It’s A “Bitter” Sweet Symphony, That’s Life
More on the bitter thing (I know there’s a debate on right now, but I’m too busy to watch): it appears that Obama will weather the storm again, and I must continue to attribute his good fortune to real disgust most Americans are feeling towards the Clintons and the way they have run this campaign. Obama has maintained his sizable lead in Gallup’s Daily Tracking Poll, and the RealClearPolitics polling average in Pennsylvania has Obama down less than 7, about where he would be without the controversy.
Chris Cillizza is not too busy to watch the debate, and the bitter battle began brusquely:
Asked by Charlie Gibson whether he understood why some people would be offended by his comments — about “bitter” victims of small-town economic distress clinging to their religion and guns — Obama reiterated his past statements that he had simply misspoken and that his remarks did not reflect his personal views about small town residents.
“There is no doubt that I can see how people were offended,” he said. ” It is not the first time I have made a statement that was mangled up and it won’t be the last.”
Clinton was not ready to let the issue drop, calling Obama’s statement a “fundamental misunderstanding” of why people are religious or value their right to own a gun. “I just don’t believe that is how people live their lives,” Clinton added.
End of story? Not even close.
Obama, clearly loaded for bear on this issue coming into the debate, evoked Clinton’s 1992 comment that she would not simply stay at home and bake cookies as first lady as evidence that politicians occasionally misspeak and that it is wrong to conclude that a misstatement represents the true feelings of a politician.
“The problem we have in our politics is you take one person’s statement if it’s not properly phrased and you just beat it to death,” said Obama. “That’s what Senator Clinton has been doing over the last four days.”
The bottom line is that the fundamental dynamics that have all but given the nomination to Obama have not changed. I’d put his odds of getting the nomination at 9-1 at the moment…
UPDATE 10:14 p.m.: Marc Ambinder says Obama was awful, but the fact that Hillary was on the attack will probably rebound against her, the way this campaign has gone…
9-1 seems overly generous to Clinton. I’ll give him 99-1, only because I think there’s a chance he might get bored and decide to become an astronaut instead.
Obama didn’t look good. He looked really, really tired.
I’ve been saying for months not to count Clinton out, but now have to admit that she’s toast in this campaign. I based my earlier predictions more on the Lazarus-like history of Clintons running for office than on the quality of her current campaign. The fact is though that everything she does now is a misstep. For plenty of good reasons, the voters are offended, or simply turned off, by her tactics. Put me down for a .01 probability that Clinton will achieve the nomination.
I also have been saying for some time not to count Mrs. Clinton out, but even I become less confident of her chances these days. She needs a sizable (re: double digits plus) win in PA to justify staying in. She must win IN, and has to at least stay close in NC. At the moment, none of the three of these appear likely and she needs to do all three.
But I still say a big win in PA followed by a win in NC (and IN–I hadn’t added IN before because she appeared certain to win), not only allows her to continue, but essentially wraps up the nomination for her.
I’m voting for her in the IN primary, not because of operation CHAOS, but merely because I think she’s likely to do less harm to the US than Obama would if elected President.
I put Obama at about 86% (6/7). This number will change dramatically one way or the other after the PA primary.
It’s interesting that, when candidates say what they really believe, it often ends up being explained as a “misspeak.” Obama misspoke in that he said what he and many of his supporters think, but he said it in a forum where it ended up in the public domain. Go read the comments at a site like Political Animal. They couch it in different terms, but it all means the same thing–they see the people Obama spoke about as “unsophisticated, largely uneducated, incapable of nuanced reasoning,” and so on. They really believe that no sophisticated, educated individual could possibly hold on to beliefs in the 2nd Amendment, or structure their life around their faith, or believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, etc. The misspeak was in openly stating that tenet of “Progressive” dogma. Obama and his supporters don’t have any conception of it as arrogant thinking because they believe strongly that if they can just educate these people, surely the blighted will come to their senses.
As for the primary, I have thought for a long time that Obama has it won. I just want the two of them to keep exposing each other, and beating each other up. Every day they do it to each other, is another day that Republicans can focus on McCain’s positives. Personally, I hope it goes all the way to the Democratic Convention. It’s pathetic, but I take a sick pleasure in reading liberals throw the invective at each other that they normally reserve for the Right. I find it revealing and informative of their innate nature. Anyone with beliefs other than their own is to be despised and reviled. That so many of them are aiming this wrath at the so recently beloved Clintons is sublime.
“Anyone with beliefs other than their own is to be despised and reviled.”
Oh please. Those who predicted that the invasion and occupation of Iraq would be disastrous were called wimps, terrorist sympathizers, and Defeatocrats. Let’s forget for a moment that history proved them right.
Karl Rove announced that Republicans faced terrorists with manly aggression, while Democrats gave them “tea and sympathy.” Dick Cheney equated a for Kerry with a vote for bin Laden. Let’s not forget the purple bandaids at the GOP convention mocking Kerry’s Purple Hearts. Speaking of Purple Hearts: Max Cleland being equated with bin Laden.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress – let’s face it, they screwed up pretty much everything they could get their hands on – but I don’t remember a single instance of a prominent Democrat or leftist questioning their patriotism or love of country.
