England for Obama

Matthew Price at the BBC has an excellent article which reviews last nights Democratic debate between the two candidates.

At the start Mrs Clinton stayed positive, going out of her way to be nice to Mr Obama. When she did she seemed on top of things, confident.

Then though she slipped into negativity.

Link to article

The Times also has a great overview which includes a number of key quotes from the evenings debate:

Mr Obama shook his head and dismissed the charge, before saying: “What we shouldn’t be spending time doing is tearing each other down. We should be spending time lifting the country up.”

Link to article

Barack Obama’s campaign team has been in touch with us to tell us that another milestone is about to be reached - a million people will have put their hands in their wallets to support his bid for President.

In an email to supporters, Barack said:

“Think about that … nearly one million people taking ownership of this movement, five dollars or twenty-five dollars at a time.

We’re already more than 900,000 strong, including over half-a-million donating so far this year. This unprecedented foundation of support has built a campaign that has shaken the status quo and proven that ordinary people can compete in a political process too often dominated by special interests.

Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven’t taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. Our campaign is responsible to no one but the people.

One million donors would be a remarkable feat — something that’s never been done before in a presidential primary and something no one ever thought would be possible for us. And you still have the opportunity to be a part of it.”

So, writers of The West Wing have confirmed it’s no coincidence that their young, charismatic and ethnic minority democratic candidate was modelled on Barack Obama - even before he was elected to the Senate.

Fans of the show will no doubt have noticed the uncanny similarities between Matthew Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) and Obama, right down to the number of children they have. There’s an excellent - and slightly amusing - comparison in Guardian today

Apparently Obama’s now Chief Strategist, David Axelrod, even contributed. Let’s hope that fact follows fiction all the way to the White House!

After ten straight wins the Obama campaign can definitely claim ‘momentum’. But beneath the headlines, what are the polls telling us about Obama’s growing support? The answer: it’s from Clinton’s traditional support base.

The exit polls in Wisconsin show that Obama had the support of the majority of voters earning under $50,000; had almost equal backing from white women; and slightly more support from those without a college education. He is also stacking up support from independents (in Wisconsin’s open primary) and extending his supporters among young people.

And now with Senator McCain attacking Obama as if he’s the only candidate in town, our Prime Minister scrambling to get a meeting with him, and the BBC’s Justin Webb is saying he is finding it “increasingly difficult” to visualise a Clinton victory, let the momentum roll on!
Sources:

BBC News; Guardian online; Times

After ten consecutive victories, winning 25 states to Hillary Clinton’s 11 so far, momentum is clearly with Barack Obama. Clinton’s campaign however has momentum of it’s own too. It’s the momentum of a slow motion car crash.

We all know the feeling when time seems to slow down as our car skids towards the crunch you know is going to happen, but are powerless to prevent. Despite all the talk of superdelegates, a contested convention, and calls to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan, the loss of Wisconsin signals the moment that the Clinton campaign started spinning out of her control. The end is now inevitable, it’s only a question of how much longer the tyres squeal, and how much damage the final crash causes.

Clinton’s problem isn’t the delegate count, although where voters have had their say the majority have backed Barack, it’s the increasingly obvious fact that she has failed. Factor in the repeated polls which give a Democrat victory in the general election only with Obama as the candidate, and the strategy of relying on superdelegates starts to look as foolish as it is dangerous. But turkeys don’t vote for Christmas any more than superdelegates will leap on the bonnet of her out of control car.

Obama’s camp called Wisconsin Hillary Clinton’s “no excuses” contest, and they were correct. She should have romped home given the demographics of the State. Instead, yet another wheel came off, and people are wondering just how many spares she has left.

No doubt her spin contol team will argue that they still have their so-called firewall in Texas and Ohio, but in truth there must now be doubts as to whether it’s more likely to be the final fireball.

Ironically, it’s Obama’s inclusive appeal which is driving his campaign straight and true, and as the fight gets nastier and nastier, Democrats must be dreaming that she’ll slam on the brakes before she takes the Party the same way as her campaign. It’s time somebody took Hillary aside and advised her to stop her car before too much damage is done.

