So, as expected, the Pennsylvania primary was anticlimactic. When I told some colleagues that I'm going to Charlotte to cover the North Carolina primary, they asked why I wasn't going to the Keystone State first. My reply: Hillary's going to win Pennsylvania by somewhere between five and nine points, which means nothing will change, so what's the point? The race won't end in Pittsburgh, or Pottstown, or even Punxsutawney. But Clinton's Waterloo could come May 6th...in Waterloo, Indiana. Or Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Because if Obama takes both Indiana and North Carolina (the largest remaining states), the battle really is done. This nomination is firmly in the hands of the superdelegates now, and if Obama can deliver a knockout blow, the remaining undecided ones will flock to him, and put him over the top. If he can't....then Hillary has at least some faint hope.
(By the way, Clinton won Pennsylvania by nine points, not ten, at last count, despite what you keep hearing from most media. I don't think it makes much difference, but I'm a stickler for accuracy. She will end up with a net gain of 10 to 12 delegates.)
The hot phrase of the moment is "closing the deal," as in, Obama can't do it. I must have missed the mass directive instructing all pundits to use those words, but it's just as well, because I think it's off the mark. Obama isn't attracting the white, blue-collar voters, but you know what? He wasn't winning them in January or February either, when he was sweeping one state after another. The only place he beat Clinton among that demographic was in Wisconsin. All that's happened is, the states where Obama had a natural advantage, he won...and the ones where Clinton did, she won. And that's still happening. It's just that we've reached a string of northern industrial states whose electorate breaks nicely for Hillary, so that's slowed Obama's momentum and allowed some worrisome doubt to creep into the minds of nervous Democrats.
The bigger problem for Obama right now is that as the campaign wears on, his luster wears off. He's been dragged right down into the gutter, which is never a good place for golden boys to be. It's hard to position oneself as a fresh voice of change, when you're busy picking off the bits of mud and flinging them back at your opponent. If the Democrats had winner-take-all primaries, Obama's 11-state late-winter run would have locked up the nomination, and his image would have survived intact. Now it's all flying elbows and locking horns, as he tries to hold off Hillary and keep those superdelegates flowing steadily into his column. And meanwhile, the Republicans, and the Clinton camp, have succeeded in raising a lot of questions about Obama, and planting some very dangerous seeds in the voters' minds: he's a radical, with radical friends...he's not one of us...who knows what he really wants to do to this country...why, he may even be French!
Assuming he still gets the nomination, Obama will need to reinvigorate his base: wealthier, better-educated whites, black voters, young people and first-time voters. He will have to generate a massive turnout, to overcome the negative portrayals and Internet rumors that will swing many Americans, who pay only passing attention to facts and details, to John McCain. And if he can't do that, then those battleground states where Clinton has beaten him - Ohio, New Mexico (Florida and Michigan, too, though Obama didn't compete in the "primaries" there) and yes, Pennsylvania - become deeply problematic for the Democrats in November.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Bitter Aftertaste
A few postscripts to last week's bitterness and guns controversy, before we move on to Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary...
First of all, I was inspired to write a new parody song for the radio about all this silliness, so I corraled the Not Ready for Drive Time Singers and we banged out "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," which aired on KCBS Friday. No complaints so far, and one listener even made a video for it! Coming soon to a YouTube near you.
Second, like many viewers, I was absolutely appalled by that debate on ABC News last week. There's no professional rivalry involved; I will cheer any network that does a good job on a debate and jeer those who don't, regardless of my own affiliation (I actually think the Fox News questioners have done the best job in this year's debates). CBS hasn't hosted one yet, so we'll see how Katie Couric does next week in North Carolina.
But I was stunned by the line of questioning by Charles Gibson, in particular. I had to report on this debate for KCBS, so I recorded it and then relayed what was happening. The first 45 minutes were about Obama's various and sundry controversies, with some token pressure on Hillary Clinton every now and again. It took that long for a substantive issue to come up, which I found ridiculous. Obama's San Francisco comments, his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Hillary's faulty memory on Bosnia are all legitimate matters to be asked about, but come on. They are not the most important issues for most voters. Halfway through the debate, I felt like taking a shower. Gibson and George Stephanopoulos NEVER asked about jobs, or health care, or education, or the environment. What a waste of time.
For Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, that debate was the last straw, and he endorsed Obama Friday. This was a really tough decision for Reich, who's been living and teaching in Berkeley the last few years (I run into him at the Whole Foods every now and then). He talked about it with KCBS anchors Melissa Culross and Jeff Bell.
Finally, it wasn't widely reported except on the Internet, but Barack Obama did make essentially the same point he made at that San Francisco fundraiser...four years ago, on the Charlie Rose show on PBS. I heard some commentators warning last week that Obama says one thing in public, and quite another privately to his "elitist, Chablis-sipping buddies in San Francisco" (Chablis? Viognier, maybe. Pinot noir, definitely. Never Chablis, not in the last 20 years or so anyway).
But the only thing new about Obama's now-infamous remarks was the wording. Listen to what he said on national TV back in 2004, when he was talking about the economically dispirited people of Gaylesburg, Illinois. He said they take comfort in hunting, and going to church, and the traditions that are meaningful to them, and he agreed with Rose that they won't vote for a party that condescends to them and doesn't appreciate the importance of those traditions. So he wasn't secretly revealing his true attitudes to those San Francisco liberals, after all. He was just putting some old Chablis in a new bottle. You might not like the taste, but you can't say it's a new vintage.
Second, like many viewers, I was absolutely appalled by that debate on ABC News last week. There's no professional rivalry involved; I will cheer any network that does a good job on a debate and jeer those who don't, regardless of my own affiliation (I actually think the Fox News questioners have done the best job in this year's debates). CBS hasn't hosted one yet, so we'll see how Katie Couric does next week in North Carolina.
But I was stunned by the line of questioning by Charles Gibson, in particular. I had to report on this debate for KCBS, so I recorded it and then relayed what was happening. The first 45 minutes were about Obama's various and sundry controversies, with some token pressure on Hillary Clinton every now and again. It took that long for a substantive issue to come up, which I found ridiculous. Obama's San Francisco comments, his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Hillary's faulty memory on Bosnia are all legitimate matters to be asked about, but come on. They are not the most important issues for most voters. Halfway through the debate, I felt like taking a shower. Gibson and George Stephanopoulos NEVER asked about jobs, or health care, or education, or the environment. What a waste of time.