The friction between Obama and Clinton is part of any hotly contested primary race, and no more belligerent than the friction earlier between Romney and McCain. Politics is an elbows sport. After the primary season, those wounds will heal. Being called traitorous for having the prescience to know that invading Iraq would be catastrophic takes a lot longer to heal.
Peter–I guess you made to the penultimate sentence of my post before you found something with which you disagreed. Rather than argue that one point, I’ll just settle for your complicit agreement on the others.
Actually I disagree (surprise! surprise!). First, I don’t think Obama is an elitist. He grew up in modest circumstances, his mother was on food stamps, and he worked as a community organizer. This is a far different background than George Bush, who grew up as part of the blue blood WASP aristocracy. Yet somehow Bush is portrayed as a “regular guy,” while Obama is now being shown as someone who walks around with his nose in the air. I grew up in fortunate cicrumstances – privileged background, Ivy League, etc. – and I’m pretty familiar with the elite, and Obama ain’t it. Country club Republicans are (not that there is anything wrong with that). However, this dispute is not reducible to argument: it’s more an eye of the beholder thing, and kind of a dumb argument to begin with.
Secondly, I believe in the Second Amendment, but it does not say anything about the individual having the unlimited right to own firearms. Read what it says.
Thirdly, Obama seems to have genuine religious conviction – not that this has any relevance to whether he would be a good President or not.
Fourth, there are lots of “Progessives” who undeniably have strong religious faith. Say what you will about Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, for example, but religious faith is central to their lives.
I don’t think Obama is perfect – nobody is – but the elitism thing is a false argument. It shows that those who oppose him don’t have anything weightier to throw at him than taking a single remark, distorting it, and repeating it endlessly.
I’m not sure a game of “I’m rubber and you’re glue…” is all that productive at this point. Sure, folks on both sides of the aisle could be more polite, but, then, politics isn’t a polite endeavor. Maybe “a prominent Democrat or leftist” hasn’t questioned anyone’s patriotism or love of country, but is that the worst that someone can do? Are they so deeply hurt, is their psyche damaged, by such specious rhetoric? Sheesh, I didn’t realize everyone was so sensitive.
I’m not here to protect the tender sensibilities of leftists or Democrats — only to point out that some things are beyond the pale, such as insisting that those who disagree with you have a secret agendum of giving aid and comfort to terrorists.
Ok, fair enough. I just think that someone willing to go “beyond the pale” does more to undermine their own position than actually harm their target, because the unfairness is obvious. Calling someone a traitor, when it is clear they are not, is more damaging to the accuser (to me at least).
Having said that, I don’t think Obama’s comment has been distorted. I’ve read it carefully, and in context, and it does impress me as being condescending and disdainful. He implies that people cling to certain points of view, with which he objects, not on the merits, but because they are bitter about their economic circumstances. Whether he was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth (like you!) or not, I hear an elitist edge in that perspective.
Here in the UK we think Obama’s great!
Despite the odd minor setback
“I don’t remember a single instance of a prominent Democrat or leftist questioning their patriotism or love of country.”
Allow me to refresh your memory.
Barack Obama: “that [American flag lapel pin] became a substitute for I think true patriotism.”
Is the logical conclusion of that statement not that those who wear such lapel pins possess only false patriotism, which of course, means no patriotism at all?
“Here in the UK we think Obama’s great!”
Good thing y’all can’t vote. But, how about a trade? Almost everyone over here admires Tony Blair a lot more than any of our own politicians and Obama’s a lot more popular in the U.K. than any British politician (from what I can tell).
US President Tony Blair and British Prime Minister Barack Obama?
Aaron: the logical conclusion of the statement is that wearing a lapel pin is not in itself evidence of genuine patriotism. (In logical terms: wearing a lapel pin is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to establish proof of patriotism).
I think Obama has a valid point here. People who enlist in the armed forces or serve in government when they can make more money elsewhere are genuinely patriotic. Anybody can wear a lapel pin.
Peter, I agree with what you have said about patriotism and that wearing a lapel pin doesn’t necessarily indicate it — nor does not wearing one indicate a lack of patriotism, but that is not what Obama said.
He did not say that wearing a lapel pin didn’t indicate patriotism, which could be taken one way or another; he said it was a substitute for real patriotism.
To substitute A with B, you must remove A and put B in its place.
If an American flag lapel pin is a substitute for real patriotism, then real patriotism must be removed and the American flag lapel pin put in its place.
Thus, in Obama’s opinion, quite different from yours and mine, the only people who can legitimately claim to be patriotic are those who do not wear American flag pins. (As you may have noticed in an earlier thread, Obama himself has even fallen short of his standard on this).
Obama is uncomfortable with the wearing the “pin” because he is muslim undercover. He is a decoy for muslims that are bent on destroying America!
Nope. He’s possibly an undercover athiest, because it seems that he joined a church, which appears to be only nominally Christian at best, more for purposes of political expediency than anything else.
But he’s not a Muslim.