Super Tuesday Mid Afternoon
In Florida — which means watching television.
On the Sunday talk shows and then Letterman last night Hillary went out of her way to declare herself fully “vetted” thanks to 16 years of assault from GOP flacks. No skeletons in the closet to clatter to the floor in the fall. Whereas Obama remains largely unprobed.
I haven’t heard her emphasize this aspect of her experience before. It seems to me she must be consciously implying, among other things, that there’s no Vince Foster problem.
Whether one can believe is another question. I continue to think she’ll get plastered with Vince by the GOP if nominated. How well will she hold up? I think of the beating Kerry took on the relatively minor Swift Boat flack.
Obama’s surge is impressive. It’s clear that there won’t be a Donkey at least until Ohio and Pennsylvania have voted.
I’m curious now as to why Edwards seemed to have put himself in Obama’s corner during the fall. It seems to me Edwards has more in common with Hillary on his core issues, and that Obama is, despite certain appearances, a pro-business candidate. His vision is to somehow bring the poor into the corporate fold. Futuristic or otherworldly, flying in the face of more than three centuries of experience with how free-wheeling industrialism works. His embrace of Reagan seems sincere and betrays a lack of historical understanding. Is he too a child of 80s television?
I have yet to hear a single pundit mention the electoral college when assessing Obama’s prospects. Instead they point, eg, to a recent poll showing that Obama has a slight edge over Hillary when placed against McCain. (Which itself seems odd; I think McCain draws nearly all the old Nixon/Reagan democrats and splits the true Independents with Obama. Seems more of each group might go to Hillary.)
However that may be: Show me the electoral college map that gives Obama the win in November.
His victory would seem to require the overthrow of the pattern — basis of the Southern Strategy — that has obtained since Truman’s hair’s breadth victory in 1948.
That is: only four Dems have been elected president since. Three were from the deep south: LBJ, Texas. Carter, Georgia. Clinton, Arkansas. And the only yankee (JFK) had the most prominent southern politician of the day (LBJ) as his running mate.
Is the south going to put a black man in the White House? When it refused Gore, who lost home state Tenn in 2000?
Possibly. But it would mean turning the world on its head.
Which suggests that the Obama movement is in part a measure of how bad things are. I suppose this is what Ted Kennedy is sensing — that the destruction wrought by Bush-Cheney has presented an opportunity for creation that rarely comes along. Yet Obama I sense, despite “change,” accepts, if not embraces, the world reshaped by Reaganism, which Kennedy has been battling for 20 years.
McCain’s recent rhetoric re taxes and war has to be discounted a bit (as he plays to the GOP house). It’s distasteful. But he remains the best GOPher out there. I was sure six months ago the Clubhouse would refuse to nominate him. But it seems the party leaders are coming around.
And he continues to remain silent in stump speeches about campaign finance reform, which would undermine the Clubhouse.
Romney is down but not out. Polls seem to say he can still win California, which would keep him in the game. Then when Huckabee drops out, Romney gains.
THUS my original fear post Iowa — that Romney is the next president — has not gone away. The two Dems have serious problems that the media so far have entirely ignored. And Romney is not yet dead thanks to Reaganland.
Meanwhile it’s clear we’re into recession. The employment numbers are horrible and today the main measure of service-sector economic performance came in at 41 (anything under 50 meaning recession). And 30% under estimates. Murdoch (formerly Dow Jones) Industrials thus down 300 plus.
The inauguration of the new president a year hence … FDR in 1932 all over again?
Paul says:
“I’m curious now as to why Edwards seemed to have put himself in Obama’s corner during the fall. It seems . . . Edwards has more in common with Hillary on his core issues, and that Obama is, despite certain appearances, a pro-business candidate.” — Ed.
The answer to that would probably be in pandering to the public’s perceptions. The legacy of identity politics is that the media focus is more on Obama’s being African-American and Hillary’s being a woman than on the substance of their platforms. The Edwards camp doubtless wanted to try to siphon off some of Obama’s votes, in the hope that those who were willing to embrace the perception of “change” based on a race might also embrace a more substantial kind of change as evinced in Edwards’ progressive platform.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:58 pm