2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

i like that clinton's latest attacks are "Obama uses WORDS to dazzle you all"

<i>didn't Obama and McCain sponsor some climate change legislation? I can't see McCain getting very nasty – he'll let the right wing propaganda arm do his dirty work – but I do see a lot of stern finger-wagging.</i>

I dunno, I thought he was particularly aggressive in his speech last night.

Byron York reports:

On the same conference call, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed out the inability of an Obama surrogate, appearing last night on MSNBC, to name a single legislative accomplishment that Obama has achieved. "That is a major moment for voters," Wolfson said. In addition, Wolfson continued, "when you have Sen. Obama found lifting portions of speeches…that is a major moment for voters."

On another issue, Wolfson said he knew nothing about a new 527 group that is reportedly planning to spend millions of dollars attacking Barack Obama in Ohio. "I'm not familiar with the 527 group that has been reported on," Wolfson said. "I don't know anything about it." But Wolfson said it should not be an issue because other 527s have helped Obama in the past. "I can't imagine that Sen. Obama is in any position to make an issue of this, given that there was a 527, I think it was called Vote Hope, that spent millions on his behalf in California."

My response: if a voter can't identify any of Obama's legislative "accompmlishments," how is it Obama's fault?

Clinton is screwed, as I have been noting for at least several months. give it up already lady

i did actually see that msnbc bit with matthews, it was embarassing, but only for Watson, not Obama.

also, Vote Hope didn't do massive amounts of negative, attack ads against Clinton in California, or if they did, I completly missed them. I haven't seen ANY negative advertising from the obama side

McCain will never win, I hope he gets the Rep nod after a bruising primary.

-- Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, November 14, 2006 8:41 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

still feel this way too

Doing negative ads on Hilary seems like shooting fish in a barrell.

im curious to see waht sorts of things obama starts saying abt mccain now - cause if his strategy toward hillary is any indication he'll have something deceptively good and he'll stick w/it - staying on message though out the general election

what he accomplished here in the primaries is bonkers - making the stacked experienced favored clinton campaign scramble looking like total amatuers - they were changing their message every day while obamas just kept playing - dude is ahead of the game and i am totes impressed1

Obama Accomplishment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Funding_Accountability_and_Transparency_Act_of_2006

also a McCain accomplishment, ironically

what if mccain secretly has obamamania

he does!

http://www.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/mlasalle/2007/07/02/mccain.jpg

(we can't run this photo often enough)

someone pls to complete that picture, add sailor hat and can of spinach and pipe to make McCain into Popeye, thx

or Poopdeck Pappy

teamsters to endorse obama:

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/teamsters_plan_to_endorse_obam_1.php

lol @ Nothing says tough, or evokes "gruff," more than the Teamsters.

i'm a little worried that they haven't really defined mccain yet; i'm guessing it will be some variation of "more of the same"; still, you can't start this stuff too early

don't make me evoke my gruff son

mccain/obama beef history: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/179217.php

crazy/cynical tired old man meme should work pretty well

i remember that letter very distinctly -- many said at the time that it was a shot across obama's bow looking forward to '08

but i think the letter backfires on mccain like every other petulant, self-important, faux-ingenuous, green-ink letter-to-one's-detractor that has ever been written and i would imagine mccain would like to imagine that it never existed

Doing negative ads on Hilary seems like shooting fish in a barrell.

It's more like - why bother when you can have the media do it for free? What's he going to say? That she's an amoral, calculating triangulator who will do or say anything to win? The press has already made that the conventional wisdom.

^^

you know, you can toss out reams and reams of sexist garbage printed about hillary and still come to that conclusion

crazy/cynical tired old man meme should work pretty well

yah itll be that but more subtle and incisive.

it took me a while to appreciate how ingenious the politics of the baby boom v change angle was when applied to hillary - at first i was all wtf everyone loves the 90s? it turned her strength against her.

you cant be too obvious w/this stuff - peoples minds need a chance to do a little of the lifting themselves.

i'm a little worried that they haven't really defined mccain yet; i'm guessing it will be some variation of "more of the same"

it'll basically be variations on "he so OLD."

just like the subtext of a lot of the anti-obama stuff will be "he so BLACK."

it's gonna be a fairly ugly general election.

