The political analysis over the past week has been very interesting to watch. Quite frankly, I don't know how the 'spin' could have happened any faster or more furiously. The pundits that were ready to thrown Hillary Clinton ‘under the bus’ a week ago and ‘crown’ Barack Obama – are now eating a share of crow this morning. So what happens after the Nevada Caucus on January 19th? Or the South Carolina primary on January 26th? How could they make these kinds of ‘predictions’ after only one state’s vote? The NH polls were wrong, the crowd size assessment was wrong, the ‘excitement’ assessment was wrong. Not that Obama lost large – it was only a 2% difference. But as in sports – you only have to win by one point (run, goal, etc.).
I am curious about one new ‘theme’ coming out of the Clinton victory – Hillary stated last night that she has ‘found her voice’. This is the person who keeps beating us over the head about ‘35 years of experience’; this is the person who has run two US Senate campaigns; this is the person who desperately wants us to believe that she is ‘Ready on Day One’. And she’s just ‘found her voice’?? Okaaaaay ...
Other comments from the evening:
Ron Paul supporters must have been happy to see their candidate get coverage of his speech last night:
John King did a great job with navigating a sometimes uncooperative digital New Hampshire map and reviewing the county-by-county vote totals – this is the sixth Presidential campaign that he’s covered, so he must be very familiar with the state by now!
Soledad O’Brien and Bill Schneider did another terrific job with drilling down into the why’s of how the vote was turning out – as it was happening:
Lou Dobbs seemed to be “on track” with sharing the anchor duties – his panel discussion with Carl Bernstein, Bill Bennett and Roland Martin was interesting and informative (and yes, highly opinionated!):
I’d wondered (monetarily) last week about what Anderson did when he wasn’t on camera – check out the shot below – left side – over Wolf’s right shoulder – looks like serious Blackberry viewing to me:
So it's onto Michigan for the Republicans, Nevada for the Democrats, and South Carolina for both. I'm already wondering if the 360° 'road trips' will be as extensive as they were during the 2004 campaign?
Update # 1: Irony at its best - or worst, depending upon your viewpoint. On AM this morning, John & Kiran had a brief telephone interview with Marianne Pernold Young. Who is she? She's the woman who asked Hillary Clinton the momentarily infamous question that made HC "well up" with tears. Here's the transcript - and BTW - you'll see in the transcript that Ms. Young ended up voting for Obama:
CHETRY: Well, the woman that posed that question was an undecided voter, and after all of that, she tells us this morning that she ended up voting for Barack Obama. Joining John and myself right now on the phone from Portsmouth, New Hampshire is Marianne Pernold Young. Thanks so much for being with us this morning, Marianne. You know, after you listened to everything that went on last night, you saw the win for Hillary. And some of the pundits were attributing some of that to the display of emotion that came from your question, what do you think?
MARIANNE PERNOLD YOUNG, ASKED HILLARY QUESTION: I'm in shock that my simple, honest, genuine question created such an uproar.
ROBERTS: When you ask her the question, what are you looking for? Because when she talked to me the day before, it was right after you had asked her the question, she said she was so genuinely taken aback and touched by the fact that someone cared about her. Is that the angle that you were coming from the question from?
YOUNG: No, I was asking her as a friend - as a woman-to-woman, I wanted to know how she does it, because she, you know, she's - she's amazing. And I really have an enormous amount of respect for her. I think she's very capable. And I did not expect that response. I didn't expect the welling and the tears.
ROBERTS: Oh, that's interesting.
CHETRY: Well, it's also interesting that you ultimately decided to go ahead and vote for Barack Obama. You talked about the enormous respect that you have for Senator Clinton. What made you choose Barack Obama instead?
YOUNG: Well, the Friday before Monday, I went to a Barack Obama rally. And I was moved to tears. Not once, but twice. And he has this enormous electricity. And I was just taken aback. And I just had to go with my feelings.
ROBERTS: And so she didn't sway you during her appearance at the dinner. Did she move you at all?
YOUNG: Yes, yes. I was very touched and I was totally in awe that she would open up to us, all of us there. But it was a delicate matter.
ROBERTS: But it was not enough to close the deal with you.
YOUNG: No. No.
CHETRY: Marianne, it is, it is very interesting also because as we saw, obviously, you were very, very active politically there or you wouldn't have attended both of those rallies. What did you think of the final outcome? That Hillary Clinton against some of the recent polling ended up polling ahead.
YOUNG: I know. I'm happy for her. But I'm also very surprised because I was really hoping for an Obama win in New Hampshire.
ROBERTS: Well, he came close, only within a couple of percentage points. And of course, a lot more states to go as well. That's only two contests. We got 48 more to go. Marianne Pernold Young, good to talk to you. Thanks for joining us on the phone this morning.
I've read Candy Crowley's blog entry from this morning, threatening a "Dean scream" if one more person tries to suggest that the incident had any bearing on the primary outcome. But the fact is that a significant number of voters were 'undecided' as they went to the polls. We may never know what truly swayed them in any particular direction. But I do agree that in the year 2008, we shouldn't even have to wonder about questions like this. We'll see how things go from here on out!
Update # 2: If the list of dates for upcoming primaries and caucuses had your head spinning last night, have no fear - you can now link to a comprehensive calendar for reference!!
Update # 3: The banner below was running this morning on CNN.com at approximately 9:00 AM PST. There's also an AP article which details the speech where Bush made this statement today. IMHO - those who don't think that George Bush is praying for a reason to go to war with Iran share his delusional philosophy of reality.
Update # 4: Perhaps we may get some answers to this very (very) crucial question?
Thanks for visiting - updates posted as needed - have a terrific Wednesday!!
2 comments:
Newsblooz: I hope you were being facetious! HRC’s emotional moment didn’t make a bit of a difference as proven out by the fact that the woman who asked her the “question” didn’t even vote for her! I think Candy Crowley was right in her post on the AC360º blog this morning, “New Hampshire is not Iowa.” Some of it may have been the fact that the people of the “granite state” said “not so fast” when everyone said Obama would sweep the vote in their state and got out there to vote. I heard one pundit say that everyone was talking about Obama as if he was the “second coming.” I have to agree and now they are standing there forced to explain why they have egg all over their faces.
I know a lot of Independent, undecided voters, and as one myself I can tell you that the reason there are so many undecided voters is because the choices are less than desirable.
It will be curious to find out whom Al Gore is going to endorse, I think it could make a big difference in this primary race.
The coverage of last night’s vote was excellent. The Wolfman was working like a fiend all night and I thoroughly enjoyed Carl Bernstein’s contributions to the panel discussion.
I guess we have seen the last of Anderson’s “pizza chart!”
Good luck to Anderson trying to find out what each candidate's definition of "change" is and how they plan on implementing it. It will be interesting to see if everyone is using the same dictionary.
Well, I was being at least somewhat facetious - perhaps there were a few who reached for a Kleenex after the results were determined? I think I was just trying to draw attention more than anything!
But I'm very glad that NH solidified its reputation as being such an 'independent' state.
I'm not all that sure that 360 was very successful last night in determining any candidate's view of 'change', but then again -it will certainly take more than what can be dedicated to the subject in any single hour of coverage!
This all gets more interesting and intriguing by the day!! :-)
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