For Robert Reich, the Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, that debate was the last straw, and he endorsed Obama Friday. This was a really tough decision for Reich, who's been living and teaching in Berkeley the last few years (I run into him at the Whole Foods every now and then). He talked about it with KCBS anchors Melissa Culross and Jeff Bell.
Finally, it wasn't widely reported except on the Internet, but Barack Obama did make essentially the same point he made at that San Francisco fundraiser...four years ago, on the Charlie Rose show on PBS. I heard some commentators warning last week that Obama says one thing in public, and quite another privately to his "elitist, Chablis-sipping buddies in San Francisco" (Chablis? Viognier, maybe. Pinot noir, definitely. Never Chablis, not in the last 20 years or so anyway).
But the only thing new about Obama's now-infamous remarks was the wording. Listen to what he said on national TV back in 2004, when he was talking about the economically dispirited people of Gaylesburg, Illinois. He said they take comfort in hunting, and going to church, and the traditions that are meaningful to them, and he agreed with Rose that they won't vote for a party that condescends to them and doesn't appreciate the importance of those traditions. So he wasn't secretly revealing his true attitudes to those San Francisco liberals, after all. He was just putting some old Chablis in a new bottle. You might not like the taste, but you can't say it's a new vintage.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Clinging Bitterly to My Blog
Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. My last blog post was three weeks ago.
Yes, I have been derelict. I spent much of my childhood in a small Midwestern town, so I have been very busy building an anti-immigrant fence around my compound in the woods, growing increasingly bitter, clinging to my guns and religion and xenophobia, the only solace I know in this ever-darkening economic climate.
But I have come out of my bunker, because Hillary Clinton has invited me for a shot and a beer, before we go on a church-sponsored hunting trip.
Yes, this is the state of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Barack Obama is being pilloried as an elitist, patronizing liberal, while Hillary's suddenly a gun-toting, whisky-swigging woman of the people.
Hmm, last time I checked they went to Harvard and Yale Law Schools, respectively, and I could have sworn Clinton just released tax returns showing her and Bill with over $100 million in income since 2000.
Yes, Barack Obama shot himself in the foot last week in San Francisco (if Hillary had been there, I'm sure she would have done the honors with the gun her grandfather gave her as a child). We all make mistakes; no one has blundered into more tactless, awkwardly-worded gaffes than I, as anyone in our newsroom who has enjoyed watching me try to explain what I really meant can attest. But this one has the Republicans chortling with glee. While Obama is busy trying to fend off Clinton, John McCain can start identifying the Illinois Senator in a negative way, with his own ill-chosen words. Hillary's already running a new TV commercial highlighting Obama's gaffe. By the time Obama locks up the nomination, many voters will already have "elitist" and "out of touch" branded into their brains, the way they thought "flip-flopper" and "windsurfer" when they heard the name John Kerry in 2004.
There's a lot of truth in what Obama said at that fundraiser in Pacific Heights last week. I have the audio of it, but it's so hard to understand I don't think it's worth posting the link here. You've read it by now anyway, right? Small-town voters are bitter after years of economic hardship and government inattention, so they cling to their guns and their religion and their antipathy towards people who aren't like them. Is that condescending and elitist? Or is it a frank assessment of America in the 21st century? The powers that be don't want someone telling the people the truth; they'd rather distract Americans with mock outrage, much as they accused anyone who dared question the government's response to 9/11 of being an unpatriotic traitor.
But Obama's words weren't artful. He's right; he could have said it a lot better. "Clinging" to their guns and religion? Ouch. That offends. This is a perfect example of why I predicted last December that Clinton, not Obama, would be the nominee. He's just not experienced enough to avoid these kinds of mistakes, and he's going to make more, folks. By the time November rolls around, assuming Obama still gets the nod, McCain will have a stack of these to use against him. Luckily for him, McCain steps in it now and again, too. We'll just have to see who the mess sticks to, and which of the nominees has teflon shoes.
Obama's stumble reminds me of the 1982 New York governor's race, when three-term Mayor Ed Koch was a heavy favorite to move up to Albany. Until, that is, he lamented the "sterile" nature of life in upstate New York, ridiculed small-town women for wearing gingham dresses, and complained about how unhappy he would be living in the boonies. That doomed his candidacy, and Lt. Governor Mario Cuomo came out of nowhere to upset Koch in the primary, and go on to serve three terms as governor.
There are a couple of other things about this that bother me more than Obama's words, though. First off, I know that many bloggers consider themselves "journalists." But it would be completely unethical, and maybe illegal, for me to infiltrate a private event, record it surreptitiously, and then report what I heard. And that's just what a Huffington Post blogger did to Obama in San Francisco. We have to identify ourselves as reporters, we can't record someone without permission (unless they're in a public place with no expectation of privacy, certainly not the case at a private home where invited guests have paid $2300 apiece to be there), and we cannot obtain information under false pretenses. In this age of cell phone videos and around-the-clock webcams, candidates should probably assume anything they say anywhere could be recorded. But still, Obama was speaking candidly with a small, private audience of campaign insiders and supporters. Those words were not for public consumption, and now he is consumed with defending them.
But Obama put himself in this position by being there in the first place. I "covered" his visit to the Bay Area last Sunday. He made four stops - all private, attended by paid donors, who coughed up anywhere from $1000 to $2300 for the privilege to hear him speak. He spent a full day here, and did not meet a single person who didn't pay him first. No voters, no reporters, no real people on the street. No interviews, no news conferences, no public speeches. The media coverage consisted of standing outside, interviewing the rich people who were going inside, and getting long-lens shots of Obama from across the street. And now, the Obama campaign has sent out an appeal for more donations, appealing to supporters who are outraged by the criticism of his remarks to dig deep and help him respond. All the campaigns do that now - they turn every attack or controversy into an opportunity to solicit more money: "Isn't this terrible? Won't you help by sending us $25 today?"
