Completely Unnecessary

Yay. Supposedly Obama’s set to name his running mate tomorrow, ending months of media speculation and prognostication. The list currently stands with Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware in the lead.

Apparently, the current favorite is Biden, which is such a surprise to me. Though a happy surprise. I like Biden a lot, and he’s got the foreign policy chops.

The problem, however, is how much he contributes to the 50-state plan that Dean and Obama are running. Also, two senator ticket - gives McCain the advantage should he nominate a governor.

Seriously though, I can’t wait for this announcement since it will finally inject some wind into the pre-convention doldrums in which we’re currently languishing. I mean, McCain’s Cone of Silence?

Though one of my students did say yesterday that she thought Clinton got more favorable coverage simply because she was a woman and different from the other candidates. So then the entire class took a trip to a online gallery of unflattering Clinton photos, and were treated to a diatribe about the choices the media made in selecting pictures of candidate Clinton. And the pictures they’ve selected since.

Bring on the veeps - I’m sick of picking the candidates to pieces. The more obscure the better; let’s really get to know these (most likely) guys.

Vaguely Related

• Serenity November
• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read

I was reading this article on TPM Election Central today, and, gosh, if the older gentleman with bills didn’t look familiar!

Well, there’s a reason - he’s the same bill-checking older gentleman that was concerned about the economy at three am! Here’s him blue-hued by the Clinton staff to indicate ‘nighttime’:

How many thousands of hours of stock footage do you think there is available to both these campaigns?

So, it is just laziness or do you think the McCain campaign is trying to bring up memories of the Clinton campaign? Perhaps a subtle way of reminiding those anti-Obama Clintonites of their vows?

Yeah, or just laziness.

Vaguely Related

• Serenity November
• Obama to Name VP

Okay, look - I’m not one of those people screaming at the media at the moment. I don’t think Clinton lost because of sexist treatment - though it certainly didn’t help.

This blog, however, has been like a treasure trove of unflattering pictures of HRC. See yesterday’s post, por ejemplo.

So, why - why, is this run now?! (And you can click on the pic for a larger version)

“Now, in her diminishment…” she finally gets a good picture?

I don’t want to sound like a feminist conspiracy theorist, but there’s something odd about the lovely words and images poured forth upon a woman who’s finally stopped being too brassy.

I mean, I’ve seen The Philadelphia Story. Katherine Hepburn learns to be ‘yaw’ and then everyone loves her. It’s a great movie.

But there’s also a reason for that.

NY Magazine Table of Contents

Vaguely Related

• Life Without Hillary Clinton
• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read

Sorry for the conspicuous silence. Four days of no blogging left some of you poking a toe at the corpse. Presumably no one’s ever heard me go so long without talking. (Not heard?)

Anyhow, there are a couple things on the back burner, but a cold, papers and someone’s clever idea of a bottle of champagne at 4am kind of trashed the weekend.

I’m in the midst of reading Frank Rich’s column:

Then again, in his frantic efforts to explain why he sided with Mr. Bush to oppose an expanded G.I. bill that the Senate passed by 75 to 22, Mr. McCain has attacked Mr. Obama for not enlisting in the military.

Besides making Mr. McCain look ever angrier next to his serene opponent, this eruption raises the question of why he chose double-standard partisanship over principle by not applying this criterion to the blunderers who took us into Iraq.

And I wonder if Obama can win the general by appearing ’serene’.

I have a cartoon above my desk of Kevin Rudd and John Howard in a boxing ring. Rudd’s snuggling a puppy, while Howard raises a fist in the air and screams in frustration, ‘HIT ME!’

He never did, and he won by letting Howard hang himself on his own record (and interest rates).

Part of Clinton’s problem in this campaign has been that Obama won’t come out and hit her. The Clintons know how to deal with direct attacks; as has been made clear throughout the campaign, they don’t know what to do when their opponent sort of pretends that they don’t exist.

Perhaps after eight years of a bellicose cowboy, the American people (or at least more than half) might be drawn in by a thoughtful professor who might actually run the country. And not attack everyone that looks at us askance.

This is not to say that Obama’s a puppy snuggler. He’s a Machine candidate, and he’s got Axelrod. There are stories being flogged and dirt being dug, but the Obama campaign’s best move in the campaign has been to have their candidate appear above the fray. They let him sit up top the mountain whilst Clinton and McCain take potshots at him. Most of their missiles have thus far fallen back on their heads.

