Coming home to Middle America
Respect to Maureen Dowd of the New York Times for , describing the over-spending of the Clinton campaign as being like that of "a hedge fund manager in a flat-screen TV store".
, is it not? I remember going to Texas years ago when the Democrats were being re-districted out of power for what seemed like a generation. This piece - calmly - suggests they might be back. And of course the nature of the support, the mores of the people who represent the party, has an effect on the party itself. If Texans become important in the party, a Texan take on life might compete with that of San Francisco or Manhattan.
It's not just that policies affect where support comes from - the process is circular and the geographical spread of support will affect future policy. Amid all the talk of Barack Obama being a lefty - a Canadian even - there is a bigger picture of a Democratic Party coming home to Middle America if the wins, congressional, presidential et al, were to be huge in November.
I am writing this in a hotel in Cincinnati waiting to hook up with Team Obama for a magic carpet ride across the wonderful state of Ohio. Not that I have yet been offered even the tiniest sip of Kool-Aid but I wonder if the extent of the certainty of the Obama victory is being under-reported out of - for want of a better word - cowardice?
"The pundit class hasn't been quicker to point all this out because of what happened in New Hampshire. A lot of us looked foolish by all but writing Hillary off when she lost the Iowa caucuses. As we should have known, stuff happens in politics. But that was early. The stuff that would have to happen now would be on a different order of magnitude. It's time to stop overlearning the lesson of New Hampshire."
Omigod. He won and nobody's even noticed...
Hello, I'm 
颁辞尘尘别苍迟蝉听听 Post your comment
FUNNY, THE THINGS YOU SAY....
I WATCH YOU AND "THE BOYS" TRYING TO PUSH OBAMA OR McCAIN ON THE AMERICANS, AND TALK OF THE SHAPING OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. AND (WHILE TOTALLY DIS-REGARDING THE REAL CANDIDATE OF CHOICE, RON PAUL, BY TRYING TO KEEP HIM INVISIBLE)...YOU BEGIN "PUSHING RALPH NADER AT US" AS THOUGH HE WERE THE "OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN". WELL, BUDDY, THE ONLY "OTHER SIDE" IS STILL RON PAUL.
AND OBAMA IS NATURALLY BIG WITH BLACKS.
LEAVE OUR FAKE DEMOCRACY ALONE....AND GIVE US RON PAUL, THE ONLY GOOD GUY!
Caution is the order in press. The New Hampshire may have gone the way it did but I don't see a repeat of the same in Texas. Texas is Hillary's to lose so whether Obama losses or not I don't thing it will really bear much on him. Anyway I hope he wins it BIG. Let's do it OBAMA!
It is amazing that Americans think that CNN and MSNBC are favoring Obama. Some people just cannot see how crazy and schizo-like the Clinton campaign has become.
What we want is what our forefathers wanted: unity.
Lee an independant in California
What a gem the Obama campaign has found in Justin! A short while ago he was getting an e-mail from them and now he's waiting "to hook up with the Obama team". The links could not be more anti-Clinton and, for what is supposed to be fair, unbiased reporting, this makes Fox News and Bill O'Reilly look like innocents; no wonder the 主播大秀 is criticised adversely. It would be a service to the readers of his blogs if he referred readers to something more substantial rather than some petty nonsense about the cost of donuts - why not ask Team Obama just how much they have spent on feeding their helpers? Much as some would like to hear it, Mr Obama has not won and Mrs Clinton will not withdraw from Texas or Ohio. Indeed why should she? If Mr Obama's supporters are so sure of his victory, then they should have no fear of the result - but withdrawal, as with sex, would be an entirely unsatisfactory outcome. Let the voters decide, not the media, which has shown - and continues to show - an unparalleled bias in favour of one candidate.
I don't know. To me it seems his drumbeat isn't as loud as before. And he still has 8 days. Meanwhile, Hillary is getting a lot more press recently.
It was the democrats who supported a war with Mexico to stop Mexico reconquering Texas. Mind you they are not running against the whigs. Ye Ha.
