We’re all familiar with the O-face. Now, there’s the O-Bama Face:
The O-Bama Face (n.): the expression made by an Obama supporter when the inspired oration and possibility of a Commander In Chief Obama becomes just too much to take.
“The election has “triggered an avalanche of cybersquatter activity,” according to NetNames, a domain name management service. Speculators have registered nearly 2,000 domain names related to presidential candidates as of last week. Names related to Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy made up over half of the registrations, followed by Mr. Obama with 635 and Mr. McCain with 269.” — The Caucus (the NYT politics blog):
I didn’t see a lot of creativity in the domain names listed in the Times story. HillarysFatAss.com and UppityAfroAmerican.com were conspicuous by their absence.
"This is not, finally, an election of the new against the old. It is an election about the place of the America in the world of nations, and whether we are to be known primarily as a dreaded superpower. It is an election about catastrophes, both natural and man-made. It is the election of Katrina and Baghdad." — David Bromwich
Arianna explains why Obama is winning:
“Hillary Clinton’s campaign model,” David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist told me this morning in Chicago, “is a very tired Washington model: ‘I’ll do these things for you.’ Barack’s model is ‘Let’s do these things together.’ This has been the premise of Barack’s politics all his life, going back to his days as a community organizer. He has really lived and breathed it, which is why it comes across so authentically.
“Of course, the time also has to be right for the man and the moment to come together. And, after all the country has been through over the last seven years, the times are definitely right for the message that the only way to get real change is to activate the American people to demand it.”
“Small is the new big,” (Mark Penn wrote). “Many of the biggest movements in America today are small.”
Except when they are very big, and getting bigger by the day. And you’ve missed them.
The Clinton campaign has been complaining they aren’t getting a fair shake from the news media. No idea if that’s true or not. But Cory Bergman at Lost Remote shares this story:
"This is fascinating. A University of Washington journalism class is aggressively blogging the 2008 campaign. They’re attending primaries and caucuses, cameras and laptops in hand. The professor, David Domke, says he’s noticed a lean towards Obama among the students in part because of the way Obama’s campaign staff respected the bloggers.
“The Obama campaign treated us like pros — they called us back within minutes, set up interviews, got us press passes, went out of their way to make the campaign accessible,” Domke writes. “The Clinton campaign, in contrast, didn’t return a single phone call, didn’t provide press access, and did virtually nothing to encourage our coverage.”
Domke concludes: “The Clinton campaign has made the case that Obama is nothing but rhetoric; he’s supposedly all words, while she’s all action. Our experiences showed us that their campaigns — at least in Seattle — were exactly the opposite. In their treatment of my students, Clinton’s campaign was all talk, while Obama’s was all walk.”
HRC lashed out at Barack Obama today for using a strategy out of “Karl Rove’s playbook” by making speeches of hope while sending Ohioans what she called “false and discredited mailings” on health care and trade policy.
There’s a good analysis at FactCheck.org which concludes the direct mail piece "… lacks a good amount of context and could mislead those who are not familiar with Clinton’s plan." The mailer also includes a quote from The Daily Iowan:
“forcing those who cannot afford health insurance to buy it through mandates … punishing those who don’t fall in line with fines.”
Again from FactCheck.org: "Obama doesn’t tell readers that this is a college newspaper written and edited by University of Iowa students. That’s not to say it’s wrong, but a student newspaper carries less authority than a professionally written and edited major U.S. daily."
That’s chicken shit BO, not at all what your supporters expect from you. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one. Maybe you didn’t see this flier before it went out, but that’s no excuse. Just give us the facts and we’ll decide who has the better plan.
Good story in the NYT on spending by the Clinton and Obama campaigns. The focus seems to be the mis-management of spending by the HRC camp. But this little nugget caught my eye:
“Mr. Obama broadcast 3,000 more advertisements than she did, and he was able to air those ads not only in the states that were immediately up for grabs but also in contests on Feb. 5 and beyond. Mr. Obama spent nearly $480,000 on 1,331 spots in Missouri; he won the state’s primary, a closely fought contest and a national political bellwether, by one percentage point.”
No matter who wins, this campaign will be sliced and diced and examined for years to come.
Hey, nobody is more surprised than I by my political awakening. My fear simply overcame my cynicism. But hang on, it’s almost over and I see four possible outcomes:
If any of the first three occurs, I’m done. We missed our chance. Maybe the last one for good long while. If #4 comes in… I’ll rent Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Dave and then shut the fuck up.
MSNBC is airing an episode of their Headliners and Legends series from October 20, 1999. It’s a profile of Hillary Rodham Clinton. It’s accurate, as far as I know, and so flattering it could have been produced by her campaign. I tried –unsuccessfully– to find it online.
I’m watching and thinking, “Wow! You couldn’t buy that kind of publicity.” Then it hits me. Is NBC doing damage control?
“Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday morning ripped MSNBC over reporter David Shuster’s suggestion that Chelsea Clinton was “sort of being pimped out” by the campaign.
The Clinton campaign immediately demanded an apology and floated the possibility that Clinton would no longer participate in an MSNBC debate, scheduled for Feb. 26. The campaign did not explain under what conditions Clinton would participate in MSNBC’s debate.” — The Politico:
How about if NBC runs an hour-long special in the middle of a hotly contested primary campaign? This pre-empts the regularly scheduled programming, a show called Deadly Encounter.
How flattering was this profile? I’m voting for Obama but this segment had me thinking that HRC might be a good president. I’m okay now, but for a few minutes….
Arianna Huffington on Tuesday night’s speeches:
“As luck, and poor scheduling, would have it, Barack Obama and John McCain gave their Super Tuesday victory speeches at roughly the same time last night, causing cable news directors across the dial to go split-screen, then finally jump from the tail end of McCain’s speech to the first part of Obama’s.
The overlapping oratories could not have been more dramatically different. One soared; the other plodded. One caused goose bumps; the other caused eyelids to flutter shut. One felt newly minted; the other could have been given by Herbert Hoover (and maybe was).
For some reason, I kept picturing a singer like Perry Como standing in the wings during the old Ed Sullivan show, watching the Beatles hit the stage, and thinking: “What do I do now?” or “Oh. My. God.” or “The world just changed, didn’t it?” or “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”