The national news media prior to last Monday was rife with the following daily reports: (1) All media outlets were reporting that momentum was solidly with the Obama campaign. (2) The Clinton campaign was constantly portrayed as having their backs to the wall in dire need of winning Ohio and Texas in order to survive. Bill Clinton’s original comment in this regard was also widely replayed. (3) The media headlined the burning question, “will Hillary drop out if she loses Ohio and Texas?
However, prior to last tuesday a subtle shift had already started to occur in the news media, the direction of which switched from TALKING ABOUT OBAMA to SHOWING HILLARY in various attractive cameo appearances. This shift started with Hillary’s opening appearance on the Saturday Nite Live TV show and escalated from there. The media fan fare reached its zenith today (Wednesday) with numerous video reports showing Hillary giving celebratory speeches to cheering supporters in Ohio, thanking them for her “victory”! TV panel shows featured big name Hillary supporters who boasted of the huge momentum shift to Hillary based on ner recent “Big State Victories”. These same people ridicule the current delegate count showing her deficit, as being somewhat irrelevant considering the size of her dramatically NEW MOMENTUM.
The Obama campaign must take note. The current Clinton – Media honeymoon is being played out for YOUR ATTENTION! The media is mesmerized by Barack’s ability to draw huge overflow crowds to hear him speak and they have been unable to dissect the power of the movement. This was the reason the media found the Obama campaign appearances so attractive in the first place. However, recent bitter complaints from the Clinton campaign about Obama getting all of the media coverage, shook the media out of its obsessive trance and they quickly reacted with overkill video coverage of a smiling confident Hillary Clinton appearing everywhere.
The Clinton campaign is hoping that the redirected media spotlight will prove a strong distraction to the Obama campaign causing them to (a) at least, move away from the original style, substance and message of the campaign, or (b) at best, panic and commit some gigantic blunder which will greviously damage the campaign. It is important for the Obama campaign to soldier on and NOT BE DISTRACTED by the recent Clinton – Media blitz. The old axiom is still true, “Slow and Steady wins the race”!
Barack can take the “Gloves off” in the upcoming campaigns and still maintain his original style when speaking to his audiences. He can spell out his message of change and contrast it with the many Clinton failures, starting with her voting record as a Senator in Congress. Further, her involvement as the principle in the “Travelgate” scandal during her Whitehouse years is certainly fair game. Hillary comes into the spotlight with a lot of political baggage, which can be exploited in a cool unemotional manner. She claims that she has been throughly vetted, but this is not true. She has been the target of several investigations, most of which have never been properly resolved. Closed does not necessarily mean full and complete exhonoration!
Barack should not buy into the propaganda line from the Democratic Party big wigs supporting Hillary; that exposing landmines in the Clinton’s political past will be giving material to the Republicans to use in the general election, IF Hillary is the candidate. Barack must “Keep on keeping on” and not be distracted by the TEMPORARY hoopla of the current Clinton – Media circus. It’s simply a Red Herring, given time it will fade and along with her candidacy.
I get the sense Obama is being hog tied.
As Marc Cooper wrote in LAT:
“Hillary wins Republican style” and Democrats should get ready to lose.
Bill Clinton has joined forces with Rush Limbaugh b/c if they can’t win the nomination to hell with the Party.
WTF. What’s Obama to do?
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”
WTF. What’s Obama to do?
Why, accept the VP slot and be grateful of it, of course.
The Village long ago ordained Billary Baggage vs Saint McCain. They have done everything in their power to get it with no small help from the parties themselves, and it’s all but a done deal at this point.
Most of us were mad, myself included, for ever thinking Obama had a chance. We’re equally mad thinking Hillary on top of that ticket would be allowed to win, either.
Four years of John McSame as Rome burns around us.
I’m so turned off. I’ve been supporting Obama with reservations – reservations due to:
the financial meltdown and food crisis now unfolding. It’s a bad situation going to dire – with no practical solution; so McSame can have the Great Depression II.
HRC will not win. Count on it. The Democratic PArty is heading to become a shadow of itself.
Many Obama supporters; indies, Af-Ams dismissed the VP slot as fairy tale and have vowed to write-in Obama’s name, vote Nader, or stay home.
Pity.
But remember FDR’s role in ending the worst of the Great Depression, and helping the American public ride it out rather than leaving them to starve in Hoovervilles. Seemingly insurmountable crises can be made survivable by intelligent, perceptive, visionary and inspiring leadership.
Which is why I’d be supporting Obama if I were American, even though he’s not campaigning as a hard-core progressive. Of all the candidates, he has the best chance of having what’s needed to handle a crisis of this magnitude. McCain and Clinton will keep doing the same old things, even as their every action triggers disaster after disaster. They’re so locked into an “old-type” mentality that they won’t be able to see any other way.
I thought of the FDR analogy, however in this rovian age the ownership of the meltdown will be laid at Obama’s feet…happened on his watch, wet is dry.
Actually, a hard look finds the Clintons provided the catalyst for bankers to make merry.
The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was under Bill’s signature. On BloombergTV it was positioned that this banking crisis will take 5 yrs for banks to sort out their losses.
5 yrs will make the next president a 1 termer.
Remember that FDR faced some pretty stiff opposition from established interests. He pissed off the Big Money so much that they didn’t just try to assassinate him, they tried to pull a coup to completely replace the American government with a fascist oligarchy.
Don’t forget Hillary’s foreign policy record in the Senate.
In a recent Daily Kos diary, Ten Reasons Not to Vote for Hillary Clinton (Mon Feb 04, 2008), fromtheleft listed several foreign policy reasons why Hillary is likely to follow in George Bush’s footsteps and keep the United States in a state of war in the Middle East. On the matter of Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel-Palestine, Hillary’s votes on matters relating to foreign policy in the Senate have followed a (AIPAC’s) right wing agenda.
Fortheleft’s points reveal the danger of Hillary Clinton were she elected president.
In December 2007. Stephen Zunes wrote about Hillary Clinton on International Law:
In April 2007, Hillary announced that the US might have to confront Iran. Confronting Iran militarily would throw the region into chaos and create a economic recession similar to the one that haunted Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
In an earlier article, Justin Raimondo called her a War Goddess:
There is enough material here to fill several campaign ads. Hillary is a warmonger who will take the US into other wars. McCain has also guaranteed that there will be more wars.
The momentum meme seems to be more part of the media’s horse race narrative than an actual effect. I’ve grown extremely tired of hearing it, especially when there isn’t even a pretense of empirical evidence.
We know that public opinion can shift, which would be a legitimate example of momentum. We also know that increased familiarity with a candidate can dramatically influence voting behavior. Cohorts are another factor that can strongly influence voting behavior. In essence, this basically describes what happens when voter makes up his or her mind prior to an election. Momentum therefore describes the shift in opinion towards a particular candidate because of changes in the underlying dynamics that influence voting behavior.
There’s obviously a lot more I could add to this list of factors affecting voting behavior, but it’s clear that we’re not dealing with changes in the underlying dynamics, which could be correctly described a momentum. What did appear to happen is that the combination of bad press for Obama and the favorable press coverage for Clinton led to slightly depressed results for Obama.
What’s curious about the media’s narrative is how often the media has bought into Clinton memes — a clear sign of favorable treatment — even though these memes haven’t necessarily translated into electoral success. Exit polls show that a large majority of voters accept the experience claim by Clinton (which I regard as patently absurd), even while they don’t appear to regard it as particularly important in making their decision.
Although there’s much more I could say here, I was struck by all the fanfare that surrounded what appears to be a pickup of eight delegates on Tuesday. Can you imagine the ticker tape if they win Guam?