I’ve got a post about this rumbling around in my head and at some point, I’ll get it out. In the meantime, take a look at this op-ed from The Washington Post. The piece is written by Joseph A. Califano, Jr., who was Johnson’s special assistant for domestic affairs.
The greatest fairy tale of the 2008 campaign so far is the accusation that there is some tint of racism or putdown of Martin Luther King Jr. in Hillary Clinton’s comment that “it took a president,” Lyndon Johnson, to realize the civil rights leader’s dreams.
One man’s opinion, to be sure. But as one who didn’t hear anything racial in the comment or who didn’t hear it as a putdown of MLK, one I happen to agree with.
The Women’s Post is proud to announce that kathyinblackburg has joined us. You might be familiar with her writing both on her own blog, DemocracyUpsideDown, as well as a frequent contributor to Raising Kaine.
It may indeed be time for the torch to pass to a new generation. But it should not do so without recognition that those who bore it before also fought for change and left a far different and in some ways better world than they found.
[...]
And that’s why even if we are not for Hillary for President, we still feel, “don’t you dare ever, ever make fun of her claim that she worked for change. She was a change agent before many of those laughing at her claim were old enough to say the word “change.”
As I write this, both MSNBC and the AP have called the race for Hillary Clinton. With 68% of the vote in, Clinton leads Obama 39% to 36%.
What I find most interesting was how wrong the polls were. I read of leads of 10% to 12% for Obama. What happened? Was it the Doug Wilder effect? Or did Clinton go back to the basics of running a primary campaign: turning out the Democrats? I suspect it was some combination of the two.
As John Edwards said in his speech, two state down, 48 states to go. This isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon and a little more than half of the first mile is complete. We’ve got a long way to go, folks.
I saw this video earlier today. There is no doubt in my mind that this a genuine response.
Running for office is one of the hardest things a person can do. I’m actually more than a little disgusted that people, especially those who have never done it, would think this was staged.
I watched the entire debate last night. In truth, I thought all the Democratic candidates did well.
Barack Obama seemed a bit tired and his voice was hoarse and somewhat weak at certain points. But he stayed on his message of hope, inspiraton and inclusiveness, which worked so well for him in Iowa.
In addition, when attacked, he remained calm and stood his ground. All and all, he gave a solid performance.
Edwards was articulate and impassioned as he insisted that the only way to bring about the change that voters want is to stand up and fight the special interests.
While both Obama and Edwards are claiming the titles of “agents of change,” their styles are very different.
Hillary seems to have stayed with the message that her candidacy offers change through experience and insisted that she has spent a lifetime accomplishing real change.
Now, I’m not a big Hillary supporter, but I am frankly surprised that this video clip, above, is going around as an example of her shrillness.
It’s sound byte taken out of context. She was responding to an attack on her by both Obama and Edwards. At the time, she interrupted to correct the record because Bob Gibson, the moderator, was getting ready to move on.
She did what any good candidate would, and demanded time to respond.
I guess it’s a matter of perspective but what some would call her “angry style” or shrillness, I saw as assertiveness.
I also think it goes back to an old and very real problem of perception that all professional women face, and not just from men but from other women too.
When a man stands his ground aggressively, it’s seen as strength. When a woman does it, she’s seen as being a bitch.
It makes me wonder how a woman can run for office and get a fair shake.
Obviously, lots of times she can and does. We have many successful women candidates who have run at the local, state and national level. Indeed, Hillary has run two successful Senate campaigns.
The difference between running for the presidency and those other offices, however, is that the balancing act for a woman is particularly difficult.
More than any other office in the land, the presidency absolutely requires a person who will be strong enough to be able to protect our national security. Voters need to know that the person they elect to lead them will be tough enough to respond to any national threat. But a woman who strikes a tough stance is still disliked by the public, even the liberal voting public.
This, then, begs the question: Is America ready yet for a woman president?
I think so. But I’m not sure Hillary, for all her obvious intelligence and competency will be the one.
