PA Thoughts

So in the end it appears that Hillary will walk away with a victory of just over 9 points, which is convenient, as that’s the number of delegates she’s gained on Obama, who will more than make up those nine delegates in NC, most likely.

Clinton’s victory was so small, in fact, that she is no longer able to catch Obama in pledge delegates, which leaves her with only the popular vote angle to rest on, and even that chance for success has gotten smaller.

Here are a few things I’ve taken away from the Keystone State:

1) I would love for just ONE of the two of them to point out that gun control and the 2nd amendment are not opposites.   In fact, the phrase “gun control” is meaningless unless there are, you know, GUNS TO CONTROL.  Personally, I’m anti-guns of all kind, but there IS a middle ground, people.

2) 15% of registered Democrats still believe that Obama is Muslim.  I point this out because I heard the “well, Obama outspent Clinton 3 to 1 in Pennsylvania and still lost” line.  The fact remains that Clinton has been in the national spotlight for 15 years.  Everyone knows her and most know what she’s about.  The fact that 15% of registered Democrats don’t know that Obama is a Christian is proof that he’s at a significant disadvantage just on familiarity alone.  So he has no choice but to spend more than Clinton; they’re not starting from even ground.

3) Only 37% of those who vote Democrat are white males, which means I’m a minority.  In fact, Bill Clinton didn’t win the white male vote in either general election.  Neither did Jimmy Carter.  So this big concern about whether or not white men will vote for Obama in the general election is silly.  He doesn’t need them to vote for him any more than they voted for Bill Clinton, and probably less, considering Obama’s ability to get people who don’t normally vote to actually turn up at the polls.

4) Obama pretty much had the worst few weeks of his political career leading up to Pennsylvania and he still cut Clinton’s lead in half.  That’s pretty amazing.

Two weeks until the North Carolina and Indiana primaries…

Genius

Click on “Genius” for a fantastic take on Bittergate from Jon Stewart.

Speeches

I’ve come to the conclusion that talking about Obama and Clinton is akin to debating religion and, sadly, there’s no sign of Kirk Cameron and his Croc-a-duck (if you don’t get that reference, go to Youtube and search for it — it’s well worth it).

I won’t deny that a large part of Obama’s appeal comes from his speeches.  I’m happy to say that I had only heard his 2004 DNC speech before I bought his second book, so at the very least I had the written word to go on before I completely fell under Obama’s oratorical spell.

And that’s exactly the issue at hand, that his speeches are spells.  For a seemingly growing number of people, when Obama speaks they are transported to a place of unending possibility and boundless hope.  The right wing media often compares Obama rallies to old school revivals and, as questionable as I might find that it, the similarities are there.  This is exactly why a division exists been many Obama supporters and Clinton supporters.  Obama supporters are stunned that anyone could hear their candidate speak and not fall under his spell.  Clinton supporters are stunned that so many people are being bedazzled.

It’s strange, really, to be on the ensorcelled side.  As surely as every devout Christian I’ve ever met has been baffled by my staunch refusal that the Bible is the word of god, I find myself stunned that anyone could listen to Obama speak and not want the future he’s talking about.  At the very least, I’m stunned that they wouldn’t want to try for it.

But I understand the other side as well.  I understand the skeptism towards such unbridled enthusiasm particularly given what’s at stake.  The problem, of course, is that there’s no trial run.  There’s no test we can give either Obama or Hillary in advance to determine how they’d do on the big stage.  There’s no practice SAT for president.  So in the end it’s an educated guess.

What I’ve found particularly funny in recent weeks is the “speeches don’t solve problems” movement.  I can’t be the only one who sees the problem with saying “speeches don’t solve problems” in a speech.  Even better, Obama then responds with a speech of his own.  And while there’s no argument that speeches obviously don’t solve problems, it’s pretty clear that they can cause them, particularly for the Clinton campaign.

Speaking of which, if I hear the phrase “ready on day one” again I might shoot someone.  Then again, I might be overly sensitive; I have been drinking a lot of the Kool-Aid.

Hillary

Her non-vote on Tuesday regarding the FISA bill (both Obama and McCain voted, McCain believing that the telecoms deserve retroactive immunity, Obama believing differently) — because, you know, it’s not like the primaries that day were being held anywhere near DC or anything — I actually like Hillary.  I like her a lot more than most Obama supporters I know.  I have no doubts that she’d do a great job as president, but I’ll get to that in a minute.  I think, however, that her time as First Lady might actually be screwing her over.

Recently I’ve been asking people how you qualify the experience that Hillary got from being married to the president of the United States.  On one hand, she had no real power, although she also had no one to answer to.  I would imagine that any deals she made would have to have been using Bill’s abilities as currency, as Hillary didn’t have any of her own political power to offer up, at least not any above the board.  For that matter, the most high profile project she worked on ultimately failed, which is either an indication that she really doesn’t know how to get the job done or she’s unable to.

On the other hand, she probably knows the day to day operations of the White House better than almost anyone else alive and certainly better than any of the remaining candidates.  She was Bill Clinton’s highest adviser, even if she really didn’t have the political experience to be given such a role.

The problem, as Obama has pointed out, is that Hillary will claim the successes of her husband, yet back away from the failures.  As her role has never been defined, she can do so with little evidence to the contrary.

That might actually come back to haunt her, though.  Evidently, she was against NAFTA, but kept quiet while it was pushed through.  Now she’s in a position where she has to stand by one of the failures of Bill’s term.

Regardless of her experiences with regards to policy while she was First Lady, in the end it’s the enemies she made that are going to bring her down.  While I applaud the fact that she basically broke down the door to the boys’ club using the only avenue offered to a woman at the time, there’s no doubt that many people resent her for that.  For every person who disliked her because she was a strong woman, there’s another person who thought she was overstepping her bounds.  After all, no one elected Hillary, they elected Bill.  She ultimately had as much right to power in the Clinton White House as Chelsea.

It’s flatly unfair.  There was absolutely no way Hillary could have made a run at the White House up until now, so she had to learn the ropes through Bill, not because she particularly wanted to, but because it was the only option.  Were she running on a history uncluttered by her husband — like Geraldine Ferraro was able to do — then the negative bias that so many have against her honestly wouldn’t be there.

There is an awful joke to be made, though, that, as First Lady, she failed in her one clearly defined responsibility…I kid!  I kid!

As for a Hillary presidency, I have no doubts that she would pull us up out of the muck we’ve found ourselves in.  I have no doubts that she would smart and efficient and steadfast in fixing the damage that Bush has done.  But I think Hillary would simply get us back to even, whereas Obama would takes us beyond that.

More on that tomorrow.