MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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Trial Love Notes

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Mr. Daniel Henninger, who writes the Wonder Land column on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, has been listening to Illinois Senator Barack Obama and, surprise, surprise, he found Mr. Obama “insanely” eloquent but the message a downer. The America that Mr. Henninger knows is not nearly as bad off as the good senator makes it out to be.

As a result, Mr. Henninger has a hopeful message for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY): Hang in there. America will soon get tired of the Obama message and then she can coast in to the nomination.

Mr. Henninger’s reason for this is that he found a poll that says Americans, especially those who are supporting Mr. Obama, are generally optimistic about the nation and, they will naturally reject Mr. Obama when they realize he has not been telling them the truth about their beloved country.

The conventional critique of Sen. Obama has held that his pitch is perfect but at some point he’ll need to make the appeal more concrete.

I think the potential vulnerability runs deeper. Strip away the new coat of paint from the Obama message and what you find is not only familiar. It’s a downer.

Up to now, the force of Sen. Obama’s physical presentation has so dazzled audiences that it has been hard to focus on precisely what he is saying. “Yes, we can! Yes, we can!” Can what?

Listen closely to that Tuesday night Wisconsin speech. Unhinge yourself from the mesmerizing voice. What one hears is a message that is largely negative, illustrated with anecdotes of unremitting bleakness. Heavy with class warfare, it is a speech that could have been delivered by a Democrat in 1968, or even 1928.

I have to say this is quite a novel take on the campaign, a trial balloon perhaps of how Republicans plan to attack the senator’s message in the fall. For instance, Mr. Henninger listened to another speech after Sen. Obama, this time by Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ), the presumptive Republican nominee. He found Mr. McCain speech more to his liking.

The contrast with Sen. Obama’s is stark. The arc of the McCain speech is upward, positive. Pointedly, he says we are not history’s “victims.” Barack relentlessly pushes victimology.

For Sen. Obama the military and national security is a world of catastrophe welded to Iraq and filled with maimed soldiers. Mr. McCain locates these same difficult subjects inside the whole of American military achievement. It nets out as a more positive message. Recall that Ronald Reagan’s signature optimism, when it first appeared, was laughed at by political pros. Optimism won elections.

Prior to reading Mr. Henninger’s column, the chief complaint I’d read and heard about Mr. Obama’s speeches were that they were relentlessly positive and that Republicans will swiftboat and make mincemeat of him in the general election because he’s too nice.

One shouldn’t blame Mr. Henninger for this column. After all, it was on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal. It could have been worse. This was a good try. It must get tiresome hearing all those hosannas from Republicans and independents praising Sen. Obama, the so-called Obamicans, even calling him Reaganesque.

Mrs. Clinton has been tearing her hair out trying to figure out how to counter Sen. Obama’s positive mien. Up to now, she has had to settle for being the the anti-hope candidate. Here’s an answer. Why not accuse him of being too negative for being so positive?

February 18, 2008
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Me, Worry?

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Over at The Politico, they see dark days ahead for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Some of the reasons they pointed to:

While Clinton’s campaign gloated about having the most total delegates for the cycle so far, her staff nevertheless recognizes that Super Tuesday was no triumph.


She lost the delegate derby. Pure and simple, this is a war to win delegates, one that might not be decided until this summer’s Democratic convention. And when the smoke cleared this morning, it appeared that Barack Obama had ended up with slightly more delegates in the 22 states.

She essentially tied Obama in the popular vote. Each won just over 7.3 million votes, a level of parity that was unthinkable as recently as a few weeks ago. At the time, national polls showed Clinton with a commanding lead — in some cases, by 10 points or more. That dominance is now gone.

She lost more states. Obama carried 14 states, six more than Clinton, and showed appeal in every geographical region (including an impressive one in bellwether Missouri).

She lost the January cash war. Money chases momentum, so Obama crushing’s 2-to-1 fundraising victory last month is revealing (and Obama is on pace to duplicate this money-raising feat in February).

The calendar is her enemy. For the foreseeable future (Washington, Nebraska and Maine are caucus states, which plays to Obama’s organization strength, followed by D.C., Maryland and Virginia, then followed by Hawaii and Wisconsin) Obama may see victory after victory after victory, potentially sweeping all those states. By the time Texas and Ohio roll around, Obama may have too much of a head steam to be denied the nomination.

Obama could, of course, fall flat on his face, but the immediate future looks very good indeed.

February 6, 2008
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The Lady is a Champ

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Barack Obama is winning some states but Hillary Clinton appears to be winning the significant ones. California is not in but, based on what’s gone on so far, I just don’t expect Obama to win there. I don’t know why I thought he could win in New Jersey and New York. Clinton not only won here but also in Oklahoma and Tennessee.

I know I sound ridiculous but, from this point on, Obama is running for vice president if he stays in the race. The sort of magic he packs shrivels in a vice presidency. Besides, with Bill as a virtual co-president, Mrs. Clinton won’t need anyone substantial as her vice president. Is there a Joseph Biden clone out West or in the South?

