Apr
10th
Thu
10th
a place for little meanderings about politics.
Apr
1st
Tue
1st
Chill out” is good advice. Hillary Clinton has every right to keep fighting. But her campaign has suffered from a ricochet effect. Attacks aimed at her opponent and efforts to exaggerate her experience have weakened rather than strengthened her claim to the nomination.
Mar
25th
Tue
25th
For three more months, Clinton is likely to hurt Obama even more against McCain, without hurting him against herself. And all this is happening so she can preserve that 5 percent chance. When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.
Mar
2nd
Sun
2nd
What repeatedly goes unrecognized by all of Mr. Obama’s opponents is that his political Kryptonite is the patriotism he offers in lieu of theirs. His upbeat notion of a yes-we-can national mobilization for the common good, however saccharine, speaks to the pride and idealism of Americans who are bone-weary of a patriotism defined exclusively by flag lapel pins, the fear of terrorism and the prospect of perpetual war.
Hillary keeps trying to dismiss Obama’s appeal as emotional, something that can be overcome with enough mental discipline. But behind that ethereal presence he’s a wonky lawyer, just like Hillary. He reads The Times and Philip Roth and talks about the fine points of Medicare Part B in a way W. never could have when he first ran for president. (Or now.)
Feb
27th
Wed
27th
She has been so discombobulated that she has ignored some truisms of politics that her husband understands well: Sunny beats gloomy. Consistency beats flipping. Bedazzling beats begrudging. Confidence beats whining.
Feb
23rd
Sat
23rd
And when historians trace how her inevitability dissolved, they will surely note this paradox: The first serious female candidate for president was rejected by voters drawn to the more feminine management style of her male rival.
But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.
Feb
20th
Wed
20th
With Michelle Obama’s remarks about finally being “really proud” of America having set off a mini-firestorm, a speech she gave at U.C.L.A. in early February is coming under renewed scrutiny. The conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt has audio here, and the passage that has him and others riled up comes at the 8:40 mark: “Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.