2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/03/AR2008030302769.html

note how on page one it is about obama dodging questions (and note, btw, that he gets blasted for being dull and too wonky!), and then page two it prints his answers, which sound pretty damn forthright.

I have a feeling Clinton is going to do well enough today to soldier on.

^^^mark halperin has a big portion of that press conference up, he sounds entirely reasonable in it. that piece is a really weird interpretation of what happened. i think even daria would agree w/ that

I have a feeling Clinton is going to do well enough today to soldier on.

-- Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, March 4, 2008 8:44 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

shes done a good job in the past 48 hrs of making it seem that way

the storyline has definitely changed. if obama loses anything tonight (and he will likely lose ohio), then hillary is the comeback kid again, and obama becomes someone who "can't close the deal," which penn/ickes/etc will hammer at from now until the convention, and use it as a wedge to argue for the clinton campaign's continued campaign.

xxxpost - obama's had a rough week in the press -- the canadian NAFTA story, the rezko trial, the fact that clinton's pretty much been dominating the media narrative for the past week w/ all the kitchen sink attacks, and even the farrakhan crap got some attention.

but perhaps most of all is clinton's "media-is-against-us narrative", which has gotten a lot of attention and has even resulted in a lot more scrutiny on obama, i think. pretty much all of the polls taken in the past day or two show upward movement for hillary. i'll be very curious to see how all this plays out tonight. i'm definitely nervous.

god dana milbank is a tool.

I really wish the press wasn't so goddamned self-loathing sometimes.

Since neither can get an overwhelming delegate lead, it's all about perception now isn't it? If Clinton has successfully lowered expectations so that people feel she has a right to soldier on even if she only wins Ohio, then she's halfway there.

the rezko trial has nothing to do w/ him

the delegate math is still absolutely in obama's favor, even if hillary pulls off some victories tonight. the delegate math won't change no matter how bloated the "hillary is the comeback kid" media story might be. there really isn't much of a path to the nomination for her that doesn't include 1.)huge, huge victories for the remainder of the primaries; 2.)seating the delegates for florida/michigan or re-doing contests there; 3.)taking the fight to the convention and building the lead with superdelegates.

all of these are a stretch, i think, especially 1 & 3. i don't really even see 2 happening, but there will probably be a fight for it if hillary has a good night tonight.

this is why it's really gonna suck if hillary soldiers on, b/c her path to the nomination requires a lot of far-fetched scenarios (winning the remainder of contests by huge percentages, getting superdelegates to ignore obama's pledged del. lead) or bullshit tactics (seating the florida/michigan tactics).

the rezko trial has nothing to do w/ him

yea i know. but it keeps a negative story that's even slightly related to him in the press

this "the press is too easy on obama" bullshit is like the press is marty mcfly and hillary's calling them chicken. AND IT WORKS.

clinton got to win ohio and texas or the super delegates gonna get tired of her shit fast - media narrative got no baring on that

it's never going to end, is it

I have a feeling Clinton is going to (proclaim she has) do(ne) well enough today to soldier on.

Which well-hidden segment of the press is self-loathing?

Jeff Greenfield, in a blurb for Thomas Patterson's "fuck the press" masterpiece Out of Order: "The most helpful portion of this book for a practicing journalist is the mountain of evidence Pattersonoffers that we journalists have become so jaded, so cnical, so detemrined to point out the manipulative aspect of campaigns that we have made it harder for our elected officials to develop any bond with the electorate. I think he's dead right about this."

but like, boo hoo. fix it or fuck it, you know?

Well, more to the point: Hillary staying in extends what has been a very successful, well-followed (and thus highly-viewed) narrative in the news media. She's definitely giving it her best shot right now but please also remember that the candidate who makes noises about 'soldiering on' one day seems inevitably to withdraw w/in 48 hours.

It was clear a month ago that late February would be Obama's time to shine and today, if any, will be Hillary's.

so it's White B*tch History Month?

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i191/fluxion23/Picture2.png

god dana milbank is a tool.

^^

thats not necessarily a good thing i think^^ xp

i think hillary's political skills here have been really strong in this past cycle ... im impressed with how the narrative really has kind of turned in her favor

er, this is how these things usually go. Hils has got fuck all to do with it.

the political press, awakening to its responsibilities, starts to look at minutiae a little closely, and thus the "turn-around narrative" kicks off.

the media is afraid of pissing off the public and therefore follows polls. the campaign has moved to states in which she leads or is tied in the polls. ergo, the coverage is friendlier to her.