I'm fed up with the big money that drives presidential politics. If Obama, Clinton and McCain want to convince us they're in touch with the common folk, then they should start spending some real time with them. Let's face it, all three of them are elitists. They are very rich, high-achieving Americans. If they weren't, we wouldn't elect them president, would we? Isn't that the point of an election - to choose someone from the top tier to run the country? Do we want Hillary's beer buddy in the Oval Office? Or do we want a highly educated, successful person to run the government? So all three should stop pretending they're down in the gutter with the rest of us (okay, I admit it, I have risen from my humble Midwestern upbringing to become one of the elite, too) and become who they are. Stop pretending you're just like everyone else - and start caring about everyone else instead. FDR didn't try to hide his patrician roots - but he genuinely cared about the common man, and his policies reflected that.
At least Obama was trying to tell the truth in that mansion last week, and in his comments since. If we see him out hunting next week, between church services, with a six-pack in one hand and a shotgun in the other, then the Democrats are in deep trouble come November.
QUICK HITS: Okay, so I'm a little rusty; this rant rambled a bit. But I'm pleased to announce that the RTNDA/Edward R. Murrow Awards have recognized some of our earlier work. KCBS just won four regional Murrows (the Western United States) and one of them is for Best Broadcast Website, for KCBS.com, including Sovern Nation. And another one is for Best Feature, for the first parody song we did in 2007, "Super Cali Tex Illistic Yorkizona Docious," about Super Tuesday. I will proudly call myself an award-winning singer-songwriter now. Thanks to the Not Ready for Drive Time Singers for making it, well, sing. Now we're nominated for the national Murrow awards. Stay tuned.
I think there's definitely a song in Obama's bitter words and Hillary's Bosnia snipers, among other things. I'll work on that and get back to you...
Yes, I have been derelict. I spent much of my childhood in a small Midwestern town, so I have been very busy building an anti-immigrant fence around my compound in the woods, growing increasingly bitter, clinging to my guns and religion and xenophobia, the only solace I know in this ever-darkening economic climate.
But I have come out of my bunker, because Hillary Clinton has invited me for a shot and a beer, before we go on a church-sponsored hunting trip.
Yes, this is the state of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Barack Obama is being pilloried as an elitist, patronizing liberal, while Hillary's suddenly a gun-toting, whisky-swigging woman of the people.
Hmm, last time I checked they went to Harvard and Yale Law Schools, respectively, and I could have sworn Clinton just released tax returns showing her and Bill with over $100 million in income since 2000.
Yes, Barack Obama shot himself in the foot last week in San Francisco (if Hillary had been there, I'm sure she would have done the honors with the gun her grandfather gave her as a child). We all make mistakes; no one has blundered into more tactless, awkwardly-worded gaffes than I, as anyone in our newsroom who has enjoyed watching me try to explain what I really meant can attest. But this one has the Republicans chortling with glee. While Obama is busy trying to fend off Clinton, John McCain can start identifying the Illinois Senator in a negative way, with his own ill-chosen words. Hillary's already running a new TV commercial highlighting Obama's gaffe. By the time Obama locks up the nomination, many voters will already have "elitist" and "out of touch" branded into their brains, the way they thought "flip-flopper" and "windsurfer" when they heard the name John Kerry in 2004.
There's a lot of truth in what Obama said at that fundraiser in Pacific Heights last week. I have the audio of it, but it's so hard to understand I don't think it's worth posting the link here. You've read it by now anyway, right? Small-town voters are bitter after years of economic hardship and government inattention, so they cling to their guns and their religion and their antipathy towards people who aren't like them. Is that condescending and elitist? Or is it a frank assessment of America in the 21st century? The powers that be don't want someone telling the people the truth; they'd rather distract Americans with mock outrage, much as they accused anyone who dared question the government's response to 9/11 of being an unpatriotic traitor.
But Obama's words weren't artful. He's right; he could have said it a lot better. "Clinging" to their guns and religion? Ouch. That offends. This is a perfect example of why I predicted last December that Clinton, not Obama, would be the nominee. He's just not experienced enough to avoid these kinds of mistakes, and he's going to make more, folks. By the time November rolls around, assuming Obama still gets the nod, McCain will have a stack of these to use against him. Luckily for him, McCain steps in it now and again, too. We'll just have to see who the mess sticks to, and which of the nominees has teflon shoes.
Obama's stumble reminds me of the 1982 New York governor's race, when three-term Mayor Ed Koch was a heavy favorite to move up to Albany. Until, that is, he lamented the "sterile" nature of life in upstate New York, ridiculed small-town women for wearing gingham dresses, and complained about how unhappy he would be living in the boonies. That doomed his candidacy, and Lt. Governor Mario Cuomo came out of nowhere to upset Koch in the primary, and go on to serve three terms as governor.
There are a couple of other things about this that bother me more than Obama's words, though. First off, I know that many bloggers consider themselves "journalists." But it would be completely unethical, and maybe illegal, for me to infiltrate a private event, record it surreptitiously, and then report what I heard. And that's just what a Huffington Post blogger did to Obama in San Francisco. We have to identify ourselves as reporters, we can't record someone without permission (unless they're in a public place with no expectation of privacy, certainly not the case at a private home where invited guests have paid $2300 apiece to be there), and we cannot obtain information under false pretenses. In this age of cell phone videos and around-the-clock webcams, candidates should probably assume anything they say anywhere could be recorded. But still, Obama was speaking candidly with a small, private audience of campaign insiders and supporters. Those words were not for public consumption, and now he is consumed with defending them.
But Obama put himself in this position by being there in the first place. I "covered" his visit to the Bay Area last Sunday. He made four stops - all private, attended by paid donors, who coughed up anywhere from $1000 to $2300 for the privilege to hear him speak. He spent a full day here, and did not meet a single person who didn't pay him first. No voters, no reporters, no real people on the street. No interviews, no news conferences, no public speeches. The media coverage consisted of standing outside, interviewing the rich people who were going inside, and getting long-lens shots of Obama from across the street. And now, the Obama campaign has sent out an appeal for more donations, appealing to supporters who are outraged by the criticism of his remarks to dig deep and help him respond. All the campaigns do that now - they turn every attack or controversy into an opportunity to solicit more money: "Isn't this terrible? Won't you help by sending us $25 today?"
