Marbury

time to be channeling oprah?

Time magazine's Karen Tumulty watched the Obama press conference yesterday and sensed some relief amongst Obama's key supporters...

The other sound I think I heard was a big sigh of relief from some of Obama's leading backers, who have been distraught in recent days by what they believe is Obama's unwillingness--and even inability--to show anger and passion when he needs to.

It's an interesting observation because it goes to the heart of Obama's style. One of his strengths is the coolness of his demeanour and temperament. It's the kind of quality you'd want in a Commander-In-Chief: grace under pressure and all that.

But the flipside of it is that voters can find it hard to connect with him emotionally, at least through the TV screen. Even yesterday, although you could sense a kind of cold fury if you looked hard enough, he didn't quite communicate, in his body language and tone, the kind of passion and outrage that were present in his words. I think this may have been in part a result of his tiredness. But it's also just his style. Sometimes, at least for moments like this, he'd do himself a favour by acting up a bit. Showing a bit of raw emotion now and again can be good for a candidate.

make up our minds for us

These two students happen to be Democratic superdelegates. They haven't made up their mind who to vote for, and they want to hear what their peers think they should do, via facebook and email. Given the way that Obama-ites dominate the blogosphere and the youth vote generally I think we can mark down two more votes for Obama.

Remember, you were this annoying too, once.

man overboard!

He does what he needed to do: repudiate Wright as well as his views, and in quite personal terms. It's good, though he does look weary.

should obama rid himself of wright?

There's no doubt that Rev. Wright's media grandstanding over the weekend has made the issue of Obama's relationship with him an urgent problem again. So far, Obama has refused to disown Wright. But perhaps this latest episode might force him, or provoke him, to throw the Reverend overboard.

Salon asks a collection of pundits what Obama should do about Wright now. Andrew Sullivan, a keen Obama supporter, has this to say:

Obama has to disown his own surrogate father. I see no other way forward. It's terrible it has come to this, but the combination of Wright himself and the mainstream media makes it impossible to avoid.

Gosh, it's like Star Wars!

obama doing well with prog rock stars

The Floyd endorse Obama:

snap out of it, man

Michael Tomasky has written a brilliant rant about the Obama campaign's failure to refresh its message. I agree wholeheartedly with everything he says, especially the bit about new policy ideas. If Obama is so keen to get the campaign coverage away from trivialities, then he needs to come up with some non-trivial bits of news.

I noted yesterday that the Obama campaign has been incredibly impressive during the course of this nomination race, and one of its virtues has been consistency of message - a refusal to be blown off-course by events or media soothsayers. In the run-up to Iowa, for instance, when he didn't seem to be making enough headway against Clinton, there were plenty of people demanding he go negative. Obama and his advisers kept their heads, remained true to their core message of change, and won the day. But perhaps that success and his subsequent victories have bred complacency, even arrogance. There's a fine line between consistency and a lack of creativity.

Underlying this is the question of motivation. Obama's lack of prepared answers to the questions about flag-pins and Wright at the ABC debate was appalling. You don't have to think those are worthy questions to agree. If he'd thought about it he could have used those questions to make powerful statements about who he is and why he's in this race. But he came off like a man who thinks he's above having to explain himself to anyone. That and the hints that he's bored by the whole thing are beginning to give the impression that he lacks the stomach for this fight. As Tomasky says, voters can smell that.

the reverend wright show

It's pretty bad. Here, for instance, he basically suggests that America is a terrorist state. And doesn't he look pleased with himself?

(Report and more video here)

all about the reverend

Obama's turbulent pastor Jeremiah Wright seems to be rather enjoying his new-found notoriety. Last weekend he did an interview with Bill Moyers on TV; today he spoke and took questions at the National Press Club Breakfast in D.C.

You might have thought that if he wants his old friend to do well he'd be staying away from press conferences and the like. But nope, he seems to relish going over the issues raised by his sermons again and again, giving the news shows endless excuses to play the same old clips of him raising hell from the pulpit, before cutting back to Obama.

As NBC'S Chuck Todd says here, the Reverend's media blitz is an act of extraordinarily selfish vanity, and there's no doubt that it's damaging Obama in the days leading up to that crucial contest in Indiana.

