Picture of the Day
Sorry for so many Obama pictures, but this fawning Newsweek cover is news.
Especially when the Clinton coverage is so disparaging, like this Time piece, "Clinton Machine Shaken by Setback." Or the WaPo frontpage, "Obama's Rise Dismays Clinton's Supporters."
This lopsided media tilt is everywhere.
If you're Clinton, how do you fight this media headwind?
(Later: Maybe you can't fight it. Maybe you have to try and survive and wait for (hope for) a media "snapback" before Florida or Feb. 5.)
(Sorry for the picture. Had to take a small version and blow it up.)
posted by mikevotes at
8:39 AM
11 Comments:
i still see both of them as corporate candidates so am not convinced there will be any quantative difference in what either of them would get up to in power.
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michael greenwell, at 8:49 AM
Mike G, I agree with you on their corporate allegiances. But Obama has an intangible quality that Clinton just doesn't get, and it showed in the debate last night. She said a president needs more than "words" to accomplish things, but Obama said she was underestimating the power of words to move the nation to action. He was talking about leadership. Obama has it, Clinton doesn't.
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Anonymous, at 9:38 AM
All the talk about 'change' is attractive. But what kind of change? How? Congress and special interest money will still be the biggest roadblock.
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Anonymous, at 10:40 AM
Michael, I really don't know enough about Obama to say. Frankly, that is part of his strategy.
To reinforce your point, though, the White House staff will significantly be pulled from the same people no matter whichever of them is elected.
....
Abi, That was perhaps the most interesting exchange of the debate. I thought they both scored points.
Also, I don't think the debate is his friend. Riding all that momentum, with the raucous stump speeches, he was becoming more than a candidate, and, no matter how well he does, debates tend to reframe him as less than his image.
....
Anon, That's the big question. My running thesis is that the anti-Bush feeling is so deep and passionate among the dems that it comes out as this emotional fervor for Obama.
The more he outlines the details, the more this becomes about candidate Obama and the less about that emotion.
Again, just a working theory.
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mikevotes, at 11:33 AM
How do you fight this head wind? The Repubs would use a whisper campaign and push polling, a al SC 2000.
I'm hoping this won't happen with Clinton, but her senior campaign staff doesn't inspire much confidence in the way of an ethical high water mark. We've already seen this recently.
Look for cherry-picked (and context free) attacks on Obama's state record. Look for more fear talk about foreign affairs and how the kid just isn't up to it. Actually, it's not attacking so much as kind of talking down to the Obama campaign. A there, there little man... maybe some day when you're all grown up.
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-epm, at 3:10 PM
There's so little time to go that dirty.
To get widely distributed but still keep it unaccountable takes time.
And, interesting you cite the "talking down," that's something I imagined months ago that Clinton would do to Giuliani.
(Does "talking down" work against Obama?)
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mikevotes, at 3:14 PM
This comment has been removed by the author.
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-epm, at 3:54 PM
I think talking down to Obama cuts both ways. It can both bolster support from undecideds and offend others. It probably does more to firm up her supporters than add to their ranks.
But this gets into another mine field. How close can she get to calling Obama a "boy" without it blowing up in her face? There are some very charged words and phrases here that one could stumble into... even inadvertently. Just ask Biden.
There was one time in the debate where the hairs on the back of my neck were raised. And not in a good way. It was when Clinton, rather shrilly in my opinion, said the mere fact she was female was a credential for being the change candidate. She said this as a rebuke of sorts to a mixed-race black man, for christ sake! I was offended. Yes it would be a change to have a woman as president. But I thought it was pathetic to use gender as a stick like that.
Within my lifetime, people have been lynched for being black or mixed race! Dear God!, let's not getting into a pissing war as to who's the more oppressed "minority" and who would be the more historic future president. Getting away from this is sort of thing is the kind of Change™ I think Obama is saying we need in this country. And the kind of Change™ to which Clinton simply seems to have such a tin ear.
Obama has obviously intentionally NOT played the race card. To his credit and benefit, I say. I've heard the fact he hasn't made race a major issue in his campaign has frustrated some (many?) of the old guard, self appointed "black leaders."
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-epm, at 3:58 PM
Whereas Bill Clinton was called slick, and others have been called teflon, at this point, Obama is bulletproof.
There's no clear costless attack angle.
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mikevotes, at 4:57 PM
Personally, the tactic of talking down to a candidate does not work for me - no matter the candidate. As a woman, I have been talked down to enough times to know that it is a sign of weakness...on the part of the group doing the "talking down". This would further erode any support I have for Hillary.
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Ptelea, at 5:00 PM
Interesting.
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mikevotes, at 9:09 PM
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