Justin people have been watching and reading and noticing for some time. Omigod may be your take but it isn't really a surprise, except to some elements in the media who have been looking in the wrong direction. Please now turn to what Obama might have to offer in a positive way. And help us objectively look at his record. And the huge implications for American politics if we get a black President.
I never believe anything a pundit says, especially when they claim to know the future.
If Obama is as liberal as all the facts seem to indicate, he will have a very tough time holding on to those suburban votes once Republicans turn their big guns on him. Hillary can't argue on issues because she has the same views. Republicans on the other hand, certainly can, and will undoubtedly be ferocious. Of course, Obama's vague campaign thus far could be a huge asset since he can style himself as a centrist next without looking like a liar. For that matter however, would his disciples stay with him through that?
Whatever the case, there's lots of maneuvering left to go, and predicting a Democratic South and Midwest from some momentum in an internal primary at this early stage seems beyond silly.
what if......Obama loses Texas and Ohio, however narrowly ? It would mean he had not picked up a really large state outside Ill......which would presumably bode ill in the general election, even if Obama won the Democratic nomination ?
Justin,
Thanks for the links. I found the Gender one especially interesting.
Salaam/Shalom/Shanthi/Dorood/Peace
Namaste -ed
There was a similar article but with a long-term view in the FT last Wednesday by Stephen Graubard saying she should back out now if she wants a shot in 2016 -scoring some points in the Senate in the meantime. It ends thus, "Will Mrs Clinton recognise this historic possibility and confound the mass media, baying for battle? An unlikely prospect, some will say."
Barack Obama's got about a million more votes than Hillary Clinton. Even when you inlcude the total vote count from Florida and that other state that was discounted, he still wins with the popular vote. I think this is very important. They cannot appoint Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee without looking supremly hypocritical for moaning about Bush becoming President in 2000 despite Al Gore having 500,000+ votes than.
Anyway, for those Americans who are undecided, I have already done the homework for you and discovered that Barack Obama is not only the best person to become the Democratic party's nominee but he is also the best person to become the next President of the United States of America. So, if you are undecided, I think the conclusions from my research leave nothing to doubt - you have to vote for Barack Obama.
"... I wonder if (...) the certainty of an Obama victory is being under-reported ..."
Really? You believe an Obama victory is certain?
Then why don't you just say so? And why don't you state your reasons for thinking so? Instead, you're hedging, trying to appear to have picked the winning team but still being able to back out of it if it all goes differently.
I've been following this blog for a little while now, and - to be frank - I'm not impressed. It seems you have few opinions and less wit ("Baracklash" indeed!). Sorry, Justin.
I realize this collumn is an opinion and not a news piece, but for the love of the Television Tax, could you as a 主播大秀 reporter, not use the phrase "Omigod"?
I am writing from Cincinnati and I have to say that Obama's support has grown tremendously over the last few months, even among moderate Republicans.
No one has yet speculated on what nasty things might occur if Hillary is denied the Democratic nomination. Rightly or wrongly, it's hard to escape the conclusion that she believes it's "her turn." It's also obvious she is convinced she is better prepared to be president than Obama, giving at least one example of campaign rhetoric being factual.
If Obama takes the nomination, will Senator Clinton smile, give a lukewarm endorsement and then do nothing to ensure Obama's election? That's my bet. It could even be nastier than that, with the Clintons working behind the scenes to guarantee a McCain victory, with plausible deniability of course.
In that event -- McCain beating Obama -- Hillary would be perfectly positioned for 2012. Defeated U.S. presidential nominees do not typically run again, so presumably Obama would be out of consideration for 2012. Only Dick Nixon and Adlai Stevenson have done so in the last century.
The superdelegates -- elected Democratic officials including members of Congress -- must even now be discussing this scenario. Anyone familiar with the Clintons knows that they will not go quietly into the night and that they always, always position themselves spectacularly for the next electoral contest.
Naturally, if Hillary wins Ohio and Texas, the entire picture changes to advantage Clinton, giving the superdelegates the easy out they need to vote for her at convention. Even if she does not win, she will still come away with delegates and the match will hinge on those superdelegates. Then, the question becomes what do they fear most -- a Clinton presidency or a Clinton vendetta stretching over many years.
