Thursday, March 06, 2008
Dip, Dip, Barf
The answer is, "yes."
The question? "Is there anything with Jessica Alba in it that you wouldn't watch?"
If Obama needed to win the support of the Back Bay, Upper East Side, Adams Morgan, South Beach, and the Mission District, this video would be perfect. But the next election will be decided in Pennsylavania, which is about as far from the Elysian fields of fame and beauty whence this video came. This is the wrong message, and the wrong messengers, at the wrong time.
Hillary will win Pennsylvania. Like Ohio, it's a matter of simple math. The Democratic campaign has never been about ideas or policy differences, but about sentiments and grievances. None of those are likely to change in the next six weeks; they haven't in the past six years. Hillary is simply on the right side of the right fences for the next round, and probably will remain there for whatever sort of a clusterfuck they stage in Florida and Michigan. The former will be one for the ages--Florida can't get an election right with four years of warning, so God only knows what they will do with four weeks. I only wish Hunter S. Thompson were here to cover it.
The question is, what then? Assuming the math and trends hold, the campaign will end with Obama holding roughly the lead he does now. This is a worst-case scenario because it gives Clinton just enough of a narrative to keep up the fight (with some credibility, I might add, in terms of electability), while leaving Obama more than enough ammunition to fight it out.
Meanwhile, I am starting to wonder whether my sense two months ago that Hillary was a shoo-in to lose in November was grossly mistaken. More now than ever, Obama is looking like a slightly more charismatic, clever, and well-organized version of Howard Dean, while Hillary is looking like a less limp-wristed version of John Kerry. ¶ 6:30 PM
The answer is, "yes."
The question? "Is there anything with Jessica Alba in it that you wouldn't watch?"
If Obama needed to win the support of the Back Bay, Upper East Side, Adams Morgan, South Beach, and the Mission District, this video would be perfect. But the next election will be decided in Pennsylavania, which is about as far from the Elysian fields of fame and beauty whence this video came. This is the wrong message, and the wrong messengers, at the wrong time.
Hillary will win Pennsylvania. Like Ohio, it's a matter of simple math. The Democratic campaign has never been about ideas or policy differences, but about sentiments and grievances. None of those are likely to change in the next six weeks; they haven't in the past six years. Hillary is simply on the right side of the right fences for the next round, and probably will remain there for whatever sort of a clusterfuck they stage in Florida and Michigan. The former will be one for the ages--Florida can't get an election right with four years of warning, so God only knows what they will do with four weeks. I only wish Hunter S. Thompson were here to cover it.
The question is, what then? Assuming the math and trends hold, the campaign will end with Obama holding roughly the lead he does now. This is a worst-case scenario because it gives Clinton just enough of a narrative to keep up the fight (with some credibility, I might add, in terms of electability), while leaving Obama more than enough ammunition to fight it out.
Meanwhile, I am starting to wonder whether my sense two months ago that Hillary was a shoo-in to lose in November was grossly mistaken. More now than ever, Obama is looking like a slightly more charismatic, clever, and well-organized version of Howard Dean, while Hillary is looking like a less limp-wristed version of John Kerry. ¶ 6:30 PM