I'm fed up with the big money that drives presidential politics. If Obama, Clinton and McCain want to convince us they're in touch with the common folk, then they should start spending some real time with them. Let's face it, all three of them are elitists. They are very rich, high-achieving Americans. If they weren't, we wouldn't elect them president, would we? Isn't that the point of an election - to choose someone from the top tier to run the country? Do we want Hillary's beer buddy in the Oval Office? Or do we want a highly educated, successful person to run the government? So all three should stop pretending they're down in the gutter with the rest of us (okay, I admit it, I have risen from my humble Midwestern upbringing to become one of the elite, too) and become who they are. Stop pretending you're just like everyone else - and start caring about everyone else instead. FDR didn't try to hide his patrician roots - but he genuinely cared about the common man, and his policies reflected that.
At least Obama was trying to tell the truth in that mansion last week, and in his comments since. If we see him out hunting next week, between church services, with a six-pack in one hand and a shotgun in the other, then the Democrats are in deep trouble come November.
QUICK HITS: Okay, so I'm a little rusty; this rant rambled a bit. But I'm pleased to announce that the RTNDA/Edward R. Murrow Awards have recognized some of our earlier work. KCBS just won four regional Murrows (the Western United States) and one of them is for Best Broadcast Website, for KCBS.com, including Sovern Nation. And another one is for Best Feature, for the first parody song we did in 2007, "Super Cali Tex Illistic Yorkizona Docious," about Super Tuesday. I will proudly call myself an award-winning singer-songwriter now. Thanks to the Not Ready for Drive Time Singers for making it, well, sing. Now we're nominated for the national Murrow awards. Stay tuned.
I think there's definitely a song in Obama's bitter words and Hillary's Bosnia snipers, among other things. I'll work on that and get back to you...
Monday, March 24, 2008
Shades of Gray
After the nonstop voting frenzy of February and early March, the first days of spring have felt like the dog days of this presidential nominating season: kind of sleepy, a bit of a lull between primaries, not so much to blog about. Each day does seem to bring another little twist or blip, whether it's John McCain's gaffes in Iraq, or another advisor to Obama or Clinton shooting from the lip. But without a looming primary or caucus to drive the election calendar, some of the pressure and tension is off. Obama has even gone off to St. Thomas for a few days of vacation. McCain is back here in California, raising money and laying the groundwork for a November run at our 55 electoral votes.
We filled some of the down time with our latest campaign song, "Crocodile Barack," and in case you missed it on the radio, well, there it is, just click on that handy link. (For that matter, if you somehow didn't hear our Hillary Clinton song, here's that one, too).
The major campaign event of the month turned out to be the Jeremiah Wright controversy, which broke while I was off for a little break of my own, in Yosemite. Rev. Wright has been on the political radar for many months now, and some of the Hillary Clinton supporters who criticize us for alleged Obama favoritism had been forwarding links to me, with some of his more outrageous statements. But once videos of some of Wright's fire-and-brimstone started running in heavy rotation on the cable news channels, Obama had no choice but to address the words of his longtime pastor and spiritual mentor.
Obama's speech in Philadelphia was brilliantly written, I thought, and much has been said and written about it elsewhere. It was really more of a scholarly talk than a traditional campaign address: long, slow, thoughtful, laid out in a linear and logical way. It could have been a summation in a legal case, except for the absence of an emotional appeal to the jury at the close. I know people who think it was the greatest speech they've ever heard, but let's not get carried away. I don't know that I would call it Lincolnesque. At 37 minutes, it was 18 times longer than the Gettysburg Address. But it was deeply personal, and so much more reflective than a typical political speech. It also disabused me of a notion that's been kicking around my brain for a year or so now: that Barack Obama reminds me too much of George W. Bush.
Before you scoff loudly at that idea (maybe it's too late), consider the parallels. In 1999, while covering the presidential campaign of then-Governor Bush, I found him to be a reasonably pleasant guy whom many voters found inexplicably (to me) charismatic. He was a man of limited government experience, relying heavily on his personality and likeability, who avoided reporters at all costs and whose policy details were as thin as his resume. Does that sound familiar? When I covered Obama in late 2006 and early 2007, he steered clear of the media, gave vague speeches full of platitudes and lofty catch phrases, avoided answering specific policy questions, and leaned mostly on his status as a fresh face and celebrity author. At the California Democratic Convention last spring, Obama was the only one of the eight presidential contenders who did not hold a news conference or conduct any interviews. He's made himself more available as he's fleshed out his positions and gained more experience, both in government and on the campaign trail, but he's still the only major candidate this year who hasn't done an interview with KCBS.
But that speech on race has changed my thinking. Can you imagine President Bush giving a talk like that - not to mention writing it himself? What would he say? "I am the son of a rich, powerful white man...and, um, a rich, powerful white woman, too." Obama's words reflected deep contemplation, and an intellect able to translate that soul-searching into powerful speech that seemed honest and real. Bush sees everything in black and white; Obama offered us shades of gray. That kind of nuanced thinking is rare in national politics. But the world isn't black and white, and it's refreshing to hear a presidential candidate choose candor over demagoguery, especially on a subject as critical to America - and so close to my own heart - as race.
QUICK HITS: Bill Clinton returns to the Bay Area to address this year's state Democratic convention, this Sunday in San Jose. Let's see if he gets mad at us again, or brings his sax this time...John McCain holds fundraisers Wednesday at Pebble Beach and the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton...What do you think of Bill Richardson's new facial hair? I think the Van Dyke gives him a more Latin look, and makes him look a little more manicured, which could work to his advantage if he's Obama's running mate...but we'll save that V-P analysis for later in the campaign.
We filled some of the down time with our latest campaign song, "Crocodile Barack," and in case you missed it on the radio, well, there it is, just click on that handy link. (For that matter, if you somehow didn't hear our Hillary Clinton song, here's that one, too).