At this point, no matter one's political inexperience, Wright has to know he's not helping his friend; his decision to go public and defend his reputation at this point in the campaign is doing nothing to help Obama, if anything, it's leading some to believe he's actually trying to sabotage him. He's hurting him and hurting him very badly. Frankly, it’s as selfish of a move as we've seen in some time...Still, if Wright Vol. 1, “bitter,” and Pennsylvania didn’t move superdelegates, what will? Nevertheless, Obama seems to be starting off this week in about as bad of shape as we've seen in him in some time.

oh just give me the nomination already

He's bored by it all apparently.

Not a good look.

deano speaks

Howard Dean, the Democrats' national chairman, has the uncomfortable task of holding the ring in this fight. Here's what he said to the New York Times on Friday:

I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else.

He said a similar thing on Meet The Press yesterday. It's a view of the race that Clinton would enthusiastically endorse. He's didn't say, for instance, "the superdelegates are most likely to follow the will of the primary voters", or "we'd like to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible" or "some people just don't know when to quit". He's saying, it's up to the party establishment to make a call. He's effectively legitimizing the superdelegates' right to put Obama's lead in the race so far to one side, and to make up their minds based on their own judgment of who's going to do better against McCain.

What he didn't add, however, is that part of that calculation will involve what will happen to the party should the nomination be tipped to Clinton at this stage. If you believe that the party will rally behind whoever wins, then you'll be able to make a decision based purely on the candidates' respective strengths and weaknesses. If you suspect that all hell will break lose amongst the rank and file if the nomination is taken away from a much-admired African-American candidate with a lead in pledged delegates, then that might give you pause, even if you think Clinton the stronger candidate.

no mark penns

As question marks appear over Obama's viability as a general election candidate, it's worth remembering that he has run one of the exemplary campaign operations of modern times: cohesive, disciplined, talented, and far-sighted. One of its strengths has been the fact that - unlike a certain other campaign - everyone at the top seems to like each other. This is not by accident; here's Obama's chief strategist attempting (successfully) to persuade consultant Jim Margolis to join the campaign:

You gotta come spend a little more time with Barack,” Axelrod told him.

“You know what these things are like,” Margolis said.

“There are no assholes,” Axelrod responded. “There are going to be no assholes on this campaign.”

1992

It's April. In the Democratic nomination race, Governor Bill Clinton is the only candidate left standing after his main rival, Paul Tsongas, drops out. But the party's superdelegates are very wary about backing the young governor from Arkansas because of serious doubts over his electability:

Eventually, most of the superdelegates are likely to back Mr. Clinton, if only because there is no place else for them to go. But they will do so "with extreme reluctance," one said, and the delay and the grudging spirit makes it harder for Mr. Clinton to move his campaign onto a higher plateau, free of character issues...

..."There's a real tug-of-war up here," said one House member. "Especially on this side, there are a lot of people who are terrified that all the character questions, all the negatives about Clinton that showed up in New York, make him so weak that a lot of people will lose their seats."

that's how to tell 'em

John McCain got asked today about remarks made by a semi-prominent supporter of his (Rev. John Hagee), suggesting that Hurricane Katrina was God's payback for the gays and sins of New Orleans. This is what he said:

It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. I don't have anything additional to say. It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, I don't have anything more to say....it's nonsense. I reject it categorically.

Might be good for Obama to show a bit of that attitude when he's asked about Rev. Wright's crazier contentions.

maybe he's heard there are no second acts in american lives

Although I don't agree with everything in Peggy Noonan's column today, I agree with this:

This is an opportunity, for Mr. Obama needs an Act II. Act II is hard. Act II is where the promise of Act I is deepened, the plot thickens, and all is teed up for resolution and meaning. Mr. Obama's Act I was: I'm Obama. He enters the scene. Act III will be the convention and acceptance speech. After that a whole new drama begins. But for now he needs Act II. He should make his subject America.

Obama can wrap up the nomination without an Act II. But it's become clear over the last few weeks (Wright/Cling etc) that he's got a way to go to convince many Americans that he's not just a media darling, or just a creature of the liberal middle-class. That he's a president for everyone. And for that to happen he needs to move his story along. It's in danger of getting stuck.

I think, if you spend the amount of money he did in Pennsylvania, and you campaign as hard as he did, and you lose by nine points, you should maybe take that as a sign that it's time to freshen things up. Most candidates reinvent themselves somewhere along the line, and the best ones do it without losing touch with who they are. Obama and his team should pause for a moment and have a think about how they can use Indiana and North Carolina as pivots to propel them towards the next part of his story.

But, er, apparently not.

how clinton can win

With pictures and stuff. It does involve a meteor.