Obama is on a tear in Texas and Clinton is in a campaign spending clusterfuck. The vaunted $15 million she's raised since Super Tuesday is triage, servicing debt and psycho-high consultant salaries. Is Howard Wolfson worth even close to $267,000 a month? Has her $3.8 million investment in Mark Penn and his make-works been a solid investment judgment?
She had the best and worst moments of the night. The worst was her freshly minted, probably tested "Change you can Xerox" line.
I mean, who even Xeroxes any more? Scan, please, and print as necessary.
Then she closed with the moment that made Obama reach across to shake her hand. The Obama-Clinton pairing that makes a kinda sexy, turned on team. Politically.
As draylogan says:
I think pundits make a mistake when they forget about the short term effect of a debate...and words, and forget about the longer, secondary impact.
Tonight many people left the debate, or turned off the television and thought. "That was a good moment for her. She seemed humble and passionate in a warm way. Really human"
BUT, she either made a HUGE political mistake, or she is getting ready to concede, because the secondary take-away is clear. If it isn't clear now, it will be in the next 2 weeks.
She gave her supporters a way out.
Inotherwords, what she really said was: "This competition doesn't mean as much to me as some of you think. I have been through much worse. The American people have been through even worse. I'M GOING TO BE OKAY."
Those words are going to stick in the minds of many voters who have been voting for her out of a sense of loyalty...mark my words.
Barack Obama has been looking for a political way to give Hillary the gold watch. To both honor her, and take her place as the presumptive nominee.
Hillary gave him a gift tonight.
He just didn't make any mistakes. He had command, a great sense of humor, policies, substance, ease, wisdom, and clear superiority on the very Presidential aspect Clinton has tried so hard to claim for herself: Commander-in-Chief.
Obama is clearly superior to her on the two biggest jobs of the Office, the only two that can't be done by anybody else in government.
He nailed her on talking to dictators when it came up over Cuba, with a very clear logic for his position and sense of how he would execute.
Then he turned her vote on the Iraq War, which he's previously used as a battering ram on judgment (as in over experience) into an argument for his superiority as leader of our armed forces. It's not just about being a good COO of the Army. There is a decision prior and superior to that: choosing where and when to use the troops.
I also think his healthcare plan will sell a hell of a lot better, eschewing mandates because he eschews the only possible enforcement mechanism, garnishment of wages. Tell me when there will be an election in the United States of America where a majority of us go to the polls and vote for the garnishment of our wages. No, never. So Obama's plan is more likely to succeed, and will hopefully open the door to more advances in the future. The art of the possible.
If all goes as hoped and Obama becomes the nominee without the party being drawn asunder, and if Clinton can continue to ride this gracious kind of pre-concession talk all the way to the evening of March 4th, then you start to see her as either VP or Senate Majority Leader. Either way, should he win the general election, she will have the option of owning the Senate. She unites the Party, starts passing the Obama-Clinton agenda, and leaves an opening for another run eight years from now -- she'll be four years younger than McCain is right now.
If Obama has governed well, she'll have a good ride coming.
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