"starts"

"a little"

xpost

yea, i think a big part of it has been the media-favors-obama narrative. with that as the underlying theme, it's facilitated a decent amount of press scrutiny on obama.

i'm also amazed at how little attention the delegate math gets in the media, when that is fundamentally what matters. there's been relatively little attention paid to the fact that even if hillary has a big night, it won't change the delegate count.

yeah right dudes i hate to sound like Daria Hand here but you cant have it both ways; either shes a sleazy manipulator or she's not, but its not "this is just the way the press works" when shes just used strikethrough on sleazy

i'm also amazed at how little attention the delegate math gets in the media, when that is fundamentally what matters. there's been relatively little attention paid to the fact that even if hillary has a big night, it won't change the delegate count.

-- Mark Clemente, Tuesday, March 4, 2008 10:48 AM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

but thats also because neither one of the candidates are going to reach the total needed to win

hillary has done a good job of projecting the public confidence of a winner despite the fact that shes clearly fighting uphill here and i think she deserves credit for that

did anyone see her 'hello' to The View? Halperin linked to it. if she'd been doing stuff like that throughout the campaign i think she'd be in a better place right now

"uphill"

yuks

but you cant have it both ways; either shes a sleazy manipulator or she's not, but its not "this is just the way the press works

i don't like hillary but i'm not one to totally side with the "hillary is a supreme manipulative evil sorceress" crowd. i think you're pretty accurate about her political skills this past week, she's really shaped the media narratives lately in a big way. and like i said, the "media is against us" theme is a big part of that. when she first pulled that out, i thought it was a stupid, self-pitying move, but i think it ended up getting a lot of traction

well it has the benefit of being true!

how so -- bcz they show her being uttterly phony too often?

xpost - yea but i think it's a bit more complicated than that, there are a lot of things about her and her campaign that the media has given a free pass on

She's attempting to manipulate a natural tendency of the press and the press is falling for it, even though they know it's manipulation. The Clintons have always cried foul! And sometimes they're right, which is why the press responds to it.

This is just politics and Obama's doing it too, of course, just to a different set of tendencies. Meanwhile, McCain's getting way better treatment from the press than either of them. Hopefully this will give Obama the traction to tell the press they've been going too easy on McCain in the GE.

well it has the benefit of being true!

-- Tracer Hand, Tuesday, March 4, 2008 10:53 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

oh really? how did pushing questions about rezko obama answered over a year ago help make things 'fair' - they're not pushing her on releasing her tax docs

sorry man i dont buy the victimization thing. she started out with a huge advantage, she was the presumed nominee, and the press acted as such. obama's poll numbers jumping in january wasn't due to favorable press coverage

hillary has done a good job of projecting the public confidence of a winner despite the fact that shes clearly fighting uphill here and i think she deserves credit for that

Yea, the 3 am phone call scare ads are the mark of a real winner and are not transparently desperate.

they are to us but to the dem voter? i think she's solidified her competitiveness

Hitchens: I'm amazed that campaigns use slogans instead of substance.

It's unfortunate for Obama that Rez trial started yesterday; that is the real reason Obama has to answer the questions again, annoying as this must be for his campaign. Hillary bringing it up again might make the electorate bored of/resolved about the issue by the time McCain becomes a factor for Candidate Obama, so possible blessing in the long run if he does well tonight.

deej in the last two months, two broadcasters have actually publicly apologized for making insulting personal remarks about hillary! one of them resigned!

helping to contribute to a fake narrative about how persecuted she is

I think no matter what the headlines are tomorrow the strategy of sitting back and taking double-digit losses week after week in order to win a couple of states by narrow margins (states you were ahead in by double digit margins just a few weeks ago) is ultimately a losing one.

Sorry, as Hitchens goes these days that's pretty good, and he's not amazed, he's heaving a sight at the dumbassery of it. Also he gets points for opening w/ the great Albert Brooks lines.

As for "We Are the People We Have Been Waiting For" (in which case, one can only suppose that now that we have arrived, we can all go home)

(btw, elmo, Obama apparently borrowed it from the hopis after Maria Shriver did)

yeah deej, they humiliated themselves in public because they just have this indefinable urge to help out hillary clinton

tracer I think that's an argument against Hill's case--O'Reilly used the term "lynch mob" in reference to Obama and he's still sitting pretty.