There's the Biden/Dodd drop-out theory wherein their supporters went to the next longest-serving Senator on the ballot. Makes sense, particularly with older voters, especially older female voters.
There's an emerging argument that Obama's conciliatory "unity" speech actually hasn't gone far enough in criticizing El Presidente Bush, as (sorry, GOP Barack supporters) we really are angry about what he and President Cheney have done to this country, and the fact that they're still in power more a little more than another year, still time enough to gin up an attack on Iran. (As they've been doing under the cover of Primary fever -- maybe deliberately?) Obama seems to have started correcting that today in speeches. Very important to do -- as all of the Republican candidates, aside from Ron Paul, have in some way fundamentally endorsed or enabled Bush's policies.
There's a very compelling case to be made that the misogyny of the pundits gleefully piling on after her loss in Iowa, specifically Chris Matthews, created a groundswell of sympathy for Clinton. Even Kos found himself half-rooting for her against the onslaught. Matthews seems to single-handedly be trying to get her elected in some sort of self-destructive pathology. And in one instance she actually handled him beautifully, cuddling up when by all rights she should have been clobbering him.
Caryl Rivers wrote a great piece about it in HuffPo today, and it's a pretty stirring argument for Hillary over Obama if you're old enough to have had a working mother who actually experienced sexism when pioneering the workplace, a ceiling that all-too often still exists today (i.e. how many male vs. female CEOs?):
And why was Barack anointed so instantly? To use a sports metaphor, it was like the talented rookie being handed the Cy Young award after his first pouting on the mound. As Gloria Steinem noted in her much-discussed New York Times op-ed, what if Barack Obama had been a woman, with the same resume? She'd have been laughed at if she said she wanted to run for president.
I believe a lot of women thought "This isn't fair. Give her a chance. She's earned that. Maybe she won't win in the end, but if she loses, let it be fair and square. Any why doesn't the media seem very excited about the first woman president. Why isn't that 'change?""
For women of a certain age, there was an air of familiarity about the whole process. Often, women work hard, learn their craft, pay their dues, don't try to step in front of other people, and then, when they are due for the big promotion, something happens. Some young guy is suddenly standing in front of them. He's the hot new commodity, and she is just expected to gracefully step aside.
The real big hidden story of New Hampshire, one that I'm sure Fox News and the GOP establishment desperately wants to keep under wraps until they can fool us in the General Election that the country really is 50% theirs, is the massive disparity between the Parties in number of voters. 60,000 less people voting for any Republican candidate than for Democratic.
That's 44% voting Republican, and 56% Democrat -- a 12-percentage point difference!
In politics, that's called a mandate, and some might cry landslide.
- You've got "frontrunner" McCain ceding President authority to end the war in Iraq to General Petraeus, what Jonathan Zasloff calls disqualifying himself from the Presidency.
- You've got ex-frontrunner Romney now losing his firewall state, Michigan, to McCain.
- You've got Conservative "savior" Fred Thompson at 1% and losing to write-ins.
- You've got loser Giuliani stringing together a noun, a verb, and 911.
It's enough to make one wonder...and you may want to punish me for the thought, at least at first:
If Sen. Clinton does succeed in winning the nomination, and if they keep at least the victory and concession speechifying between now and then as graceful, civil, and mutually respectful as they have so far...
...and if she were to actually turn around and (shades of Reagan/Bush) choose to unite the Party by offering Sen. Obama the Vice Presidential candidacy...
...and if he were to actually think about it, being the first black VP in the history of America, with a chance to not only be President in eight years time but also establish sixteen years of Democratic Executive control (the first since FDR/Truman)...
...would the Hillary haters within the Party come around and...
...would it finally unite the Democrats?
At that point, would there be any way for the Republicans to stop us?
3 comments:
Agree with your analysis, but believe you omitted the Bill factor. Brilliant as he was/is, some of us a really, really tired of his self laudatory speeches. And, he made what could have been a great administration shoddy with his sexual impropriety.
I'm thinking some of the Democratic voter anger at Bill for having lost Al Gore the election by his selfish sexual actions is coming home to roost, as well it should. My question is whether Hillary would be a better candidate had she divorced Bill? Probably not in this day and age -- might not even have made Senator?
If I had a dollar for every vote Sleepy Fred picked up, I still couldn't pay my rent.
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