The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne usually does not impress me much. Today was no exception, even though he gets a lot right about the current phase of the Democratic campaign:
Bill Clinton has learned lessons, too, campaigning as a happy warrior in appreciative country towns. Barbara Allen, the former North Carolina Democratic chair and a Clinton supporter, said the former president’s emphasis on “the small places, places people don’t normally get to at election time,” has squared with Hillary’s emphasis on the forgotten voter.
Still, there is a hangover from Clinton’s overconfident front-runner strategy: Her failure to organize effectively in caucus states and in the primaries after Super Tuesday more than explains Obama’s lead of somewhere between 135 and 140 delegates. Obama earned a lead of 132 pledged delegates over Clinton in the caucus states alone, and he netted 73 more in the primaries held two weeks after Super Tuesday. She is in a hole that her campaign dug for itself.
Clinton’s need to focus on the forgotten voter and Obama’s cheap delegate strategy for overtaking her are the sort of things I would cover… and did, back on February 16th. Dionne is a bit of a slow learner. Then again, so was Clinton.
Update: Insta-lanche!
It’s always fun to review Clinton’s hubris, and to kind of reflect on how much of an investment in that feckless woman the media is willing to write off to embrace their doomed little Baracky. It’s kind of Shakespearian really.
“Cheap delegate strategy”? You are such a unflinching Clintonian towel boy.
Bitterly clinging to his buttered notions, everyday there is Karl.
O!
Similar to finding out how much of an investment in McCain the media will be willing to write off to embrace either one of the Democrats. So many years and so much ink to convince the American voters of McCain’s reasonable, middle-of-the-road, maverickiness.
Good point.
thor,
As you have previously admitted you don’t actually read what I write, I’ note that I first wrote about cheap delegates with respect to McCain. I first used the phrase “cheap delegates” in a post about Romney and McCain.
Moreover, I have constently complimented Camp Obama for their organizational skills and consistently faulted Clinton for not challenging Obama in caucus states. I do think that those two factors have created a situation where the candidate with the delegate lead may have less popular support than presumed (e.g., compare the caucus results to the primary results in states which have both, like Washington and Texas) — which would concern me if I was rooting for the Democrats. But there is no doubt that Obama worked the existing system better than Clinton. I have always held this opinion. And if you bothered to read what I write, you would know it.
You’ll never be trusted to clean the blowfish, Karl. You’re not even-handed.
Barack Obama did the tasks you described because he’s a fuckin’ political stud. And no, you have never consistently complimented him, au contrar, you’ve consistently cheapened you reputation at every chance by denying Barack Obama to be anything outside a media-constructed windmill of hope-filled platitudes. Pssst, I believe there to be slight genius to his platitudes, and the way he mirrored the Billary on the major issues – maniacal is that Marxist. You stepped into a pleated mini-skirt and started pumping the frilly poms long ago, cheerleader. If you don’t want to be cornered and hammered for your words don’t play the partisanship game.
If campaign money was a chessboard, how did that empty-suit elitist checkmate Hillary, and you. Figure out how you lost, shill.
Said Obama’s official cabana boy. Oooooooo, baybee, baybee now.
thor, your parody of an Obama nut is different than nishi’s, but just as good.
Keep up the good work, Karl.
My favorite thing about Baracky is the part about the Hope. Ooh. And also the part about Change. I’m torn.
No no, hf, it’s the !UNITY! because without !UNITY! we’d be, you know, apart and shit.
I don’t like being apart.
And those like Fidel and Daniel Noriega and Tim Wheeler, they endorse Obama not for teh Marxism but for the !UNITY!.
They get so ronery.
Oh. To be real honest, and I’m gonna share a little bit here, teh !UNITY! a lot still feels like an impossible dream. It’s me. Not Baracky. My Barackentology auditor says he thinks I might could have a breakthrough next week though.
Wow, one wonders what actually happens when you have a !UNITY! breakthrough. I’d stock up on hackysacks just in case.
Oh and cough medicine. Maybe Olive Oil … and patchouli … and a nice Che T-shirt!
I have also consistently opined that both Obama and McCain are riding the hopeyness and changitude wave this year. And I have been consistently critical of Clinton also.
Of course, after having admitted he doesn’t read what I write, it’s had to take thor’s critique of my overall work very seriously, particularly in light of the fact that the other regulars here consider him to have completely lost his mind.
other regulars here consider him to have completely lost his mind.
Either that or he just operates on a higher plane than the rest of us.
The Obama True Believer Plane!
…particularly in light of the fact that the other regulars here consider him to have completely lost his mind.