If someone can get Trinity United to stop taping sermons until after November, Obama’s place on that mountain might be pretty safe.

We might need some good t-shirts, too. Nothing really rhymes with ‘Barack’.

Obama: Great in ‘08?

Vaguely Related

• Obama to Name VP
• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read

People assume that I’m a Clinton supporter because I’m writing my thesis on her. It took me a long time to make a decision, but I eventually came down on the side of Obama.

With Obama making plans in Iowa for Tuesday night - presumably to claim the nomination - it seems a good time to reflect on the campaign and prospects for the future.

The problem is that I love Hillary Clinton. I think she’d make a great president, which is why it’s been so painful to see her campaign struggle and wildly misjudge the electorate. She undoubtedly faced a hostile press, but seemed unable to stop herself and her surrogates from continually harming her campaign.

Yet, Kate Zernike’s short opening question in her Week in Review piece laid bare the deep sorrow I’ll feel when Clinton seemingly inevitably gives in:

If not her, who?

And how long will we have to wait?

It’s not that I think a woman will necessarily represent me better than a man - just as I resent the media for assuming I am a woman candidate’s natural constituency - but I do sometimes wonder how much of a difference it would make in the lives of American women if we had a woman president.

Might some glass ceilings be shattered? Might some laws about women’s bodies be prevented? Might this never-ending cycle of women as ‘firsts’ be broken so that it stops holding back other women who run for office?

Anyway, looks like we won’t know this year.

But for many women, whether or not they support Mrs. Clinton, the long primary campaign has left them with a question: why would any woman run?

Many feel dispirited by what they see as bias against Mrs. Clinton in the media — the “Fatal Attraction” comparisons and locker-room chortling on television panels.
…
For this reason, [Karen O'Connor] said, she doesn’t expect a serious contender anytime soon. “I think it’s going to be generations.”

Others say Mrs. Clinton had such an unusual combination of experience and name recognition that she might actually raise the bar for women.

In fact, the biggest point of agreement seemed to be that there is no Hillary waiting in the wings.

Except, of course, Hillary.

I find this article almost absurdly depressing. I feel like Clinton and I have both let each other down.

Confidential to Hillary Clinton: If we’re wrong about Obama, you come kick his ass in 2012, okay?

Links:
She Just Might Be President Someday [NYT - Week in Review]
Obama to Return to Iowa, Possibly to Claim Victory [NYT]

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Clinton: The Photographic Evidence of ‘Yaw’

I’m funny, because I’ve cheered on Obama for the last couple months, and breathlessly refreshed as he pulled ever-closer in the IN primary last night.

Yet, as the pundits started to declare Clinton’s demise, I thought, “Don’t you tell her what she can and cannot do!”

Anyway, Wonkette’s Jim Newell has proved (using CNN delegate counter) that she can still clinch the nomination. She only needs 45% of the superdels and 100% of the remaining pledged delegates. Totally doable.

But perhaps I was just picking up on the subtle messages relayed by NYT reporter Jim Rutenberg, who seemed to be channeling Clinton in his story last night:

Very early this morning, after many voters had already gone to sleep, the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Senator Hillary Clinton’s continued viability as a presidential candidate.

The term ‘elite’ also came up in reference to superdelegates, who, it was presumed, would listen to the advice of ‘Washington’s class of political insiders.’ Terms like ‘world of instant political analysis’, commentariat and punditocracy appeared, as well. Those elites are counting her out again!

Aside from the slap at the superdels (which Clinton would never pull), it sounds a lot like Clinton’s stump speech from the last three weeks. Though we can’t argue with Rutenberg for taking the pundits and other news media to task:

Of course, the political news media have not exactly showered themselves in glory this year. They have frequently made predictions that have been upended by actual votes from actual people.

Too true.

Wonkette’s stellar math notwithstanding, Clinton’s going to have a rough go saying that she’s the more electable nominee. Indiana should have been hers, and the fact that she barely pulled it out with Obama at his weakest (arguably) makes it hard to keep going.

Either way, if she could just drop out or be the nominee by 30 May, that’d be awesome. That’s when my thesis is due, and it’d be nice to have kind of a bookend for it.