The major campaign event of the month turned out to be the Jeremiah Wright controversy, which broke while I was off for a little break of my own, in Yosemite. Rev. Wright has been on the political radar for many months now, and some of the Hillary Clinton supporters who criticize us for alleged Obama favoritism had been forwarding links to me, with some of his more outrageous statements. But once videos of some of Wright's fire-and-brimstone started running in heavy rotation on the cable news channels, Obama had no choice but to address the words of his longtime pastor and spiritual mentor.
Obama's speech in Philadelphia was brilliantly written, I thought, and much has been said and written about it elsewhere. It was really more of a scholarly talk than a traditional campaign address: long, slow, thoughtful, laid out in a linear and logical way. It could have been a summation in a legal case, except for the absence of an emotional appeal to the jury at the close. I know people who think it was the greatest speech they've ever heard, but let's not get carried away. I don't know that I would call it Lincolnesque. At 37 minutes, it was 18 times longer than the Gettysburg Address. But it was deeply personal, and so much more reflective than a typical political speech. It also disabused me of a notion that's been kicking around my brain for a year or so now: that Barack Obama reminds me too much of George W. Bush.
Before you scoff loudly at that idea (maybe it's too late), consider the parallels. In 1999, while covering the presidential campaign of then-Governor Bush, I found him to be a reasonably pleasant guy whom many voters found inexplicably (to me) charismatic. He was a man of limited government experience, relying heavily on his personality and likeability, who avoided reporters at all costs and whose policy details were as thin as his resume. Does that sound familiar? When I covered Obama in late 2006 and early 2007, he steered clear of the media, gave vague speeches full of platitudes and lofty catch phrases, avoided answering specific policy questions, and leaned mostly on his status as a fresh face and celebrity author. At the California Democratic Convention last spring, Obama was the only one of the eight presidential contenders who did not hold a news conference or conduct any interviews. He's made himself more available as he's fleshed out his positions and gained more experience, both in government and on the campaign trail, but he's still the only major candidate this year who hasn't done an interview with KCBS.
But that speech on race has changed my thinking. Can you imagine President Bush giving a talk like that - not to mention writing it himself? What would he say? "I am the son of a rich, powerful white man...and, um, a rich, powerful white woman, too." Obama's words reflected deep contemplation, and an intellect able to translate that soul-searching into powerful speech that seemed honest and real. Bush sees everything in black and white; Obama offered us shades of gray. That kind of nuanced thinking is rare in national politics. But the world isn't black and white, and it's refreshing to hear a presidential candidate choose candor over demagoguery, especially on a subject as critical to America - and so close to my own heart - as race.
QUICK HITS: Bill Clinton returns to the Bay Area to address this year's state Democratic convention, this Sunday in San Jose. Let's see if he gets mad at us again, or brings his sax this time...John McCain holds fundraisers Wednesday at Pebble Beach and the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton...What do you think of Bill Richardson's new facial hair? I think the Van Dyke gives him a more Latin look, and makes him look a little more manicured, which could work to his advantage if he's Obama's running mate...but we'll save that V-P analysis for later in the campaign.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
And the Race Goes On...
...and on, and on...
What if they held a presidential nominating contest and nobody ever won?
Actually, I don't know what the big hurry is. Whoever decreed that the arbitrary date of March 4th is when we should determine our presidential nominees - when the general election isn't for another nine months? I find this primary season rather exciting, and fascinating, and it appears record numbers of voters do, too, so why not let it entertain us for a few more months? As Oscar Wilde once said, "The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts!"
Hillary Clinton came dangerously close to ending it Tuesday, but instead pulled off the Clinton family's latest miracle comeback, turning Sort of Super Tuesday into just another milepost on the long 2008 campaign trail. She won a predictable landslide in blue collar Rhode Island, took Ohio by a surprisingly impressive margin, and pulled out a nailbiter in the Texas primary. At this writing (almost 2am in California; it's been a long night!), the Texas caucus results are coming in by Pony Express or something, so all I can tell you is that Barack Obama has a narrow lead in the after-hours portion of the Texas voting. Obama did wallop Clinton in Vermont, but that too was a foregone conclusion. For his trouble there, I think Obama wins eight delegates, a new bong and a lifetime's supply of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey.
(By the way, we have a lifetime's supply of sound from last night's festivities, including Hillary Clinton's rousing victory speech, Barack Obama's tepid "But I'm still winning" speech, John McCain's nomination-clinching valedictory, and Mike Huckabee's farewell comedy routine, er, I mean, concession speech. Not to mention analysis galore, from the likes of San Francisco State whiz Joe Tuman. By morning, I'm sure we will have heard from Marc Sandalow, Carla Marinucci, Phil Matier and many others, so check the KCBS home page or Sovern Nation Featured Audio for the very latest interviews).
(And while I'm on this ADD digression, did you know you can download all our audio, including our hit songs, on iTunes, for free? If you subscribe to the Sovern Nation podcast there, they even download automatically to your computer so you never miss any...)
And now back to our primary.
Later today, John McCain will go to the White House, where he will be anointed with oil by President Bush, officially commencing the fence-mending portion of the Republican primary process. You can bet the Democrats will TiVo every bear hug and smile-for-the-cameras grin of the Bush-McCain lovefest, to display this fall for the 70% of voters who think Bush is a lousy president. But for now, McCain has no choice but to gladly accept the endorsement of the man who savaged him in 2000 with some of the lowest blows in modern American politics. He still needs to reassure the conservatives who don't trust him. He will also gain instant access to the apparatus of the Republican National Committee, including the Bush family's fundraising database, which will be invaluable to McCain if he's able to opt out of public financing.
Meanwhile, Clinton and Obama go on to Pennsylvania, for what amounts to Iowa and New Hampshire redux, except this time in a state that is much more representative of the rest of the nation. It's big, it's diverse, it's urban, it's rural. It's got manufacturing and farms, street gangs and Amish, Polish Catholic steelworkers and patrician Main Line WASPs. If the Dems brawl like Eagles fans, it will certainly help McCain, who will be busy marshaling resources for the fall and honing his November message. If they can stay civil (say, more like Packers fans), then at least the Democrats will benefit from an awful lot of free media attention and the concentrated focus of all these engaged voters. They will have the spotlight to themselves, so they'd best use it wisely.