IIRC, it began when you said something about Russia and he disagreed because he knew something about Russia, and its kind of gone from there into its own wonderful world where the sky is a nice shade of plaid.
Barack Obama did the tasks you described because he’s a fuckin’ political stud
Political studs stomp opponents in debates, and dominate journalists in interviews. Cheap opportunists snatch overlooked delegates out of dark corners when their opponents aren’t paying attention.
I think it is a Gordon tartan. thor’s sky, that is.
http://tartanstore.net/tartan/Gordon-Clan/56522?filter_family_name=G:id=bE8JIbY9
Just for fun, let’s have a look back at my shilling for Hillary, shall we?
… and there’s more where that came from, but I didn’t want to deafen folks with all the Clinton cheerleading I have been doing.
Geez Karl. Is that all ya got?!
OBAMACIST!
Political studs stomp opponents in debates….
See post #20 for an example.
“Cheap opportunists snatch overlooked delegates”
I don’t think that’s it B Moe. There are going to be books written about this one and the best of them will draw a bead on the Copperhead/Prog factions use of Soros money to create a very effective illusion using the “lessons learned” studies of the Dean and Kerry campaigns in combination with very basic organizing tactics from the Alinsky/ACORN manual by SEIU funded and trained foot soldiers. Sure, Obama is a husk, a Chicago machine pol with a bit gilding that’s already worn through in several places but the people who put him in play were pretty shrewd operators who did a damn good job of counting.
If they were pedddling something which didn’t (hpefully) make the majority of the electorate puke, they’d win this one going away.
Karl, never bother with trying to mud-wrestle a pig. Your time is better spent doing other things, you don’t get a prize if you win, you end up covered with muck, and the pig enjoys it.
They had an excellent strategy, Rick, but it only worked because Clinton took them lightly. Her campaign from the start took the nomination for granted and were looking at the general election from the outset, ignoring the diehard red states and working the toss ups and blue states. That let Obama cherry pick an assload of delegates from states he has no chance of carrying in the general. Good strategy in the primary doesn’t always carry into the real election, just ask Ned Lamont.
“just ask Ned Lamont”
or Adlai Stevenson
twice
or Hubert Humphrey
or George McGovern
or Walter Mondale
or George Dukakis
or Al Gore
or John Kerry
What’s that common definition of insanity?
I continue to believe that Clinton has a few more aces up her sleeve wrt Obama’s past. McCain is too soft a target for her to pass up.
They were low hanging fruit that could give the appearance of popular momentum, allowing the creation of a bandwagon; and the strategy worked because of the particular rules of the Democratic Party at both the state and national levels and the schedule of primaries/caucases. Between now and 2012 those rules will change and the plans better take that into account, or you do a Hillary and enter this fight with an out-moded strategy and set of expectations. Sort of like the French high command was fighting the campaign of 1919 in 1940.
Or George Dukakis’ brother, Michael.
@ #2
Leggo my A-Go.
Is Thor “thore” from having his nether regions so thoroughly used by Obama?
thor has a valuable point of view I think. I don’t always understand it exactly. But he’s thor. Know your place.
hf,
I get where you’re coming from. But inasmuch as thor spends most of his time here lying about me, smearing me as a racist, etc., I sorta get Buford’s point also.
That’s the ‘pig in a poke’ theory, Karl. Now that the bag is being opened thor is working overtime to let everyone know that he knew what he was buying. Because he’s smart and couldn’t be snowed and anyone that points that out is A RACIST!
Or something else. Whatever. He’s right and you’re wrong. Remember that.
BTW – I used to be like thor. Then I grew up. For me it was age nineteen and I told dad a story why I wanted to work at the youth camp, and he said the real reason was because of a blue-eyed blonde.
He was right about that; I was wrong about the blonde. Caused me to think, it did.
“… and there’s more where that came from, but I didn’t want to deafen folks with all the Clinton cheerleading I have been doing.”
It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up.
Yes. Defining racist down to where it makes no sense is never helpful. There’s them what will exploit that. Baracky, for example. NPR. Anderson Cooper.
It is helpful in the ‘boy who cried wolf’ sense. Of course it didn’t work out so good at the end of that story, but nevermind – the intentions were correct. WOLF!!111!!1!!
Oh. You’re exactly right.
Fuckin’ Hillary shill, Karl, you li’l Clinton bitch!
You got emptied and punked. You are officially Obama’s bitch.
thor returns hours later, does not respond to #20.
shocka!
Barack gonna straighten up you white boys!
Brown is totally hopeless – the sooner he is gone the better. ,