As the vote stands now:

With 99% of the ballots counted in Wisconsin, Mr Obama had 58% of the vote to Mrs Clinton’s 41%.

Meanwhile, with 51% of votes counted in Hawaii, where the Illinois senator was born, he had taken 76% of the vote, leading AP and CNN to project victory.

Source: BBC News

This gives Obama an strong buffer going into the Ohio and Texas contests (4 March) where Clinton has a strong following.

Speaking in Houston yesterday Obama said: “The change we seek is still months and miles away and we need to get all of Texas to help us get there.”

Racking up win after win, it’s a brave person who levels any criticism against Barack Obama’s campaign tactics, but I’m going to be brave. Whilst his team has done a wonderful job winning both votes and delegates, they appear to be losing the race to secure the superdelegates.

As England for Obama recently revealed, the Obama team is asking supporters to send them their own personal stories about why they’re backing Barack. It’s not clear quite how they plan to use these to sway superdelegate’s votes, but they are already behind in this race, and conventional wisdom has it that it will be the superdelegates who eventually decide who will be the Democratic nominee.

It’s worrying then to read this article about Texan superdelegates, which highlighted David Hardt of Dallas’ experience:

“So far in Texas, Clinton leads Obama among the 35 superdelegates 13-5, with 17 remaining unpledged — including Hardt, which explains why he received calls from both Clintons and was given a face-to-face meeting with former first daughter Chelsea. He has yet to hear from Obama.

“I’m still waiting for the call, though,” Hardt is reported to have said.

Perhaps it’s time somebody from Obama’s team dropped a dime or two?

Wisconsin

• Polls open from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM
• Open to all Democrats, Republicans, and Independents
• New voters can register at the polls
• Find Your Polling Location
• Wisconsin Primary Frequently Asked Questions

Hawai’i

• Caucus doors open at 6:30 PM, caucuses begin at 7:00 PM
• New voters can register at their caucus location
• Republicans and Independents and change their registration at their caucus location
• Find Your Caucus Location
• Hawai’i Top 10 Caucus Facts

We all choose to spend our Sundays differently, but last Sunday I spent mine searching YouTube for new videos of Obama speeches. I was hoping to find one he had made on his economic policy the previous night, but what I found was a video entitled ‘Clinton vs. Obama: Speeches are more than Just Words‘. It had received very few views, but I could spare a couple of minutes, so I watched it. It wasn’t a head-to-head of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama though, it was a head-to-head of Clinton and a chap I’d never heard of called Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts. Undaunted, I continued my video search and discovered one entitled ‘Obama inspiring response to ‘Just Words’ Clinton critique‘. Thirty seconds in, I was struck by how similar Deval Patrick’s response was to Senator Obama’s.

I went to the social news aggregation site, Reddit, of which I’m a member, and posted an item asking whether this was evidence of plagiarism on Obama’s part, or just a coincidence. A discussion followed with some other members, including the suggestion that Patrick may have advised Obama how he had replied to his opponents when faced with the charge that words are cheap. I hadn’t thought of that possibility but it made sense, and I thought nothing more about it.

A few hours later Clinton’s campaign manager accused Obama of plagiarism, citing the very same speeches I had watched previously. As the blogs and newswires buzzed with this charge, I was left wondering whether I had inadvertently created a new stick to beat Barack with. I hope not, but the timing worried me and the popularity of Reddit makes it a very real possibility.

I searched for references to the charge which pre-dated my Reddit enquiry, but found none. Of course, it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t really my fault, simply a coincidence, but I regret it all the same. Forcing the Obama team to divert their attention from serious campaigning to explain that it wasn’t plaigerism was the last thing I wanted. So, I would like to apologise for being so naive and make it absolutely clear that Obama had not plagiarised part of his speech.

Should you happen across a reference to this false charge which pre-dates mine, it would salve my conscience to learn that this storm in a teacup wasn’t my fault after all. Otherwise, rest assured that I shall be more circumspect in the future.

“It’s true that speeches don’t solve all problems, but what is also true is if we cannot inspire the country to believe again, then it doesn’t matter how many policies and plans we have, and that is why I am running for president of the United States of America, and that is why we just won 8 elections straight, because the American people want to believe in change again. Don’t tell me words don’t matter!”