But I don’t think it will be because of clips like this, likability or perceived shrillness.
I suspect it will be a mixture of Clinton fatigue and a desire to move beyond the battles of the past.
But tapes like this are beside the point. They are just campaign fodder by opponents. In truth, Hillary did as well as any of the other candidates last night in articulating her message. And she struck the proper note of assertiveness that would be needed in a President of the United States. She is not, after all, running for Magnolia Queen or Miss Congeniality. She’s running, like all the others, to be leader of the free world.
I predicted on my own blog this morning that Barack Obama would win Tuesday’s Democratic primary in New Hampshire, where I reside. From the buzz among people I know and an indescribable feeling, it seemed to be what Brits at the track would call a dead cert. This afternoon, I’m willing to put money on it, and I’m not a gambler.
While running errands today, I realized I was just a mile or two from an Obama field office. I decided to stop in and see how business has been, so to speak.
But I was thwarted. I couldn’t get near enough, the place was that busy. Cars filled the lots of adjacent small stores closed today and some people were parked on the road, half in the ditch, and quite illegally.
He has a full schedule of appearances tomorrow, reportedly with Bill Bradley, who is endorsing him. Bradley, in my opinion, is one of the most decent men ever to run for president. It is our loss that his brilliant mind took a back seat among the electorate to the perception of him as boring. How shallow can we be?
Barack Obama is the projected winner of the Democrats’ caucuses in Iowa. CNN reports Obama has 35% of the vote, with 74% of the results tallied.
Hillary Clinton and John Edwards both have 31%.
A January 1 poll by the Des Moines Register showed Obama’s lead over Clinton widening. He had been polling well for some time, and this most recent poll showed his strength among young voters. That was borne out at the caucuses and Clinton, in fact, was not even in the top three among the young.
Iowa Independents were important to Obama, which bodes well for him in New Hampshire, where nearly half the primary voters are Independents.
CNN has just projected Mike Huckabee the winner of the Republican caucuses in Iowa, based on entrance polls and limited results.
Huckabee’s God-centric campaign played well in a state with many evangelicals. The electorate is different in New Hampshire, whose first-in-the-nation primary is January 8.
In looking through the figures provided by the Des Moines Register in their poll, something really stood out: the high number of Independents supporting Barack Obama. Independents? In a Democratic caucus?
I have not been able to find the poll itself online. But David Yepsen of the DMR gives some interesting information on the details, calling the numbers “soft.” In particular:
* A lot of Democratic caucus-goers aren’t all that Democratic. Some 40 percent of the Democratic caucus-goers say they are independents, and another 5 percent say they are Republicans. (Technically, they’ll all have to re-register as Democrats to participate, but that can be done at the caucus site.) Put another way, 54 percent of the Democratic caucus-goers say they’re Democrats. In 2004, it was 80 percent.
Let me make sure I have this straight: 40 percent of the folks polled called themselves independents? Doesn’t that goose the numbers a wee bit? Yepsen thinks so:
Will some of these fair-weather Democrats not bother to show up? If they don’t, it will change the outcome. If pollsters adjust the party identifications in 2008 to look like they did in 2004, Clinton could beat Obama 31 percent to 29 percent.
Or, in the unlikely event just the registered Democrats who say they’ll definitely show up are counted, Clinton gets 33 percent, Obama gets 27 percent and Edwards gets 25 percent.
The Des Moines Register poll adopts an unprecedented new turnout model for the caucuses, and its new poll is out of sync with the other polling done in the race.
The bottom line is that polling in a caucus state such as Iowa is inherently difficult. I do not doubt that Obama has lured many independents to his camp but I don’t believe the participants in the caucus will be a bare (54%) Democratic majority.
Thank goodness this madness is coming to an end soon.
I’ve got a post about this rumbling around in my head and at some point, I’ll get it out. In the meantime, take a look at this op-ed from The Washington Post. The piece is written by Joseph A. Califano, Jr., who was Johnson’s special assistant for domestic affairs.
Recent Comments