Finally, this is the most disturbing thing I’ve read this election cycle:

But the impact was apparent almost immediately, starting with The Drudge Report, the online news billboard that is the home page to many political reporters in Washington and news producers in New York.

My question - how can you be elite and read Drudge?

Links:
Pundits Declare Race Over [NYT]
Elite Math: How Hillary Clinton Will Win the Nomination Now [Wonkette]

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

Fascinating article on Clinton in today’s NYT. Some highlights below in terms of gendered language.

I know a hell of a lot about Hillary Clinton, but there were some really interesting things I’d never heard before. For instance, she’s the one who came up with the term ‘war room’ for the 1992 Clinton campaign strategy team. Incidentally, War Room is an interesting documentary about that time, featuring Carville and Stephanopoulos, who looks all of about 15-years-old in 1992.

“She makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy,” North Carolina’s governor, Michael F. Easley, said in endorsing her, and a union leader in Portage, Ind., praised her “testicular fortitude.”

This kind of language and pugilistic imagery, however, also evokes the baggage that makes Mrs. Clinton such a provocative political figure. For as much as a willingness to “do what it takes” and “die hard” are marketable commodities in politics, they can also yield to less flattering qualities, plenty of which have been ascribed to her over the years. Just as supporters praise her “toughness” and “tenacity,” critics also describe her as “divisive,” “a dirty fighter” or “willing to do anything to win.”

I’m amazed that they totally leave aside the ‘bitch’ memes that float around her (or expressed on national television by Newt Gingrich’s mom). There are only vague references to troubles with her public persona. ‘Uppity’ is about the closest they get to describing the usual ‘aggressive’, ‘too…’, ‘not enough…’ language that usually turns up.

That’s not true actually - the NYT just has someone else say it:

“To me it showed her brittleness, her coldness, her spoiling for a fight,” said Mr. Cooper, an Obama backer.

Anyway, I think it’s a really interesting article, both in the construction and the content. Especially, as it’s currently running with a flattering picture of Obama and his daughter as a sidebar.

ps - couldn’t hate the gas tax ‘holiday’ more if they were offering to fuel cars with puppies.

Link:
Ruthlessness and Grit Seen in Clinton’s Style [NYT]

Vaguely Related

• Life Without Hillary Clinton
• Clinton, the Pundits and the Math

I’m sure no one will take this out of context - over and over and over:

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Why would ABC clip it that way? For full context: she was responding to this question:

Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on “Good Morning America” Tuesday. ABC News’ Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

An Iranian nuclear attack on Israel is a pretty extreme circumstance made all the more fanciful by the fact that Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, presumably the point of Clinton’s ‘next 10 years’ remark. Faced with an Iranian-instigated nuclear war against a major ally, I imagine any president would attack them.

I haven’t seen the interview - it doesn’t air for a couple hours - but this is a really awkward structure. It seems intentionally designed to make her sound like attacking Iran is in the cards. Other media and blogs are completely going to lift that quote without the sentence before it.

Which is not to mention the headline makes it sound like we’re ready to go today:

Clinton on Iran Attack: ‘Obliterate Them’

I assume ABC is still riding high from the positive reactions to their debate coverage.

I can’t decide if this is just bad or if it’s intentionally making Clinton sound more hawkish for the conservative, rural Pennsylvanian voters.

Link:
Clinton on Iran Attack: ‘Obliterate Them’ [ABC]

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

The moment we’ve all been breathlessly prognosticating is nearly upon us. With this serious presidential primary nearly at hand, I’m not sure which NYT story depresses me more: Clinton trotting out Osama bin Laden or President Bush’s appearance on Deal or No Deal.

Let’s dispense with the first one. Clinton’s ad makes her the first Democrat to use bin Laden against an opponent. (But at least she’s being noted as first for something other than her gendered candidacy!)

I presume wolves and bears are in the queue.

I’ll leave the second article for a separate post as it’s likely to be long…

Update: In response to Clinton’s ad, the Obama campaign is pointing people to a 2004 Bill Clinton video where he urges voters to select a candidate that makes them think and hope over one that tries to scare them.

The Obama team is good, no doubt. But, man, they’re also really, really lucky that their candidate’s spouse hasn’t been in the public eye for the last 16 years, occasionally being the President.

Video via TMP Election Central (the post also has the video of the Clinton commercial)

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Clinton, the Pundits and the Math