But no matter who wins Pennsylvania - I assume Obama will win Wyoming this Saturday and Mississippi next Tuesday, but they're not that consequential - this thing probably won't be settled, even after the last Democrat in Puerto Rico votes June 7 (please write to my news director, urging him to send me to P.R. to cover that one!). By our reckoning, there are 1088 delegates left to give out - but only 745 of them will be determined by the voters. The rest are uncommitted superdelegates. At this hour, Obama needs at least 513 to win the nomination; Clinton needs 602. That makes it virtually impossible for either one of them to clinch this at the polls. If they split the remaining delegates, and the supers divide evenly, then Obama wins. But if Clinton gets on a little bit of a roll, she could easily claim enough delegates to keep Obama from being the nominee, while still falling short herself. You can see how the math could work for either of them still - or, more likely, neither one - leaving the nomination in the hands of the dreaded superdelegates.
Is the bloom off the rose for Obama? Did he peak too soon? Are the voters having second thoughts? I was going to explore those questions here, but it's long past time to put me to bed - even if we can't say the same yet for the Democratic presidential race.
What if they held a presidential nominating contest and nobody ever won?
Actually, I don't know what the big hurry is. Whoever decreed that the arbitrary date of March 4th is when we should determine our presidential nominees - when the general election isn't for another nine months? I find this primary season rather exciting, and fascinating, and it appears record numbers of voters do, too, so why not let it entertain us for a few more months? As Oscar Wilde once said, "The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts!"
Hillary Clinton came dangerously close to ending it Tuesday, but instead pulled off the Clinton family's latest miracle comeback, turning Sort of Super Tuesday into just another milepost on the long 2008 campaign trail. She won a predictable landslide in blue collar Rhode Island, took Ohio by a surprisingly impressive margin, and pulled out a nailbiter in the Texas primary. At this writing (almost 2am in California; it's been a long night!), the Texas caucus results are coming in by Pony Express or something, so all I can tell you is that Barack Obama has a narrow lead in the after-hours portion of the Texas voting. Obama did wallop Clinton in Vermont, but that too was a foregone conclusion. For his trouble there, I think Obama wins eight delegates, a new bong and a lifetime's supply of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey.
(By the way, we have a lifetime's supply of sound from last night's festivities, including Hillary Clinton's rousing victory speech, Barack Obama's tepid "But I'm still winning" speech, John McCain's nomination-clinching valedictory, and Mike Huckabee's farewell comedy routine, er, I mean, concession speech. Not to mention analysis galore, from the likes of San Francisco State whiz Joe Tuman. By morning, I'm sure we will have heard from Marc Sandalow, Carla Marinucci, Phil Matier and many others, so check the KCBS home page or Sovern Nation Featured Audio for the very latest interviews).
(And while I'm on this ADD digression, did you know you can download all our audio, including our hit songs, on iTunes, for free? If you subscribe to the Sovern Nation podcast there, they even download automatically to your computer so you never miss any...)
And now back to our primary.
Later today, John McCain will go to the White House, where he will be anointed with oil by President Bush, officially commencing the fence-mending portion of the Republican primary process. You can bet the Democrats will TiVo every bear hug and smile-for-the-cameras grin of the Bush-McCain lovefest, to display this fall for the 70% of voters who think Bush is a lousy president. But for now, McCain has no choice but to gladly accept the endorsement of the man who savaged him in 2000 with some of the lowest blows in modern American politics. He still needs to reassure the conservatives who don't trust him. He will also gain instant access to the apparatus of the Republican National Committee, including the Bush family's fundraising database, which will be invaluable to McCain if he's able to opt out of public financing.
Meanwhile, Clinton and Obama go on to Pennsylvania, for what amounts to Iowa and New Hampshire redux, except this time in a state that is much more representative of the rest of the nation. It's big, it's diverse, it's urban, it's rural. It's got manufacturing and farms, street gangs and Amish, Polish Catholic steelworkers and patrician Main Line WASPs. If the Dems brawl like Eagles fans, it will certainly help McCain, who will be busy marshaling resources for the fall and honing his November message. If they can stay civil (say, more like Packers fans), then at least the Democrats will benefit from an awful lot of free media attention and the concentrated focus of all these engaged voters. They will have the spotlight to themselves, so they'd best use it wisely.
But no matter who wins Pennsylvania - I assume Obama will win Wyoming this Saturday and Mississippi next Tuesday, but they're not that consequential - this thing probably won't be settled, even after the last Democrat in Puerto Rico votes June 7 (please write to my news director, urging him to send me to P.R. to cover that one!). By our reckoning, there are 1088 delegates left to give out - but only 745 of them will be determined by the voters. The rest are uncommitted superdelegates. At this hour, Obama needs at least 513 to win the nomination; Clinton needs 602. That makes it virtually impossible for either one of them to clinch this at the polls. If they split the remaining delegates, and the supers divide evenly, then Obama wins. But if Clinton gets on a little bit of a roll, she could easily claim enough delegates to keep Obama from being the nominee, while still falling short herself. You can see how the math could work for either of them still - or, more likely, neither one - leaving the nomination in the hands of the dreaded superdelegates.
Is the bloom off the rose for Obama? Did he peak too soon? Are the voters having second thoughts? I was going to explore those questions here, but it's long past time to put me to bed - even if we can't say the same yet for the Democratic presidential race.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Do I Hate All Women, or Just Hillary?
That's what an emailer asked me last week, after hearing my latest parody song, this one about the Clinton-Obama race, and seeing me opine on CBS-5 TV that the media are saying negative things about Hillary Clinton simply because there is bad news to report about her. Another asked "when will the misogyny end?" Every time we report anything negative or even mildly critical about Clinton, the newsroom phone rings off the hook and the email box fills with vitriol.
Believe it or not, folks, I don't hate women. Ask anyone who knows me and they'll laugh at the idea. Really hard. And, whether the humorless critics who get so incensed at our reporting want to accept it or not, our news coverage is not based on the gender, race, ethnicity or any other physical or innate attribute of the people we cover, unless it's germane to the story in some way.
