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Ben Smith points out a fantastic moment in Barack Obama’s speech in Raleigh today, in which he described what you have to do when confronted with negative attacks like the flap over his “bitter” comment: “You just gotta kind of let it—,” he said, before brushing some invisible dirt off his shoulders. “That’s what you gotta do.” The audience devours it.
It’s a pretty historic moment if you think about it—the first-ever Jay-Z reference by a presidential candidate. (Actually, Obama has name-checked the rapper before.) Smith calls it a "generational dogwhistle"—something only certain voters can hear (or in this case, see). It's also something Hillary Clinton (not to mention McCain) not only wouldn’t do but probably wouldn’t even understand.
But it’s also an example of how there’s nothing you can do the Internet hasn’t already done. Run a Google search for Jay Z and bitter and watch what comes up: a great mash-up of “Dirt Off Your Shoulders” and the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” Maybe that’s where Obama got the idea?
Next thing you know, he’ll start talking about how he’s got 99 problems but … Actually, never mind.
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Reason No. 423 why I can’t wait for the general election: No more tedious, transparent expectations gaming.
Right now we’re being told that Barack Obama doesn’t plan on coming close to winning the Pennsylvania primary. Heck, he’d be happy if he got a dozen Keystoners to turn out for him. At least that’s what his campaign wants us to think. Meanwhile, Clinton’s camp claims that Obama expects to win Pennsylvania, that he’s outspending them 4-to-1 in the state, and that any loss whatsoever is a “significant loss.” By next week, they’ll have us believe that anything less than 100 percent of the vote would be devastating for Obama.
In a general election, by contrast, there’s no advantage to pretending you’re going to lose. It doesn’t matter what media coverage is like coming out of the race, since there’s no need to produce “momentum. After Nov. 4, it’s over. There’s no advantage to being the underdog. And there’s no debate over what constitutes “a win.” (Well, there are exceptions.)
There’s still spin, of course, but it’s more straightforward. If your fundraising numbers are low, you pretend they’re high. You don’t use their lowness to tamp down expectations. You don’t pretend your lead in the polls is less than it really is. In the general, the lying is more … honest.
Just look at McCain’s campaign right now. They know they’re going to be outspent no matter who the Democratic nominee is. So, they’ve combined with the RNC to form one über-fundraising mechanism. That’s where the spin comes in: They’d have us believe there’s no difference between McCain’s campaign fund and the RNC fund. Reports Politico:
[T]o help counter their money deficit, McCain strategists now suggest that the proper comparison should be between the combined assets of the campaign and the RNC and that of their opponent and the far less flush DNC.
“The McCain camp is funded jointly,” is how one adviser describes it.
How refreshing! None of this “it’s good we’re down” crap. None of this reverse psychology expectations jujitsu. Just good, old-fashioned distortion.
If there's a spin battle over money, it will be waged over Obama's (likely) decision not to take public funds, despite (strong) suggestions that he would if his opponent did. But even then, the debate is more about keeping promises than who has more money. Can't wait.
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Remember all the mileage Clinton got out of the SNL bit that depicted the media as Obama-lovers? Obama finally has a comeback.
His campaign just fired off an e-mail to supporters complaining about the “gotcha politics and distractions” that dominated last night’s debate:
In fact, it took more than 45 minutes before Barack was asked about the economy, health care, or foreign policy. … Regrettably, Senator Clinton seemed all too comfortable with that type of debate.
It’s been a running subplot of this campaign that Clinton gets tougher coverage. She famously cited SNL in a debate, claiming that the moderators might want to give Obama a pillow. She also complained about having to answer too many questions first. Academic studies have confirmed that the media has been skewed. Both the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Center for Media and Public Affairs concluded that Obama received overwhelmingly favorable coverage. But that was in 2007—before most people had heard the words Wright, Goolsbee, Power, and bitter. Clinton has managed her own woes of late, Bosnia chief among them. But it’s hard to deny a leveling of the field. (Although Clinton now receives more coverage than Obama, according to PEJ.)
So that's another silver lining to last night’s ABC debate: It lets Obama join Clinton in hating on the media—and using it to raise cash. Plus, it's easy to pivot from that to Clinton's "negative attacks," as his campaign did in a conference call earlier today. But as much as Obama complains about negativity in this campaign, don't forget the ways in which he benefits from it. My guess: Last night's debate nets him so much cash he'll have to make Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos bundlers.
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The 21st debate has come and gone, and the general
consensus is that Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama behind the
lecterns. Her win barely outweighs the announcement of two more
superdelegates and a newspaper endorsement for Obama. As a result, her
chances of winning the nomination glide upward by 0.3 points to 10.7 percent.
The debate in Philadelphia—which was near-universally panned in the blogosphere—spent its first hour on process questions.
Usually, this would have hurt Clinton, whose mastery of policy details
has shone through in previous debates. But last night, Obama bore the
brunt of the process questions. It was like a guilt-by-association
greatest hits—we heard about former Weatherman Bill Ayers, Jeremiah
Wright, and the "cling" thing. The result, aside from getting people to
turn off their TVs, was to remind viewers that Obama could be
vulnerable to Republican attacks in the general election...
Read more at the Hillary Deathwatch.
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In last night’s spectacular orgy of anti-issues, many viewers were introduced to a new name: Bill Ayers. Barack Obama’s associations with the former Weather Underground member have been known for some time. Ben Smith reported in February that Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, now high-profile Chicago activists and professors, held a fundraiser for met with Obama at their home.* But the story failed to catch. Why is it coming back to life now?
Well, for one thing, no one raised the story in a debate. But more importantly, the Clinton camp never seized on it. And for good reason: As Obama pointed out last night in his rebuttal, President Clinton pardoned two Weather Underground members, Linda Evans and Susan Rosenberg, while in office. (Even Chuck Schumer denounced the pardons.) Today in a conference call, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said it’s not fair to “conflate” Obama’s fundraiser and Clinton’s pardon: “I’m not aware of either of them hosting a political event for Sen. Clinton in their homes,” he said.
So voters (or—let’s be honest—pundits) are left to decide which is worse: attending a fundraiser held by visiting the home of two people who were once synonymous with violent radicalism in America and who were both involved in numerous bombings of government facilities but who have since become staple members of the liberal Chicago activist community; or commuting the sentences of two people who were convicted of crimes—in this case, the 1981 armed robbery of an armored car that left two police officers and a security guard dead. You can see why the Clinton camp wouldn’t want to push this story too hard.
The real threat to Obama, though, is not what Clinton will do with the story but what Republicans might cook up. It could do some damage, if only because it fits into a larger Obama narrative. Just as his “bitter” comment pegged Obama as “elitist,” his Terrorist Fundraiser—permission to use, John McCain—fits the narrative that Obama is more liberal than he claims. Combine the Ayers meeting with the questionnaire from 1996 in which Obama articulated liberal stances on gun control and abortion and the death penalty, plus his “most liberal voting record” status in the National Journal, and you’ve got a strong case that Obama would appoint Bill Ayers represent the White House in a meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
So maybe Obama’s lucky ABC raised the question. Clinton can push the story only so hard before it turns on her. And now it won’t come as a surprise to many voters when McCain’s team raises the issue in the fall. Better that the first Ayers jab be soft and early than late and fierce.
* Oops. Obama met Ayers at a small gathering at Ayers' house, but it wasn't a fundraiser. Ayers did, however, donate $200 to Obama's Illinois re-election campaign.
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