they don’t bother to vote anymore. But I guess that discussion belongs in the integrity thread…
The media in this country is an embarrassment.
And when the rational response to an electoral system is to opt out of it and pretend it doesn’t exist – you know there’s something wrong with the system.
It is not just technicalities. They all know the rules going into these contests, they invest their resources where they think that they can get the best results. The Clintons did a good job in Clark County, Obama did better upstate. It so happens that Obama’s strategy in NV was better for winning delegates.
Obama never really expected to win Nevada, from early on I would hear people talking up Iowa, NH and SC and regularly left Nevada off of the list, since Hilary was so far ahead. The Culinary Workers Union was needed to pull Obama even they did good for him.
I have high hopes for South Carolina.
Give me a break. Of course it’s technicalities. The fact that campaigns are supposed to know (and do know) every technicality of the procedure for picking delegates doesn’t make them not technicalities.
If your guy decides to have people out there on TV explaining how he gets more delegates with less of the popular vote – it’s a net negative for him. I don’t care that it’s perfectly within the rules and everyone knew it going in. Try explaining it to the public and it’s a loser as a political issue.
So if it’s going to be talked about it has to be talked about by people other than the campaign. You know, like if all the Philadelphia bloggers woke up this morning and decided to make this “write about delegate count” day and the media actually paid attention to them.
I hope he does well in South Carolina. And doesn’t just win – but comes out with a good narrative.
The CBS analyst tonight came out and said what we’re all thinking — if he wins SC mostly on the black vote the win is going to be minimized. So he’d better be figuring out how to win with Democrats across the board – no matter what their race.
Thank for answering the question I posted in my comment, previous diary.
Ah! At the end of the day, it’s the delegate count that matters.
And has anyone noticed… in NV, Obama won the rural and Af-Am votes. Some trend for Clinton, No?
Guess why Bill Clinton is one angry former president? The restoration project to re-occupy the White House..don’t count on it.
I imagine he had to swear off of extra-marital sex for the last 10 years. Of course he’s pissed. Bad tradeoff if he can’t be in the White House again.
What’s the saying? “You can’t go home again”? I hope that’s true, in his case! 😉
Imho, Bill is atoning for past escapades. most likely a deal he made with her. “Forgive me and I’ll campaign for you..for senator, you’ll move to NY and you can run for president too.”
A friend sent me an email – photo of bumper sticker from Kentucky.
“Monica Lewinsky ex-boyfriend’s wife for president”
All that baggage will be repackaged with some from post White House years including those unsealed records.
Clintons will put the country through all that garbage, again, because they both have no sense of decency. Sheer greed.
isn’t that just as much a product of how screwed up the caucus system than anything else?
i want clinton to lose too, but the fact is that she got significantly more votes than obama did in nevada. both iowa and nevada use systems that don’t count every vote equally when they apportion delegates and don’t allow secret ballots.
(NH, of course, is not part of my critique of the caucus system. but the tie in delegates just a product of how close the race was. it’s still worth noting that clinton actually did get more votes by a hair)
look at where she garnered votes.
And here’s one more reason not to vote for Hillary:
David Brooks’omments highlighted by Andrew Sullivan. Nice. How soon we forget that mid last year, Bush endorsed Hillary.
A reminder from David Brooks about how the leading figures in the Bush administration see the former first lady. She’s a person they’d like to see continue their legacy.
Watch the Video
Yea, by her record.
Listen Up. Mark this date. 1.20.2008
One year from today will be inauguration 1.20.2009. Instead of good bye, we’ll reinstall-not break with – the Bush years. Haven’t we had enough?
CSPAN gave some time over to Obama this morning for his MLK birthday address. I’ve been waiting to see him move his oration style onto a pulpit…and today he did. He reached right out to that audience, swatted Huckabee’s Baptist style oration right out of the ballpark, and if that speech didn’t at least make a few of the Faux News, he’s a Muslim shouters’ jaws drop I’d be surprised.
