Almost from the beginning, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s superior name recognition and her sway with state party organizations convinced Barack Obama’s brain trust that a junior senator from Illinois was not going to be able to challenge the Clinton political machine head-on.
The insurgent strategy they devised instead was to virtually cede the most important battlegrounds of the Democratic nomination fight to Clinton, using precision targeting to minimize her delegate hauls, while going all out to crush her in states where Democratic candidates rarely ventured and causes that were often ignored.
The result may have lacked the glamour of a sweep, but tonight, with the delegates he picked up in Montana and South Dakota and a flood of superdelegate endorsements, Obama sealed one of the biggest upsets in U.S. political history and became the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to wrest his party’s nomination from the candidate of the party establishment. The surprise was how well his strategy held up — and how little resistance it met.
“We kept waiting for the Clinton people to send people into the caucus states,” marveled Jon Carson, one of Obama’s top ground-game strategists.
“It’s the big mystery of the campaign,” said campaign manager David Plouffe, “because every delegate counts.”
Strategy and smarts. A well-managed, coherent staff without petty rivalries. He survived – no defeated – the clinton machine
The man is presidential material.
No he’s not. He’s a shallow, superficial radical leftistsChicago machine politician who’s been in the Senate all of three years and has no achievements there that anyone knows about.
Hey come on, Chris, he wrote a couple biographies as well, stood by his pastor and church when they were being dissed, gave a stirring speech about something, fought for partial-birth abortion, against or for NAFTA (can’t remember which), organized communities…
I’m thinking of an inexperienced lawyer running for president of the United States. Political background? A few terms in the Illinois legislature and one in the US Congress.
Whoops. He’s a Republican.
Abraham Lincoln.
And, #4, he couldn’t hold the Union together, then he dithered about freeing slaves and finally, when he had no choice signed the Emancipation Proclamation, then he dithered about the war itself, and refused to put generals in charge who would attack, until Lee and Jackson forced him into a position that he had no choice but to turn to a younger, less experienced general who would attack – Grant. Inexperience (in the dictionary- a picture of Jimmy Carter) is not a good thing in the Presidency; it is a scary thing.
Love or hate Obama, his team outsmarted Clinton’s. As his superior strategy played out and the delegates piled up, Clinton’s “competence” argument looked sillier and sillier — like someone arguing she’s the better chess player despite being in checkmate.
He’s competent at Democratic politics, no question. The Clinton arrogance contributed here, too.
The question for the general election is whether hardball politics can cover the fact that he’s far left of the vast majority of voters.
The entire caucus system is ridiculous. Caucus states were won by energizing college kids and minorities (who notoriously do not vote in the general election). It is a system in which one must publicly stand for one’s candidate — no secret ballot involved. It is rowdy, raucous, and often confusing for participants. It is perfect for a glamorous, celebrity candidate like Sen. Obama, but it does NOT accurately reflect the will of the people when they cast a secret ballot.
Both of our national parties should move away from caucuses, and toward a regional system of primaries (with secret ballots), which will save a LOT of money and allow candidates to focus on regional issues rather than personality cults.
Hi Christopher – perhaps once you’ve finished spewing, perhaps you might find some real evidence of his political views from unbiased sources.
Your combination of “radical leftist” and “Chicago machine” politician is remarkably innovative. So – have you ever heard of Harold Washington? Kendall’s posted on Harold Washington before. As I’ve said – if you want to understand Obama, you might want to examine Harold Washington. Believe me – you’ll still hate him. But at least you’d have an accurate of Obama’s aspirations. He moved to Chicago BECAUSE of Harold Washington.
I hope that helps.
If you want proof of his leftism, however, you can check out:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21491
I don’t know how to evaluate shallow or superficial, but people thought Reagan did a pretty good job, and he was accused of the same.
Well, Billy, I guess you are one of those revisionists who wouldn’t put Abraham Lincoln as one of the greatest presidents in our history. Perhaps you preferred Polk, Fillmore, Pierce or Buchanan. I can’t argue with you.
But step back for a second. A country with 400 years of institutional racism has nominated a black person as president.
That’s pretty amazing, when you remember how entrenched racism was just 40 years ago.
“The entire caucus system is ridiculous”
Agreed. Caucus systems favor true-believer voters with time on their hands. Primary elections allow broader participation and thus a more representative outcome.
But there’s nothing untoward about how caucuses benefited Obama’s candidacy. They have benefited many less able and less worthy candidates over the years.
The caucus system reflects the romanticized notion that town meetings are better than elections. Town meetings are good, but choosing a president isn’t about local affairs. It’s better to have a primary election in which a larger proportion of the electorate can vote. You should be able to cast your vote without sitting through some long meeting.
Got that right, John. Chicago machine politicians are all pretty much the same. And way to duck the question once again. Ronald Reagan has the end of the Soviet empire among his achievements. I’m still waiting to find out something that Obama has actually gotten accomplished.
Chris: if you’d like a couple of takes on Obama’s accomplishments, check out these pieces on him here, here, and here. But I’ll bet you won’t like him any better after you’ve read them. 😉
I’m more than puzzled by the “example” of Carter as an “inexperienced” president. His experience was precisely that of George W. Bush — governor of a state. But then, the incumbent president may be a good example of the danger of putting inexperience in the White House. And I’m not certain that voting 95% of the time with that inexperience is a good recommendation.
