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So that happened. The hostages have been released, Leeland Eisenberg has been arrested, and the citizens of Rochester, N.H., are now safe. That means we can finally get to the postgame analysis of who wins and who loses. (Too soon? Too late!)
Winners:
Hillary Clinton. Hands down. The most obvious reason: attention. She steals headlines from today’s DNC event (not to mention all the other campaigns), cancels her speech there, and gets enough traction to carry over into the Sunday talk shows. The one downside is the timing: Friday afternoon is a notorious black hole for news. Also, remember how Giuliani played up his close call with the mob? Well, it looks like bad guys are going after Hillary, too. What now, Rudy? Lastly, there’s the sympathy factor. Or, as a friend insensitively put it: “Hillary really is sticking with this victim theme, huh?” People will now send cards, flowers, chocolates … and votes. That said, crazy man Leeland Eisenberg could have picked a better location. Hillary already has a solid lead in New Hampshire, whereas her numbers in Iowa have been slipping.
New Hampshire. OK, so maybe nut-job bombers aren’t great press for the Granite State. But with every national news organization sending their camera crews over from Des Moines, New Hampshire steals a little bit of Iowa’s pre-caucus thunder. Plus, voters are reminded how seriously the people of New Hampshire take politics.
Local journalists. By the end of this weekend, everyone will know what WMUR is.
Rudy Giuliani. Suddenly the mayor’s record on gun control doesn’t seem so offensive. Look for other Republicans to focus on keeping weapons out of the hands of mentally ill people—which, of course, doesn’t include you.
Bill Richardson: The first Clinton “opponent” to release a statement on the situation: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the hostages, their families, Senator Clinton, and her campaign staff.” Is this guy a VP lock or what?
Losers:
Commentators. All that language about “attacks,” “taking shots,” and “explosive statements” is temporarily off limits. Sorry, guys.
Republicans. Especially if the human bomb turns out to be one.
Second Amendment advocates. Eisenberg wasn't carrying a gun, but he might as well have been. Has “Live Free or Die” ever sounded like a worse motto?
The Secret Service: Agents' jobs just got a lot more stressful, as campaigns are likely to be on extra high alert over the coming weeks.
Mike Huckabee. The insurgent candidate was also in New Hampshire today. The press corps has most likely abandoned him. If only he had brought Chuck Norris.
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Tomorrow night the Democrats are having a debate in Iowa. Who knew? See, you probably can’t watch it, even if you wanted to, since the event is airing on HD Net, the Mark Cuban-owned channel that broadcasts only to HD-ready sets. Seven million people get HD Net as part of their cable packages.
The forum itself, a caucus-season tradition called the Iowa Black and Brown Forum, sounds pretty engaging. It asks candidates to focus on issues that matter to African-American and Latino communities. It will be simulcast in Iowa for almost everybody who subscribes to MediaCom cable—about 450,000 people.
Of the 7.5 million who could watch, only a few hundred thousand, at most, will. The CNN/YouTube debate that took place earlier this week pulled in 4.4 million people—the most ever for any primary debate. CNN is in nearly a hundred million households.
But these days, a debate’s reach hardly matters. As long as someone can get the eight candidates together and turn on a camera, you can be sure that anything newsworthy will finds its way to YouTube. And from there, into the political press. And from there, to the talk radio shows. Just think back to how Hillary’s cackle infiltrated the mainstream press a few months ago. That first happened on the Sunday talk shows, which the average American doesn’t tune in to.
And really, who wants to hang out with Dennis Kucinich on a Saturday night, anyway? Mike Gravel on the other hand…
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"The Democrats, for once, have had a fairly quiet week ..."
-- Marc Ambinder, Nov. 30, 9:42 a.m.
And then this. Local networks are reporting that a man strapped with a bomb took campaign workers hostage at the Clinton campaign's Rochester, N.H. offices. Two hostages have been released, but there's still a standoff between the man, who's apparently a well-known local wacko, and the police. The man reportedly demanded to speak with Hillary. The Obama and Edwards campaigns have evacuated their offices. You can watch a streaming local broadcast here.