I am as guilty as anyone of projecting Bill's failures on Hillary and assuming her presidency would have the same priorities and the same failures, and that may be unfair -- but it seems more likely to me that it's not unfair at all.

you know, you can toss out reams and reams of sexist garbage printed about hillary and still come to that conclusion

Sure, people could independently come to that conclusion - but the interesting thing is that the media has made it the frame through which they view and interpret everything that Clinton does. It's the inescapable subtext to any story about her.

its true too!

so you're not actually guilty of anything! score!

xxpost you guys are kind of gross. seriously

well, i am not actually guilty of anything.

omg everyone is guilty dont u see

But notice the kind of claim that it is - a claim that's just about impossible to disprove. It's the kind of framing device that the GOP has perfected in the past couple of presidential races: Gore was an inveterate exaggerator who felt superior to everyone else. Kerry was an effete flip-flopper. At bottom, it's a "character" issue. Once the frame is in place, it's nearly impossible to dislodge. No matter how sincere Clinton is, anything she does could still be construed as "trying to win".

xposts

I am guilty of having a brain and distrusting a corrupt unprincipled liar when I see one

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmM2NDQ3ZWQ1YWM0Y2QyZTUxMDdkY2M2OTJlNGE5MWE=

Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics. (During the Clinton Administration we were all introduced to then U. of Pennsylvania Professor Lani Guinier — also a half black/half Jewish, red diaper baby.)

that was to kenan's latest justification for clinton hatred, shakey, not yours

yah but these frames dont come from nowhere - theyre cynical and reductionist but not entirely untrue is the thing

since the president is only the Corporate Manager these days, how could Hil's interests and priorities differ from Bill's?

Bill in NH two months ago was saying "Well, we still hafta solve those problems I talked about in '92..." YEAH, WHY is that fucking so?

(I don't care so much about this "trying to win" frame crap as much as I care about the fact that she voted for the war, the patriot act, supporting and voting to expand NAFTA, etc.)

x-post

Ethan, that article was so gross.

It was discussed upthread, no? It does get grosser: OF COURSE your parents are multiracial – they're COMMIES!

excellent detectiving guy!

Obama's parents met while questioning McCain @ Hanoi Hilton

It's the kind of framing device that the GOP has perfected in the past couple of presidential races

Yes, but I very much doubt that the GOP is breaking into the Dem National Headquarters in the night (not yet at least) to dig up dirt about Hillary maybe having some shaky character issues. That story writes itself. And they'd almost certainly rather run against Hillary in the GE.

That story writes itself

Sure, and the media needs to have some kind of storyline to follow. I understand why these frames take hold. But it still can make you wonder - what the media created, the media can also destroy.

her record on the war from 02 to now indicates strenuously following the centrist CW -- i've no idea the 'character motivation' behind this, 'poll-driven' 'triangulating' or whatever -- it's kind of suckass on its face and reason enough to look elsewhere. her foreign policy crew is derived from this set of people, while obama's (and other candidates in the earlier part of the primary) were more frankly and openly against the iraq war

her campaign has been rooted in the brand power of the clinton name and in the inevitability of her win coupled with the value of her experience in the halls of power.

NONE of those things look good to me: 1. the name 'clinton' brings as much autonomic contempt among half the populace to make a thorough end to the bush/rove years really unlikely. especially in a year when the real flesh-eating zombies on the right hate their candidate openly, why give them an excuse to get out of bed on 11/2?

2. campaigning on inevitability looks pretty stupid when you're losing, and have to resort to increasingly strained threats to rig the deck (supers), fuck about with intra-party lawsuits to open up previously settled conflicts (FL & MI), or make offensive excuses about every contest you lose (mark penn).

3. 'experience' is a meme just as surely cemented by a somnambulant press, and has been discussed to death in any case. her operation certainly doesn't look that experienced -- witness the sudden complaints about the delegate rules in TX, whereas a group of 'canny operators' would know what they were and have a plan in place for them.

in other words my mind is made up about hillary clinton, pretty much independent of what 'the press' has ever 'said' about her -- i liked her just fine, a year ago. it's based on what has been straightforwardly reported what her campaign has done. chris matthews didn't just make up that penn called my state insignificant.

i don't like this idea coming from Tracer and o.nate that i'm following some kind of institutionalized misogynist meme pathway when i come to the conclusion that her candidacy is a dog and a sure loser in the bargain.

I've said before, and I'll say it again- I'm not saying there aren't any good reasons to support Obama over Clinton. I'm not questioning anyone's motives on this thread either. I'm just pointing out that Obama has benefited from relatively favorable media coverage vis-a-vis Clinton.

gff, it's an unfortunate teleology in a some feminisms that privileging a man over a woman for pretty much any reason makes one implicit in all injustice against women everywhere forever.