His new line about ‘false hope’ and that we are a country with a deficit of empathy, spoken in the cadence of a born orator is mesmerizing…and I ain’t no pawn of religion.
I’m waiting for someone to post video of that speech but I haven’t seen any yet.
You can see it at C-Span’s Campaign Network.org site. Here’s a URL to the speech directly (requires RealPlayer – cut & paste URL if you have real player installed)
rtsp://video.c-span.org/archive/c08/c08_012008_obama.rm
Andrew Sulivan also posted the text this morning.
It is a great speech that everyone should see or at least read. This is what draws me to his campaign. The policies of all the democrats are so similar but this is the only one of them who inspires us to set aside our differences and actually work to get it done. Imagine, after so many years of wanting to change the channel whenever the president speaks, actually looking forward to the weekly radio address for inspiration.
Thanks for that. I read it earlier but it was nice to see it. It was a good speech but he really started connecting with the crowd when he went off script. (which at this point isn’t really off script he’s given so many ‘hope’ speeches.) But he’s so good when he looks like he’s working without a script.
I agree. It was as if he didn’t have the time to rehearse the new speech, or was maybe a little tired this morning. It’s rough on the campaign trail. But I loved the speech. I also read it before I saw it and it played so much better in my head when I read it than when it was delivered. The “Deficit of Morality, Deficit of Empathy” part was right-on. The story of the old black man getting involved because of the young white woman was very touhing.
To others who read this, go see or read the speech. Good stuff. it’s about 45 minutes, including the singing & stuff.
Tired, was what went through my head. I was also unsure if I was holding him to too high a standard. It was so cold this weekend that I never left the house and I’ve been doing boring projects like cleaning out closets. So in the background as a diversion, and in honor of MLK’s birthday, I had Eyes on the Prize on the TV. When I read the speech I was hearing it with Dr. King’s rhythms. It took me a bit to adjust to Obama’s rhythms.
The man really is a natural when he’s comfortable with the message he’s delivering. The NYTimes did an article on his speechwriter. When I read the speech earlier I figured that all the low-blow anti-Obama bloggers would try to diminish his speeches from now on by using the fact that he works with a speechwriter. Either overtly or through cheap insinuation. Which is absurd. JFK worked with a speechwriter for heavens sake and that doesn’t diminish his speeches.
But when Obama left the script I thought – you can’t diminish this man’s speaking ability. It’s a natural god given talent. Some people have it and some people don’t. And he has it.
Via AmericaBlog they’re linking the speech as well, off Obama’s site
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/01/20/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_40.php
Hillary may have some succinct scripts & encyclopedic handle on issues but she is simply missing the Pied Piper element. I always sense I’m getting the Hallmark card of a Presidency with her rather than the guts of the experience. It reminds me of a customer I had that used to carry around a box of Hallmark cards, all indexed nicely so that she could pull one out for any issue that came her way and hand it over. Somehow it just missed the point and to this day I never open her Christmas cards.
grasping at straws? Puleeeeeze. Stop it! Just sit back and chronicle the total defeat of the Dems. Regardless of who comes out of this abortion, they will be so divided that the fucking goopers will stroll into the presidency. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.The gop, working with the direct support of the major media slaves want Hill to be the dem candidate. They (the media) have done everything that they can to get her the candidacy and the goddamned dems have simply sucked up to that teat!
We have a war that more than 60% of the US is against. An economy that is so far into the toilet that ya can’t even flush anymore. The constitution has be torn into tiny pieces and the benevolent dictators have to travel the world looking to sell or institutions to anyone willing to put up funds for the dictators to keep raping the public.
So, the O man could have a monstrous lead in delegates and the goopers will come up with something else to screw us folks.
So Boo, stop the bullshit and just keep posting the crimes and disgraces. Maybe someone, sometime in the distant future will read your posts and discover just how evil these bastards are!