Reporting that Hillary Clinton has lost 11 straight nominating contests, or is shaking up her staff, or is falling behind in the polls, or has gone from frontrunner to underdog, is not sexist. Any more than it is racist to report that Barack Obama has questionable ties to an indicted Chicago developer, or that Louis Farrakhan's endorsement of him makes some Jews uneasy, or that he's still a little vague on some critical policy questions and doesn't do enough interviews with the media. And yes, we have reported on these things, even though the Clinton crowd refuses to believe it.
Are the media "nicer" to Obama and harder on Clinton? I really don't think so. There are a lot of factors at play: he's a relative newcomer to politics, so there's less to pick on. She has a long, and controversial, history. He's had a remarkable streak of success and good luck the last two months, while she's had some stumbles. No one raised this issue when she was way ahead and presenting herself as the inevitable nominee. When we all did stories on how women loved her, I got no complaints. But as soon as Obama started to pull ahead, and draw massive crowds, and generate this extraordinary buzz, the nasty comments started coming. People need to step back and see the bigger picture. Have you met some of those people who hate Hillary Clinton, in an irrational, visceral way? They don't hate her because she's a woman. It's because of who she is, what she believes, or who she's married to. Most of the people who represent me in government - my City Councilperson, my County Supervisor, my Congresswoman, both of my U.S. Senators - are women. Nobody seems to resent their gender. They're all strong, powerful, outspoken women. I know them all well. Rarely do I hear anyone hate on them - well, except Barbara Boxer, some conservatives really detest her. But the point is, I think the anti-Hillary sentiment is just that - anti-Hillary. It's not misogyny. And it's not coming from the reporters who are covering this campaign, many of whom are smart, high-achieving women themselves.
In other news - and I apologize for not blogging for a little while - Ralph Nader is in again, and this time he's got former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as his running mate (you can hear our live KCBS interview with Gonzalez here). Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote in the New York Times that he is not going to run for president. But former Atlanta Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is, and she's likely to win the Green Party nomination.
What's it all mean? It means maybe three percent of the vote siphoned off the left, which will hurt the Democratic nominee. If Clinton comes back to beat Obama, then Nader and McKinney could do even better, attracting disappointed progressives. But if Obama is the nominee, I don't think they're likely to make that big a difference. Now if the disenchanted conservatives run a fourth-party candidate, that could really hurt John McCain, but right now I just don't see who that candidate would be.
Lots of other things in the news - including the spat over Hillary's "red phone" commercial, Congressman and superdelegate John Lewis switching from Clinton to Obama, John McCain accidentally calling himself a liberal - and you can read or hear all about those on the Sovern Nation home page.
We'll be back to cover the Texas Two-Step and the Ohio showdown (poor Vermont and Rhode Island are being ignored, but I promise they won't be by me, especially since I lived in the Ocean State for six years), Tuesday night on KCBS and on the website too.
Believe it or not, folks, I don't hate women. Ask anyone who knows me and they'll laugh at the idea. Really hard. And, whether the humorless critics who get so incensed at our reporting want to accept it or not, our news coverage is not based on the gender, race, ethnicity or any other physical or innate attribute of the people we cover, unless it's germane to the story in some way.
Reporting that Hillary Clinton has lost 11 straight nominating contests, or is shaking up her staff, or is falling behind in the polls, or has gone from frontrunner to underdog, is not sexist. Any more than it is racist to report that Barack Obama has questionable ties to an indicted Chicago developer, or that Louis Farrakhan's endorsement of him makes some Jews uneasy, or that he's still a little vague on some critical policy questions and doesn't do enough interviews with the media. And yes, we have reported on these things, even though the Clinton crowd refuses to believe it.
Are the media "nicer" to Obama and harder on Clinton? I really don't think so. There are a lot of factors at play: he's a relative newcomer to politics, so there's less to pick on. She has a long, and controversial, history. He's had a remarkable streak of success and good luck the last two months, while she's had some stumbles. No one raised this issue when she was way ahead and presenting herself as the inevitable nominee. When we all did stories on how women loved her, I got no complaints. But as soon as Obama started to pull ahead, and draw massive crowds, and generate this extraordinary buzz, the nasty comments started coming. People need to step back and see the bigger picture. Have you met some of those people who hate Hillary Clinton, in an irrational, visceral way? They don't hate her because she's a woman. It's because of who she is, what she believes, or who she's married to. Most of the people who represent me in government - my City Councilperson, my County Supervisor, my Congresswoman, both of my U.S. Senators - are women. Nobody seems to resent their gender. They're all strong, powerful, outspoken women. I know them all well. Rarely do I hear anyone hate on them - well, except Barbara Boxer, some conservatives really detest her. But the point is, I think the anti-Hillary sentiment is just that - anti-Hillary. It's not misogyny. And it's not coming from the reporters who are covering this campaign, many of whom are smart, high-achieving women themselves.
In other news - and I apologize for not blogging for a little while - Ralph Nader is in again, and this time he's got former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez as his running mate (you can hear our live KCBS interview with Gonzalez here). Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote in the New York Times that he is not going to run for president. But former Atlanta Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is, and she's likely to win the Green Party nomination.
What's it all mean? It means maybe three percent of the vote siphoned off the left, which will hurt the Democratic nominee. If Clinton comes back to beat Obama, then Nader and McKinney could do even better, attracting disappointed progressives. But if Obama is the nominee, I don't think they're likely to make that big a difference. Now if the disenchanted conservatives run a fourth-party candidate, that could really hurt John McCain, but right now I just don't see who that candidate would be.
Lots of other things in the news - including the spat over Hillary's "red phone" commercial, Congressman and superdelegate John Lewis switching from Clinton to Obama, John McCain accidentally calling himself a liberal - and you can read or hear all about those on the Sovern Nation home page.
We'll be back to cover the Texas Two-Step and the Ohio showdown (poor Vermont and Rhode Island are being ignored, but I promise they won't be by me, especially since I lived in the Ocean State for six years), Tuesday night on KCBS and on the website too.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Aloha Hillary
I'm just back from a much-needed mid-campaign vacation in Kaua'i. Not that I could completely escape the race there; Chelsea Clinton was campaigning for her mom in Hawaii, and Barack Obama's half-sister, who lives in Honolulu, was stumping for him. But there wasn't the same election buzz in Hawaii as there's been elsewhere. The Aloha State caucus was a slam dunk for native son Obama, and, at least on laid-back Kaua'i, the surfers and neo-hippies seemed far more interested in wave breaks and rainbows than delegate counts and poll numbers.