The Clinton campaign released this statement: "There is an ongoing situation in our Rochester, NH office.
We are in close contact with state and local authorities and are acting
at their direction. We will release
additional details as appropriate."
UPDATE 5:44 p.m.: Still no word on whether or not there are still hostages inside. Local police captain Paul Callaghan's press conference yielded no new information. The hostage taker is being identified as Leeland Eisenberg, a local kook "well-known to police." (Initial reports said he was Troy Stanley.) Regular updates here and here.
UPDATE 6:17 p.m.: The standoff seems to be over. Just watched Leeland Eisenberg surrounded by a SWAT team, arrested, and pushed into a police vehicle. He came out of the building right after a last hostage, a young man, was released.
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Since when did Chuck Norris go from badass killing machine to Sarah Lawrence visual arts major? Behold:
UPDATE 1:47 p.m., Dec. 26: Embedded image removed.
(Source: Screenshot of an AP photo from the Washington Post's The Trail.)
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Team Hillary hosted a conference call this morning to discuss a letter they wrote to Barack Obama’s campaign (available here). The letter asks Obama to take down a political ad claiming that his health-care plan would “cover everybody.” In fact, they say, his plan would leave about 15 million people uninsured.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton blasted back that “[t]he Clinton campaign didn't say a word when this ad was released a month ago, and the only thing that's changed since then is the poll numbers. The truth is, Barack Obama would offer health coverage to every single American who can't afford it.”
But the real problem, as Paul Krugman explains in his brickbat of a column today, isn’t lower income Americans. It’s that young, well-off Americans who are generally healthy and therefore don’t have to buy insurance will drive up costs for everyone else. Hillary and John Edwards both have ways of enforcing their mandates—requiring proof of enrollment on tax forms, say, or anytime someone seeks medical treatment. Obama’s plan, on the other hand, would allow them to remain outside the system.
The upside to this kerfuffle is that—are you sitting down?—it’s substantive. In the Obama campaign’s response, they call Hillary’s move an “attack.” Yes, there’s clearly a political purpose to demanding that the ad come down. But this dispute isn’t about Obama’s patriotism, or his religion, or the “politics of hope”—it’s about policy, and that’s a nice change from previous scuffles. For Obama’s team to dismiss it as a cheap shot ignores the fact that they goofed.
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Slate's Garin K. Hovannisian sends in this dispatch from New York:
“Is Jesus in the house?” “Yes!” roared the capacity crowd at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. “Louder!” yelled the founder of the Harlem Gospel Chorus. “Is Jesus in the house?” Yes, yes, yes, Jesus was certainly in the house. But at 8:06 p.m., more than an hour after the scheduled start time, Barack Obama was nowhere to be found.
A revolt had nearly erupted earlier, when Obama’s organizers had announced to the press that “America’s next president” wouldn’t be arriving until 9. The members of the media lined the back entrance of the Apollo and breathed steam and fury into each other’s faces; some had been standing in the New York cold for hours.
As packs of Sean John-sporting VIPs were escorted through the doorway, the Metro reporter yelled, “I’ve been to 60 damned Obama events. This is the worst by far.” Asian TV decided to shift its angle to Obama’s organizational incompetence. A South African journalist texted her editor begging a release.
Those of us who eventually made it inside were treated to “Amazing Grace,” “Happy Days,” and the full repertoire of gospel hits. A reverend came on stage to “thank God for Barack Obama—a messenger of peace in a world of strife; a messenger of strife in a world of false peace." We then heard a violinist, then some grass-roots organizers, then—since Obama still hadn’t arrived—the violinist again.
After a state senator spoke, the moment to which the entire night had been logically crawling finally arrived: no, not Obama. Cornel West. The Princeton professor/MC/Matrix star rapped and flapped his arms and said that Obama “is his mama’s and daddy’s son, and we must accept him for it.” West then introduced Chris Rock, who called Obama “a smart guy,” cracked a few jokes, and brought the Apollo to its feet.
By the time Barack Obama stepped on stage to blame Katrina on compassionate conservatism and to brandish his fresh preacherly inflection, the show was pretty much over.