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April 27, 2008 at 07:19:56
by SteveDenning Page 1 of 1 page(s) |
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A funny thing happened on the way to Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton’s supporters started becoming genuinely enthusiastic. For the first time, Hillary began to generate real enthusiasm in her supporters. In earlier campaign events, it was sometimes hard to tell whether her audience was awake or asleep. The change in response is partly due to emulating Obama ("Yes we will!"). But more important, Hillary, for really the first time in her campaign, is starting to tell the story of her own roots. Her grandfather lived in Pennsylvania and started working in a lace mill. Her father grew up there too and played football for Penn State. Despite a fortune of over $100 million, she has improbably morphed into a “home-town working class gal”. (What was she thinking in those earlier speeches?) She is also using questions more effectively to encourage the audience to imagine a different set of future stories.
That said, Hillary has also been generating some of this newfound enthusiasm by attacking her opponent in various ways, some ethical and others less so. She is presenting herself as a fighter against an evil world. This gambit of presenting "us versus them" can be effective in building up morale with supporters, but it has significant risks for a political candidate.
Her negatives, already perilously high, are now soaring even higher.
The interpretation that she is joining with Republicans to destroy Obama as a presidential candidate in 2008 so as to pave the way for her 2012 run will hardly endear her to the Democratic party.
And to solve the problems she is proposing to solve, it is not obvious that the public wants a long series of political fights. This was a tack that was explored both by Al Gore in 2000 and by John Edwards in 2008, without success. Does anyone really want a new era of endless political bickering?
Even if Hillary were to get nominated, and then elected, the history of her health care initiative in 1993 is warning as to the likely prospects of this "fighting" approach actually succeeding. As the New Yorker explained of this 1993 initiative:
“Clinton and the task force’s staff coördinator, Ira Magaziner, assembled five hundred members for the group, then decided to organize them—if that’s the right word—into thirty-four committees. Not surprisingly, work quickly fell behind schedule. The committees were required to meet under near-military conditions of secrecy: members were forbidden to photocopy documents under discussion or even bring pens and pencils to some sessions. Their meetings were closed to the press and, indeed, to all outsiders, an arrangement that was soon challenged—successfully—in court.
“Clinton’s biggest blunder was to offend the very legislators whose support she needed most. At a retreat for Democratic senators in the spring of 1993, Clinton was asked whether it was realistic to pursue such an ambitious health-care program, given her husband’s many other legislative initiatives. She responded that the Administration was prepared to ‘demonize’ those who opposed the task force’s recommendations.
“’That was it for me in terms of Hillary Clinton,’ Senator Bill Bradley, of New Jersey, told Bernstein. “You don’t tell members of the Senate you are going to demonize them. It was obviously so basic to who she is. The arrogance. The assumption that people with questions are enemies. The disdain. The hypocrisy.”
At the same time, Obama himself has obviously lost ground on a variety of issues -- Rev Wright, "bitter:", "clinging", "elitest", "flag pins”, Rezko and Ayres. Some of these are ridiculous issues, but they have taken their toll with an electorate that is unremarkable for its subtlety and a main stream media increasingly now a freak show.
To some extent, Obama has been distracted away from his original message of being a "uniter", in contrast to Hillary's emerging role as a "divider".
Take guns for instance, and Obama's defense of his earlier "clinging" remarks, saying that "I have always been a strong supporter of the Second Amendment." This is a plodding legalistic defense of his dismissive remarks of gun owners. His heart obviously isn't in it. He's not celebrating the diversity of the country and suggesting that the people who love guns and those who want gun control are all part of the fabulous tapestry of America and must learn to live together, in this one wonderful country, if we are to solve our common problems, and so on, in the way that he spoke at the National Democratic Convention in 2004, in Iowa in 2008, and so on.