But now that I'm back in the mix, it's pretty clear that Obama is sucking all of the air out of the Democratic race. His rallies are packing basketball arenas: he drew 18,000 in Houston yesterday, 17,000 more in Dallas tonight. He is closing in on one million campaign donors, an astonishing and unprecedented number, and most of those people have given $100 or less. Obama t-shirts and buttons are on back order on his website. His surge of momentum is extraordinary. Even Bill Clinton said it today: if Hillary Clinton doesn't win the Ohio and Texas primaries March 4, she is done.
And Texas will be a tall order. They do things in a weird way in the Lone Star State. First of all, districts that had larger Democratic turnouts in past elections are rewarded with extra delegates. That means funky college town Austin has more delegates than megalopolis Houston and metroplex Dallas. It also means largely black urban centers have more delegates than rural Latino areas, making the delegate math tough for Clinton. Then, after the primary voting ends at 7pm, anyone who voted gets to vote again, at special caucuses, awarding even more delegates to the most motivated and organized. That all sounds like another win for Obama to me.
We talked with Nancy Pelosi today about the campaign, and she downplayed the potential role of the superdelegates. I agree with her; I think this race will be decided by the voters, long before the convention. In fact, it may have been already. When someone wins ten primaries and caucuses in a row, they're usually headed for the nomination. A successful candidate simply can't say, well, these next ten states aren't good for me, but I'll cherry pick a couple big ones after that.
Hillary Clinton has two weeks to save her campaign, somehow. She starts in Thursday night's debate in Austin. She hopes to demonstrate her command of the issues, expose Obama's areas of weakness and inexperience, and somehow slow the Obama Express. But it may be too late. People - not white or black people, old or young, men or women - but simply, people - are responding to Obama's message of hope, in a visceral way, and when that happens in politics, no strategy shift or staff shakeup can stop it.
We have a new satirical song airing Thursday, about Mike Huckabee. You can hear it here. And here is last week's McCain number, in case you missed that one. We are Equal Opportunity Offenders at Sovern Nation.
Speaking of McCain, there is breaking news tonight, from the New York Times, which reports that some of Senator McCain's 2000 presidential campaign staff were deeply concerned about his relationship with a lobbyist, and believed they were having an affair. You can read the Times story here. The newspaper has been working on this story for a long time; there's been some scuttlebutt about it out in the field, and from what I've heard, there was bitter disagreement in the newsroom about whether to run it. Apparently, other news organizations were investigating the rumors too, and the Times may have been worried about getting scooped. McCain vehemently denies any affair, and says he has never betrayed the public trust or his guiding principles. This could become a huge story for a few days - or it could backfire and further erode the public's trust in the Times' judgment. The newspaper still has some of the best reporters and writers in the business, but having started out there, once upon a time, as a copy boy, I know that it has made some shameful mistakes that never would have happened on Punch Sulzberger and Abe Rosenthal's watch. I hope this isn't another one of them.
But now that I'm back in the mix, it's pretty clear that Obama is sucking all of the air out of the Democratic race. His rallies are packing basketball arenas: he drew 18,000 in Houston yesterday, 17,000 more in Dallas tonight. He is closing in on one million campaign donors, an astonishing and unprecedented number, and most of those people have given $100 or less. Obama t-shirts and buttons are on back order on his website. His surge of momentum is extraordinary. Even Bill Clinton said it today: if Hillary Clinton doesn't win the Ohio and Texas primaries March 4, she is done.
And Texas will be a tall order. They do things in a weird way in the Lone Star State. First of all, districts that had larger Democratic turnouts in past elections are rewarded with extra delegates. That means funky college town Austin has more delegates than megalopolis Houston and metroplex Dallas. It also means largely black urban centers have more delegates than rural Latino areas, making the delegate math tough for Clinton. Then, after the primary voting ends at 7pm, anyone who voted gets to vote again, at special caucuses, awarding even more delegates to the most motivated and organized. That all sounds like another win for Obama to me.
We talked with Nancy Pelosi today about the campaign, and she downplayed the potential role of the superdelegates. I agree with her; I think this race will be decided by the voters, long before the convention. In fact, it may have been already. When someone wins ten primaries and caucuses in a row, they're usually headed for the nomination. A successful candidate simply can't say, well, these next ten states aren't good for me, but I'll cherry pick a couple big ones after that.
Hillary Clinton has two weeks to save her campaign, somehow. She starts in Thursday night's debate in Austin. She hopes to demonstrate her command of the issues, expose Obama's areas of weakness and inexperience, and somehow slow the Obama Express. But it may be too late. People - not white or black people, old or young, men or women - but simply, people - are responding to Obama's message of hope, in a visceral way, and when that happens in politics, no strategy shift or staff shakeup can stop it.
We have a new satirical song airing Thursday, about Mike Huckabee. You can hear it here. And here is last week's McCain number, in case you missed that one. We are Equal Opportunity Offenders at Sovern Nation.
Speaking of McCain, there is breaking news tonight, from the New York Times, which reports that some of Senator McCain's 2000 presidential campaign staff were deeply concerned about his relationship with a lobbyist, and believed they were having an affair. You can read the Times story here. The newspaper has been working on this story for a long time; there's been some scuttlebutt about it out in the field, and from what I've heard, there was bitter disagreement in the newsroom about whether to run it. Apparently, other news organizations were investigating the rumors too, and the Times may have been worried about getting scooped. McCain vehemently denies any affair, and says he has never betrayed the public trust or his guiding principles. This could become a huge story for a few days - or it could backfire and further erode the public's trust in the Times' judgment. The newspaper still has some of the best reporters and writers in the business, but having started out there, once upon a time, as a copy boy, I know that it has made some shameful mistakes that never would have happened on Punch Sulzberger and Abe Rosenthal's watch. I hope this isn't another one of them.
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