Saturday, January 12, 2008

What's Next in The Race?

It seems clear that the key to being a successful pundit is to focus less on what's new or what's now and to place all of one's energies on what's next. With that in mind, here are two "what's next" sort of pieces on the primary campaigns, one from Michael Barone at Real Clear Politics, the other from Ronald Brownstein at National Journal.

7 comments:

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

I wouldn't underestimate either the size and strength of Clinton's machine or her campaign's penchant for pandering to ugly things - like bigotry. But the silver lining is that both articles describe her constituency as both declining in relative importance, as well as less educated.

Oh, by the way, did I mention I'm heavily in favor of Obama? Her New Hampshire win made me too cynical to believe he can still make it though - at least for now.

Anonymous said...

I was hoping you might give your thoughts on the MLK comments made by Clinton.

dcat said...

Anon --

Charitable Interpretation: Clinton was simply trying, however hamhandedly, to assert a truism, namely that presidents can and have had an important impact on issues such as civil rights. Rather than a slam on King, perhaps it was intended simply as praise for LBJ.

Less Charitable Interpretation: The Clinton's are beginning to believe that "First Black president" stuff and are going to try to diminish Obama's blackness and claim the mantel of true leaders of the black community, which seems a stretch.

Even Less Charitable Interpretation: The Clintons have no shame and will say and do anything that it takes.

It seems abundantly clear that they see Obama as a serious threat to her candidacy. I hope he's in it until the end. South Carolina could prove to be very interesting.

dcat

Anonymous said...

Having been a dcat student, and avid reader of your blog, I feel that in being an Obama supporter, I should hold true to the grass roots momentum of the campaign and tell you of a local event. Don't know if you would at all be interested in attending, but I am sure your wisdom of politics and such would prove helpful for a group trying to promote a liberal candidate in a not so liberal area.

Time: Friday, January 18 at 7:00 PM

Duration: 1 hour

Host: Christopher Hightower
Contact Phone: 432-699-2111

Location: Chris Hightower's House (Midland, TX)
2800 Metz Drive
Midland, TX 79705

dcat said...

Robin --
I'd actually love to attend, but will be out of town. Do keep me posted on other events, as I'd love to be a part of the Obama wave in West Texas!

Thanks for this --

dcat

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

I love the multiple interpretations - qualified, of course, by shades of charitability! Sometimes I wish I could be as politically clever as you.

At this point, I think, if she does win - and I think that's a very likely possibility that I'm starting to give a lot of consideration to - the question will be how much the Republicans can get out of her. With Bill wanting so badly to feel approved of, his "triangulation" probably did inevitable damage to the Democrats - damage from which it seems they just might be starting to recover. And if you read Carl Bernstein's book, it becomes plainly evident that Hillary, perhaps even on a personal level, might be even more given to persuasion by the Republicans. Perhaps they might not even need to turn on the hate machine or perhaps they think that with her it would just back-fire... for [ahem] some reason.

But the other possibility is that Hillary might be so taken with just being in office that her need to win their approval, or that of independents or moderates for that matter, would lessen. We (as in, you know, your average independent voter and not just the partisans for her or those with something to lose by being critical of the first serious female candidate) might see something approaching the sense of honest conviction that was never really all that evident in Bill, and at that point, she might actually be able to win the respect of people who actually put stock in things like that.

We will see, of course.

Ritmo Re-Animated said...

Can I join you Robin? Too bad I'm nowhere near Texas. Oh well. I'm sure there are plenty of Obamamaniacs here as well. Or perhaps I should just take the Thunderstick's advice and write in Screech.

Being an independent wouldn't suck so much if y'all could actually give us a chance to choose some decent candidates every now and then. Candidates like Obama only come around once in a generation.