Obama could be President Clinton’s first nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

February 5, 2008
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A Rip in the Fabric

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I found this New York Times story very fascinating. The Sanchez sisters’ story was affecting but the story that affect me the most was the one involving Christopher Edley and Maria Echaveste.

Christopher Edley and Maria Echaveste, a married couple who met while serving in the Clinton administration, have actually started debating each other. Not just at their kitchen table, but in front of audiences across California and on television.

“It’s not easy,” Ms. Echaveste, who is a paid consultant to Mrs. Clinton, said in a joint telephone interview with her husband, who advises Mr. Obama. “You’re having a discussion and your husband is basically saying that your candidate doesn’t have a moral compass.”

With that, Mr. Edley broke in. “Or your wife is saying that your candidate isn’t smart enough to figure out where the bathrooms are,” he said.

“I never said that,” she replied.

The couple has relived some of the campaign’s most rancorous moments, such as when Ms. Echaveste, echoing Bill Clinton, told her husband that Mr. Obama was “naïve.” The word conjured up racial stereotypes for Mr. Edley, who is black, and has known Mr. Obama since he taught him in law school. “There’s the childlike Negro,” he explained. “There is the superficial but glib minstrel.”

Ms. Echaveste, who is Hispanic, now understands why her husband exploded in response. “Regardless of being dean of a law school” — at the University of California, Berkeley, where both teach — “he’s still in a box called being a black man,” she said. Still, she said, “I ought to be able to make that point and not trigger these reactions.”

And with that, Mr. Edley responded, his wife countered, and they started to debate once more.

This couple’s conflict played out for me this way:

I was open-minded about Hillary Clinton’s campaign for nomination and could have seen myself voting for her. Then, in a Jan. 13 appearance on ‘Meet the Press,’ she refused to answer Tim Russert’s question about whether Obama was qualified to be president. Obama has more years in elected office than she does and he’s the exact same age Bill Clinton was in 1992. So what is the problem? And this was going on at a time when Hillary and Bill were channeling Lee Atwater in South Carolina by turning Obama into “the black candidate.”

Call me sensitive, thin-skinned, but it became hard for me to support her after that. I started wishing John Edwards had been a stronger candidate, that his message had resonated with the voters more. I did not want Obama to benefit from my disappointment with Hillary Clinton.

So, this is where we’re at.

February 5, 2008
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Nana says . . .

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Poet Maya Angelou says make for Hillary Clinton President of the United States.

She said recently: ‘I made up my mind 15 years ago that if she ever ran for office I’d be on her wagon. My only difficulty with Senator Obama is that I believe in going out with who I went in with.’

She announced her support in a poem she apparently gave to the Guardian, a newspaper in London. Here’s a portion of their story:

The 79-year-old poet was the centrepiece of Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993 when she read her poem On the Pulse of Morning, playing on the idea of a new political dawn. Last week she handed this new poem over to the Clinton campaign.

Angelou says that she has had many long telephone conversations with Winfrey on the subject of Obama versus Clinton. ‘She thinks he’s the best, and I think my woman is the best,’ she has explained. ‘Oprah is a daughter to me, but she is not my clone.’

Here’s a portion of Angelou’s poem:

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

February 4, 2008
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Commonality

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Although some insist that Latinos are too racist (the Clinton campaign inexplicably fanned this idea early in the campaign) to vote for black candidates, this man begs to differ and these two guys give better reasons why Latinos could support Hillary Clinton without being racists.

February 1, 2008
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“A.B.M.”

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The Clintons and the national media covering the Democratic Party race for the presidential nomination have broken out a new story line regarding Barack Obama: That he’s “angry” and “frustrated.” Hillary Clinton practically taunts him with this. It does not help that the media has not only totally bought into this, they’re mischaracterizing their news coverage to turn normal or innocuous exchange with the candidate into “tense” encounters. ABC News breathlessly reported on its website that it had filmed a “testy” exchange between Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times and Obama. Their tape, however, does not match their description of the encounter.

A measured Obama was trying to both sign autographs for voters and talk to the reporters as he campaigned in South Carolina. His voice was not raised. A bemused smile played on his face, as if he recognized the trap he was in. The reporters were trying to manufacture a story where there was none and he was not about to give them one. He even tried to go off the record at one point.

It’s a singular achievement of the Clintons that and the media in this campaign that they’ve managed to turn Barack Obama into the “Angry Black Man” without any evidence of him being one.

January 23, 2008
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Bill. Raw

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Obama once said, in response to people (the Clintons) who said he’s in too much of a hurry to become president, that what they wanted was for him to wait until all the hope is boiled out of him.

It was a good line.

He probably did not realize that there was not going to be any waiting involved.

How sweet is this for Hillary. Send Bill out to bang Obama, then jump up and say, see, Obama can’t take the heat.

So what if the Democratic Party gets burned in the process? Who cares. Power. Corrupts. Absolutely.

January 23, 2008
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