Election 2008

Twenty-five delegates are not all that the state of South Carolina has granted Barack Obama this weekend.

The Saturday primary was exactly for what the Obama campaign could have hoped. It was a win for Obama of greater proportions than yet seen in the primary race—margins of thirty-percent in favor of him over Clinton and Edwards.

The exit polls tell the story of a victory among young voters, females, and African-American voters, a compelling story for the Sunday papers, talk shows, and brunch banter.

In New Hampshire Hillary Clinton’s victory was a result of her, well, Clintonian door-to-door/ town-hall style of campaigning around the state (and yes, the “tears” could have helped). But now, less than ten days away from Super, or Tsunami Tuesday on February 5, the meet-and-greet approach is impractical and impossible. At this stage, free media is gold.

Endorsements are central to playing the media game, and few are more coveted within the Democratic party than support from the Kennedy family. Today Caroline Kennedy wrote in the New York Times of her belief that Obama can be a “President Like My Father.” Senator Ted Kennedy is in agreement.

As Democrats are not campaigning in Florida prior to Tuesday’s primary, the candidates’ attention and paid media cash is scattered across the country, from California to Georgia. Any little bit of help from the commentariat can only help.

This weekend Barack Obama took center stage and was able to portray himself as the candidate to beat. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards must reclaim the front page if they are to curtail Obama’s momentum before next Tuesday.

We’re back on-line (after some server trouble) at just the point when the candidates have to pause briefly to allow the voting public a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving. The candidates may not be thankful, but the public surely is. For a day we will be without new polls, candidate debates or spin. It’s a good time for taking stock, which is, after all, a big part of Thanksgiving.

We’re in a strange place right now in terms of the campaign and foreign affairs. None of the candidates – in either party – thinks the Iraq war has been conducted well, none thinks that the decision to go to war (based on what we now know) was wise. But no one (except Joe Biden) has articulated a strategy for what should happen in this critical country after American troops begin leaving, probably sometime before next November. The military “surge” seems to be working, for which we should all be thankful, but where is the political “surge?” The only public action in Washington last week on Iraq was inaction, as both the Senate and House left town without passing funding for the troop deployment.

In a post after last week’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas, I compared it to professional wrestling – a kind of political “smackdown.” For a couple of news cycles afterward, the talk was about Hillary having picked herself up, then came polls that showed Obama for the first time with a five point lead in Iowa and closing the gap in New Hampshire. The tighter the race gets, the less it will be about issues and the more it will be about perception. This is the province of the campaign ad, and a slew of them have just been introduced into the airwaves of Iowa and the early primary states. I recommend you watch Giuliani’s muscular pitch or Hillary’s tough talk on energy. But resurgent Mike Huckabee’s hard-hitting promo takes this all to its logical (ridiculous) conclusion. Watch it before sitting down to your turkey dinner, but after you’ve had a drink.

After dinner, you might listen to a discussion by two prominent pundits, Mark Halperin (ABC) and John Harris (Politico), who spoke last week before the San Francisco World Affairs Council. You can listen to it here. To whet your appetite, I will list their shorthand descriptions of the three top Democratic candidates, as they viewed by the “filter” – political professionals and media pundits: Clinton – “warrior”; Obama – “interesting, frivolous”; Edwards – “phoney.”

Enjoy your turkey!

Our political contests borrow heavily from military vocabulary: “campaigns” are waged in “battleground” states, “attack” ads “target” key opponents, and so on. Since 2004, we even have an opprobrious tactic — “swiftboating” — drawn from a synonymous naval vessel.

But on this Veterans’ Day, we are reminded that there is very little military experience — except for John McCain’s — among the current Presidential candidates and their lieutenants. Our most notable military hero in public life, McCain is the only candidate who can speak of deploying American forces with a credibility borne of his own personal experience. However, due to the unpopularity of the Iraq War and his strong support of it, this turns out not to be much of an asset. Without a very strong showing in New Hampshire and South Carolina, this survivor of the Hanoi Hilton will be an early primary casualty.

On Veterans’ Day, the candidates automatically focus on helping veterans. Hillary has a campaign video featuring endorsements from veterans, Romney a campaign speech pledging benefits for vets, and Edwards a talk promising new support for treating Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Obama has a pro-vets activity scheduled as well.  But don’t look for this focus to last beyond today’s news cycle.

Hillary’s approach to foreign affairs and security as campaign themes seeks to position her between — as she would have it — Bush’s rush to use military force and Obama’s rush to talk to dictators. She will continue repeating, as she puts it in her Foreign Affairs piece, that the military is “but one element in a comprehensive strategy.”

Meanwhile, the Democrats’ skirmish at last weekend’s big Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines showed that the five speakers (Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Richardson and Dodd) are sharpening their rhetoric on other topics in preparation for the next campaign battle — the debate on Thursday in Los Vegas. The long, positive, cover stories on Obama that have appeared in the last week (NYT Magazine, The Atlantic) are another indicator that Obama’s forces are winning over the media — at least for now.

There are a number of wounded candidates on the presidential battlefield: Giuliani from the Bernie Kerik indictment, Thompson from lackluster campaigning. On the Democratic side, Richardson’s emphasis on his years of experience in elected and high-level positions has not gained him any points in the polls. In both parties, it is the real survivors, the candidates with the most years of experience — McCain, Biden, Dodd and Richardson — whose future now seems most in doubt.

• Who would’ve thought The Clinton campaign fought back today with an ad on social security, directly challenging the Obama camp.  Watch for the careful mention of “other candidates” towards the end.
• Process over policy Based upon a new study by the Center for Excellence in Journalism, most of the coverage of the campaign thus far has been of just five candidates; nearly two-thirds of the articles published were “process” stories, covering the campaigns.  E&P has the analysis here.
  • Sidebar: There’s an interesting fact in here about Democrats receiving more negative coverage on talk radio (where conservative pundits dominate).  Note the new radio ad Giuliani released in New Hampshire today.
• Grasping at straws  John Edwards is looking for whatever wedge issue he can find to run away from the pack of second-tier candidates.  An Edwards candidacy could be all-but over if Iowa and South Carolina do not go well for him.  What issue plays particularly well in midwestern and southern caucuses these days: trade.  FP outlines the issue.