I feel Maureen Dowd deserves some sort of credit for managing to pack so many different kinds of sexism into one article, too.
That said, if it's true that Clinton's campaign is claiming plagiarism of Lindsay Lohan as a strength, she's doomed. Unless Britney Spears declares for Obama, perhaps.
Ah yes, Maureen Dowd, fun-nee, who only a few months ago was deriding Obama and Edwards as effeminate (Hillary was exempted from the snickers鈥攏ot hilarious enough?) and who boasted about her fun-nee invented canards attacking Gore in 2000 because that was more fun than digging into the disaster that Bush wrought as Governor of Texas...hahaha...But Ms Dowd and others in the mediacracy have inspired me to emulate Justin in creating new words (without applying for copyright as with 鈥淏aracklash鈥) to sum up predictable content, so that a Sneerment for Ms Dowd 鈥揳s with Puffment and Plugment should be sufficient labels to enable easy indexing for future researchers in the Taxonomy of Trivialization---so much more fun and who cares what happens鈥攋ust change the narrative and switch the targets鈥攌eep your eyes and ears protected when the Full Smearments start hitting the fans, and I mean people fans as well.
I like Jon Alter, but on him no less than the rest of the U.S. press that continues to trot out "the lesson of New Hampshire['s 8th January primary]" is its *true* lesson lost --namely, that the pseudoincumbent, with less than 40 percent of the overall party vote and a piddling winning margin of 2.5 percent, barely topped the insurgent in a state that she'd been working for years, into which she poured millions and where her eventual "winning" numbers, had they been told to her three months before primary day, would have left her utterly aghast.
I told people at the time: "Some 'comeback' --if the Clinton camp sees this for anything other than the reprieve that it is, they're out of their minds."
I would be careful to suggest that the 21st century Democratic base isn't only found--geographically speaking--along the coasts.
The Great Lakes have been a bastion of support for Democrats in the past two elections. More votes for Kerry came out of IL, MI, MN, and WI in 2004 than all of New England. As much as all of NY and PA combined, and close to the combined total for Dems in CA/OR/WA. Places like OH were the exception rather than the rule, and (of course) hotly contested.
So the myth of flyover country as somehow generally Republican isn't born out by the numbers--Dems really already have three regions of geographic dominance. However, I do agree what will be interesting is to see whether economically booming and fast-growing states like TX and AZ start to consistently trend Democratic. That would be real news. For all the talk of states like NY, PA, OH, and IL (I live in Chicago) still being heavyweights, other areas are where the real economic and demographic action is.
The conservative / liberal barometer is widely touted for current candidates.
Where do some past Republican greats fall on this scale? Are today's Democrast that far from some past Republicans? Where would we place:
Teddy Roosevelt the trust buster who presided over a sea change in food and workplace safety, his times remind me of modern day developing Asia, except that many of the Upton Sinclairs there are in jail and have no outlet in the press...
Eisenhower the 'dynamic conservative' who enforced Supreme Court civil rights decisions; increased the reach of New Deal program coverage, thus expanding America's safety net; and sent troops to protect the start of a few decades of Lebanse democracy, but didn't intervene in Egypt or Vietnam.
Would these Republicans be electable today? Would they be too "liberal"?
Wow.... all caps huh? What you have to say must be important to warrant the excessive use of the caps lock key.
Ron paul is more on an idealist than any of the most left leaning socialists. None of his ideas could work.
Black president? White president? or US President?!!!!!
No one is running to be a black or white president. The candidates are running to be US president.
Enough of racism.
Vote the candidate who the people find the most electable. It is democracy and accept people's vote.
Ron Paul is joke. That idiot wants to do away with the payroll tax system by shifting taxes onto a National sales tax. Why doesn't he just hunt down the poor with a rifle? Oh yes, thats right, Cheney beat him to it.
I can't wait for the the repiglicans to get out of office. I want my America back.
"It was the democrats who supported a war with Mexico to stop Mexico reconquering Texas. Mind you they are not running against the whigs. Ye Ha."
Er, parties turned on their heads in the 20th Century ... sorry you missed it.
Jackson would no more be a Democrat today than Lincoln would be a Republican.