Tuesday, 22nd April 2008
James Forsyth 12:28pm
The Obama camp clearly doesn’t think it has much chance of pulling off an upset in the Pennsylvania primary, the candidate will be in Indiana when the results come in. But with everyone expecting a Clinton victory, the key question is how much she wins by. Here’s Americano’s guide to how to interpret Hillary’s winning margin.
Four points or less: If Hillary only squeaks home in a state that she has family ties to and which is demographically suited to her, then it will be seen as a sign that...
Continue reading...
Email to a friend |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Monday, 21st April 2008
James Forsyth 11:31am
Joe Klein’s report from the final weekend of stumping in Pennsylvania is well worth reading. This observation would particularly worry me if I was the Obama campaign: Energy: Obama seems either bummed or pissed or exhausted. He could be near death and still be a pretty good speaker, but he's very much off his game right now. Clinton, by contrast, is on fire--as energetic and passionate as I've seen her.
One of the oddities of this campaign is that Obama—by far the youngest candidate—tires more easily, or at least more visibly, than anyone else running. Indeed, Obama has blamed the most spectacular misstatement of the election so far on his tiredness.
Email to a friend |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Sunday, 20th April 2008
James Forsyth 11:03pm
In Pennsylvania today, Obama contradicted one of the Democrat’s key campaign messages when he said that John McCain would be a better president than George W. Bush. "Either Democrat would be better than John McCain," he said. "And all three of us would be better than George Bush."
The Democrats have been busy arguing that a McCain presidency would just be a third term for Bush and so Obama’s remarks will be seen as a gaffe. But I actually think Obama is being shrewd, the charge that McCain is the same as Bush is just not going to stick so moving off it is sensible. But the McCain camp will be glad to have this on the record.
Email to a friend |
Permalink |
Comment
James Forsyth 10:30pm
John Dickerson has a great Slate column on how the Obama campaign it while deploring the old politics is quite happy to practise it. As Dickerson writes: “I'm going to stand behind Senator Obama when he speaks. When he's decrying the trivial distractions in politics, I think he may be crossing his fingers behind his back.
As the Senator's campaign train wound from one speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics to the next speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics, his campaign hosted a conference call to engage in the practice the candidate...
Continue reading...
Email to a friend |
Permalink |
Comment
James Forsyth 10:21pm
Geoff Garin, Mark Penn’s replacement as Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, was debating his opposite number on the Obama campaign, David Axelrod, on Meet the Press. Garin turned in a rather shaky performance, repeatedly having to admit that he wasn’t up to speed on certain issue. One answer of his, though, seemed particularly telling:
MR. RUSSERT: Will Senator Clinton stay in this race through all the primaries in June? MR. GARIN: There’s not a reason not to, but, look, I think that will be dictated by, by events. Her commitment now is to
...
Continue reading...
Email to a friend |
Permalink |
Comment
Saturday, 19th April 2008
James Forsyth 6:27pm
Ron Brownstein’s National Journal cover story on how the Obama and Clinton campaigns have harnessed technology to their advantage is fascinating and a reminder of what McCain will be up against in the fall. Just how far McCain lags behind on this front is emphasised by these numbers: “Compared with either Democrat, McCain is in an even more challenging position. His campaign badly trails theirs on all gauges of networked activity—whether measured by his presence on social-networking sites, online views of his videos (about 3 million through early April, one-twelfth the number
...
Continue reading...
Email to a friend |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Friday, 18th April 2008
James Forsyth 12:51pm
David Brooks has an absolute must-read column on the problems that Barack Obama seems to be storing up for the general election: “Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal. He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics. He claimed falsely that his handwriting wasn’t on a questionnaire about gun control. He claimed that he had never attacked Clinton for her exaggerations about the Tuzla
...
Continue reading...
Email to a friend |
Permalink |
Comments (3)
Wednesday, 16th April 2008
James Forsyth 7:15pm
The over / under for Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania is about eight points. If Obama loses by less than that then the direction of the race will be pretty much unchanged by a Clinton victory. If Hillary can win by more than that, then she is going to get some momentum out of a victory there which should allow her to stay in the race a little bit longer. If she can get her margin to 12 or more, then she might really have a chance to turn this back...
Continue reading...
Email to a friend |
Permalink |
Comment
Tuesday, 15th April 2008
James Forsyth 9:27pm
On May 6th, North Carolina and Indiana go to the polls. If Hillary loses in both of those states she is going to be under unbelievable pressure to drop out or dial her campaign right down—expect to see various so far, unaligned party big-wigs come out and tell her time’s up if she gets beaten in both states. To date, the polls have shown Obama up in North Carolina and Clinton ahead in Indiana. But the LA Times has a poll out later on today which apparently has Obama...
Continue reading...
Email to a friend |
Permalink |
Comments (1)
Previous