If Obama is to recover his footing, both for the nomination and for the general election, he needs to remember that his entire appeal is as a uniter. He must learn to tell the stories of the entire country, including those of gun owners and small town America.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
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| 8 comments |
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Uniting what? Obama's run is splitting us in two
As a Hillary Cllnton supporter, the constant headlined miscues of my candidate is despiriting, to say the least. With all due respect, I am sure, under optimum democratic transparency, Obama would fare no better. He no longer wishes to debate because his defenses have been breached and his response was, after the Pennsylvania set-to, to give Hillary the bird, and by asssociation we voters were included; I suppose that is his idea of unity. One can help but wonder how he would handle international figures who challenge him. I find that immature...in fact, I find his whole campaign weighted with undertones of division and poor judgment certainly equal to anything Hillary has mismanaged in her long political history. But I will present one omnibus article that pulls together many of the Obama campaign's divisive ploys to sell their candidate. It is found at Democratic Underground online, offered in behalf of truth, the great equalizer. The "Race Memo," and other Obama assertions: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5692877 All comments are thoroughly documented and was posted by McCamy Taylor, who is just a concerned citizen, apparently. by Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 194 comments) on Sunday, Apr 27, 2008 at 10:04:01 AM  (0+)
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Reply: Telling the story
Marilyn The good news for your candidate is that she is -- at last! -- beginning to tell her story and so generating genuine enthusiasm among her supporters. If she continues to do this, and spends less time delivering character attacks, her campaign will prosper and those "dispiriting miscues" should receive less attention. by SteveDenning (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 11 comments) on Sunday, Apr 27, 2008 at 11:16:21 AM (0+)
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Reply: sincerity appreciated, Steve
And I do believe you are trying earnestly to be fairly impartial. Which is difficult when the stakes are so high. But...the archaeological digs (that can be seen as a pun) are so much deeper and broader on Hillary's site than on her opposition's. After paying her a left-handed compliment, you launch into that health-care fiasco. I wasn't aware of just how awful it was, so drapped in secrecy, with the usual suspects skulking around (the medical/big pharma complex) having their way with the damsel in question. I would have to do my own research on this issue, rather than swallow whole the latest take on Hill's 1993 incursion into the sanctums of holy medicine and the profit motive. At least she went where no man has dared to go before (and won't in the near future--bet on it!). Your allusion may be right; on the other hand, it may be exaggerated and her motives slightly less nefarious than the excerpt suggests. Two sides to every story. The Hillary haters have proffered the notion that both Vince Foster and Ron Brown were eliminated by the Clinton team. If that is true, we are talking a crime syndicate, not office seekers. And I prefer to project that label onto the Bushistas, not the Clintons. Amazing how GW and GHW Bush are still very much in power and we are STILL dismembering Bill and Hillary limb from limb. Go figure! by Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 194 comments) on Sunday, Apr 27, 2008 at 3:26:53 PM (0+)
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Negative campaigns I can stand
It is the obvious manipulative lies that I can't stand. She's a crook and has the morals of a Republican. by John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1760 comments [39 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Apr 27, 2008 at 1:18:43 PM (0+)
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I won't vote for her
You can dress her up any way you want, but I have too much info on Miss Hillary. Her and Obama's healthcare plans both stink. Single payer is the only way to go. I just read where 52% of Doctors surveyed in Colorado said single payer is the only way to go. A Dr. White was interviewed and he explained that Big Insurance companies must step aside and allow single payer. Doctors aren't the ones stopping National healthcare any more. It's Big Pharma and Big Insurance and monied markets. Bill Clinton pushed (along with Cheney, Wolfowitz Kristol, Pearle, et al) the "Project for New American Century" which is WHY we are where we are in this country. I can't possibly believe Hillary will stop this war when she has donars such as Blackwater and other military Industrialized Complex investments. Heck, Rupert Murdoch is her buddy and contributes to her as well. Also, Bill Clinton was on the Rush Limbaugh show and condoning the "Operation Chaos" ordeal where they have even mentioned causing RIOTS at the Democratic Convention in Denver. Of course, the MSM would blame the patriotic democrats and how will that help MCCain? No, Hillary is a bad move and I will vote 3rd party if she is the nominee. I think ppl support her because they ONLY remember the good Bill did and have no idea of all the bad he did. I was there once but I became a long thinker in the regard of Clintons and read more than I ever needed to know. Read UP! by shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 592 comments [98 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Apr 27, 2008 at 11:07:50 PM (0+)
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Reply: Same page, different paragraph
I won't vote for Obama; he is big business invention, their "boy" in D.C., so to speak (that refers to immaturity, not his ethnicity). Hillary is the only candidate to this point in time who demonstrates even a modicum of common sense and as bad as her negatives may be (or as bad as we are made to believe they may be), she still has potential. Can't say that about Obama, McCain, Nader, Gravel, Paul...they are all either fringe or out of touch with realpolitik in a dangerous world. Hillary-haters might ponder how we got to the edge of this abyss. Scapegoating Clintons has been sanctioned for decades...who benifitted from these fraudulent and counterproductive gambits? Not Americans. by Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 194 comments) on Monday, Apr 28, 2008 at 10:16:10 AM (0+)
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repudiate the Bush / Cheney regime
I will vote for anyone who will repudiate the Bush / Cheney regime, stop the war in Iraq and restore the Constitution to what it was pre 9/11. Now the political pundits focus on non-issues, he said she said gossip column crap, when the country is in real trouble. Only someone who will boldly tackle these issues deserves to be president. by Michael Chavers (53 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 198 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Apr 28, 2008 at 10:02:07 AM (0+)
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Reply: Michael, good luck
On your own candidacy for president; you stand as much chance of winning as all your idealistic wishes have of fruition. I wish I could live in that world you so wisely conjure; unfortunately, it won't happen. Too much money spread around to grease the engine of political progress. First on the agenda should be public financing of all elections. Then demand paper ballots. (or maybe 1 and 2 should be transposed) And then get the lobbyists out of Washington D.C. (There are about thirty to every congressperson.) Term limits would be nice. All primaries held on ONE day and winner take all by popular vote. That's a good start to realizing your vision of what we could be. by Marilyn Frith (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 194 comments) on Monday, Apr 28, 2008 at 10:28:07 AM (0+)
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