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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, January 04, 2008

Fineman's take - It's generational, but not how you think.

A very interesting read where Newsweek's Howard Fineman postulates that the victory for Obama was the result of a generational turnover of campaign staff and consultants.

While the Clinton's and Edwards' went with the traditional (frequently losing) consultants and experts, Fineman's theory is that it's Obama's bright younger staff who won the day. Interesting.

posted by mikevotes at 5:57 PM

8 Comments:

  • I think Obama's win has a lot to do with what commenter Matt says in a post below. After 7 years of the repugnant face that Cheney/Bush have put on America, people are looking for honesty and decency, and Obama seems to embody those qualities.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:51 PM  

  • Fully agreed. It;s the high turnout and passion that's the tell on that.

    But to defend Fineman a little, without agile staff efforts to exploit that, Obama would not likely have the same position.

    Think back to the careful parsing campaign advice received by Gore or Kerry.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:50 PM  

  • The downfall of Gore and Kerry, it seems to me, is that their "professional" team of consultants tried to market their candidates rather than letting the candidates just go with their honest instincts. The candidates morphed over the campaign as managers and consultants said try this... now try that. It gave an air of disingenuousness to the candidates.

    It also seems to me that Obama has been on a consistent message and style since his 2004 convention speech. You haven't seen Obama in an LL Bean hunting jacket and slinging a shotgun, for example. I suppose the same can be said for Clinton and Edwards, but Obama seems the most comfortable in his own skin. A sort of cool confidence without crossing into arrogance (clinton), and a sincere passion without seeming strident or quasi-militant attitude (edwards).

    By Blogger -epm, at 11:53 PM  

  • I really don't want to get into the failings of Gore and Kerry. That's pretty much a book length treatise.

    But I think your point about "style" and consistency is huge and is not being discussed.

    Obama is cool. (maybe hip is a better word?) At least as cool as any politician we've seen in awhile.

    I really think that's a lot of his aura.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:01 AM  

  • I was watching Charlie Rose after the caucus and at least one of the pundits -- maybe more -- kept bringing up that Barack has been weak on giving detailed policy statements and how this is his Achilles heal. I kept screaming "bullshit!" at the TV. Voters don't give a rip about policy statements. That all inside baseball crap. Voters want broad strokes. They want a candidate they can relate to, that thinks like them, and will fight to lead the country in a direction they agree with.

    In fact a candidate is probably better served by not getting too specific. It just creates out of context sound bites that will be thrown in their face.

    By Blogger -epm, at 11:06 AM  

  • Well, in some elections, people want the 14 point plan, but in this election definitely not.

    This election on the Dem side is about raw emotion, and watching Obama, you feel more.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 11:39 AM  

  • But even that 14 point plan is broad and/or unrealistic.

    1. tax reform
    2. family values
    3. chicken in every pot
    ...

    By Blogger -epm, at 11:41 AM  

  • Oh yeah, but we're emotionally even beyond that level of detail.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 2:44 PM  

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