Oh, and if I am not mistaken, Texas Republicans nominated both Bushes by caucus, another example of rowdy college students who don’t vote screwing up the nominating process.
#8, you’re absolutely right. Caucuses are flat-out ridiculous and allow schoolyard tactics to run rampant. At our precinct caucus here in Texas, all I could do is sit there with my mouth open as a pastor of a black church led his congregants marching into the hall and then proceeded to yell, cuss and threaten us when we couldn’t find most of the people’s names on our precinct voter lists. (I was a precinct captain.) Meanwhile, an Obama campaign worker could be seen and heard in the corner of the hall on his cellphone, giving directions to unseen people on how to get to our precinct caucus site and telling them to get here FAST. Uh, if they were truly voters in our precinct, wouldn’t they KNOW where they go to vote?!
Those of us who were supporting Hillary were treated to fly-bys by the pastor’s congregants as they came over to tell us how “resistant to change” we were. The pastor himself stood next to the Hillary section with his arms folded, glaring at us, and listening to our conversations. One elderly woman asked what he was doing and I said loudly, “Trying to intimidate, apparently.” It was really, really nuts.
Welcome to a snapshot of the caucus system! It leaves room for mischief-making and manipulation and it does not provide fair access to all voters. Get rid of it!
I’m amused by “chicago machine” and radical left. At least, in my history books they don’t all go together. Um – what was your question? You just made a statement. Obama comes from the community organizing wing of the party. Left? well – its the libertarian wing that says, if you want something, you should organize for it. Not sure what’s wrong with that.
Reagan was called shallow before he was elected president, I believe.
From the Washington post, Jan 4th 2008:
Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped.
This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama’s bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to “solve” crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.
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Obama had his work cut out for him.
He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. It had not been easy for a Harvard man to become a regular guy to his colleagues. Obama had managed to do so by playing basketball and poker with them and, most of all, by listening to their concerns. Even Republicans came to respect him. One Republican state senator, Kirk Dillard, has said that “Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics.”
The police proved to be Obama’s toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, “This means we won’t be able to protect your children.” The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought — successfully — to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping.
By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many.
Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.
Obama didn’t stop there. He played a major role in passing many other bills, including the state’s first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years (a law a Post story said made Illinois “one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure”). Obama’s commitment to ethics continued in the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that, among its hard-to-sell provisions, requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who “bundle” contributions for them.”
There you go, Christopher – an ability to work with Republicans and policemen for a piece of good policy that actually protected both cops and detainees.
#13, I would agree with you that inexperience of Mr. Bush may have contributed to some of his failings, though one has to wonder about the knowledge and experience he did obtain with his father having been Ambassador to China and the UN, VP and President, which Jimmy Carter never had.
#9, I would not put Mr. Lincoln as one of our greatest Presidents, not because I’m a historical revisionist, but because I do not believe he would have been listed as such, had he not been assassinated. His conduct of the war was abyssmal and he was a very unpopular President during most of his time in office and achieved very little other than fighting a war badly and the Emancipation Proclaimation, which he was not in favor of until William Sumner’s coalition forced him into a corner and he had to sign it. As an aside, I believe the hierchy of our church today would have had Lincoln negotiate with the South, rather than go to war.
[blockquote]But step back for a second. A country with 400 years of institutional racism has nominated a black person as president.
That’s pretty amazing, when you remember how entrenched racism was just 40 years ago.[/blockquote]It is a pleasure for me to agree with John Wilkins on something. I do think Obama’s rise is a testimony to the waning of racism in America. Very few people are willing to give us credit for having faced a pervasive problem so directly and correcting it.
But I don’t vote for symbols. I vote for real candidates whose policy proposals most nearly reflect my ideas of what’s best for the country. Attempts to convince me that Obama hasn’t had radical and even racialist associates and ideals for much of his life and that he doesn’t believe in policy options he has spoken of and written about and voted for for years will fail. Evidence of occasional cooperation with more mainstream politicians is not indicative of a change in his basic viewpoint.
If he runs a campaign trying to convince people that he is not who he is, I hope it will fail.
“But step back for a second. A country with 400 years of institutional racism has nominated a black person as president.
That’s pretty amazing, when you remember how entrenched racism was just 40 years ago.”
I should have mentioned my response to this yesterday, and I hope John you are still looking at this thread. In the South there are many people like me who no longer think about skin color. I haven’t thought about Obama’s skin color throughout this campaign, except when Hillary and Bill played the race card. It has occurred to me over the last 10 years that people in the Northeast and the mainstream media types pay more attention to race than any other section of the country. Yes, we in the South had the Jim Crowe laws, but that was long ago and far away. But it seems to me that folks who live outside the South won’t let racism die. Any stated or implied racial comments are big news, so the mainstream media hype them up, unless a liberal politician, like Hillary says or implies something racist. Then it hardly gets coverage. I’m not saying there are no racists in the South. But the South is so integrated now that I am saying the South as a whole has gotten over racism but I don’t think the rest of the country, especially the Northeast has. I would love to hear some feedback and comments.