44 posts tagged “hillary clinton”

I rather liked Craig Ferguson’s jokes at last year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. It was a shame that his fellow media colleagues didn’t know a good laugh when they heard it.
   I have found this with political humour in the United States. I have had political jokes fall well flat, and this is due to the politeness of Americans. Democrats don’t want to offend Republicans in the audience, and Republicans don’t want to offend Democrats in the audience. Net result: little laughter.
   The only times one can get a bit more extreme is in areas which are staunchly one way or another (e.g. then-Sen. Obama at the DNC and Gov. Palin at the RNC).
   He dissed The New York Times as much as Fox News, Vice-President Cheney as much as Sen. Clinton, Bill O’Reilly as much as Keith Olbermann, and he even had a go with the media in general. However, I loved his closing which was a great way to bring everyone together. Also notice that Mr Ferguson got a standing ovation.

I’ve been having a think about the hatchet-job that Gov. Palin is getting, surprisingly, from the Murdoch Press, specifically its Fox News Channel arm. Considering that she was championed by this network after her selection by the party (over Sen. McCain’s own choice of Sen. Joe Lieberman, who even my Democratic friends felt would have been a better choice to win moderate voters), the about-face shows a level of deceit either now, or before, by the media company.
   While there may have been some gentlemen’s agreement over concealing this information till after the election, I don’t think I have seen the Murdoch Press go after a political figure in quite this fashion since Hard Copy did its exposés on Sen. Ted Kennedy in the 1980s.
   To be fair, even Newsweek, on the left, has kept mum about matters till now, and I imagine other media outlets have done the same in order to maintain their access to the candidates.
   We are hearing some things about the Democrats and we now know that Sen. Obama isn’t above swearing, but overall the post-mortem, even in the conservative press, has been relatively muted about the winning side.
   But not against Gov. Sarah Palin.
   It also shows a disloyalty within the Republican Party that is not becoming of it, if it wishes to be seen as a party that was unjustly cheated out of the election this week.
   In 2000, Democrats could point to the recount process in Florida and the alliance between the state’s Attorney-General Katherine Harris and the Republican Party as having taken the presidency from Al Gore.
   This time, the divide that has occurred might leave Republicans thinking that the disunity in the party cost them the election, and they were beaten by Democrats who hid their divisions better. They may fairly and rightly point to the media as being complicit in giving Sen. Obama a free ride, just as Conservatives in Britain could in 1997, but the reality may be that there was something rotten within the GOP.
   I can’t believe campaign aides and workers coming out and breaching a level of trust by revealing such details as Gov. Palin coming to greet them in a towel, and having this make the news pages.
   Even the supposed hatred by Sen. Clinton’s campaigners for Sen. Obama stayed relatively under the radar, either by a cooperative liberal media or by a sense of loyalty to the Democratic Party.
   We’re hearing news of the Governor’s tantrums and that the $150,000 shopping spree may have been more expensive than first thought.
   This is a personal attack on her that shows party workers who can’t maintain any sense of dignity and trust.
   Importantly, you do not see someone of the standing and decency of Sen. John McCain rubbish his running-mate.
   If this division has been inspired by higher-ups in the Republican Party, then Americans might be fortunate that this version of the GOP did not get into power on November 4.
   One may argue that it is our right to know, and maybe it is. But the pace of this so-called knowledge being disseminated points to a party that is acting out sour grapes and playing the blame game a little too soon, and I find it troubling.
   Every party says it will regroup after a loss. It is fair to note that the loss that the Republicans suffered was in fact very small, given how they were outspent by the Democrats to such a degree. At this stage, I do not think there will be much re-evaluation of where it will lead, because I am not sure if the Party itself realizes where it wishes to head. It may need to rebrand much later, but for now, it hasn’t been able to protect its own from this onslaught—and may well have caused it.

Sen. Joe Biden and the Obama campaign have cancelled all interviews with this Florida TV station after getting fired a few tough questions that Sen. Barack Obama would have dealt with very easily. He dealt with them sufficiently but cancelling further interviews with the channel?
   I never understood, and still do not understand, why this man is Sen. Obama’s running-mate. I have always had my doubts about Sen. Biden, long before his nomination, and the pettiness of the Obama campaign staffers that I have written about has shown itself once again.
   Come on, even Gov. Sarah Palin isn’t above returning to unfriendly networks and channels for the McCain campaign.

   I’ll say again that an Obama–Clinton ticket was the obvious one for the Democrats, and we wouldn’t even be looking at the polls if that had happened.

With any election campaign, and now being involved as a political candidate myself for the New Zealand Parliament, my observations stem from the point of view of ‘Would I do this?’
   For example, I wouldn’t have tried making fun of Sen. Barack Obama for wearing traditional African costume, as Sen. Clinton’s campaign did, using it as a tactic of painting him as an outsider. (And I said so at the time.)
   I did, meanwhile, have a field day over Sen. Clinton’s sniper-fire gag, or the time she called the still-governing Helen Clark as the ‘former prime minister of New Zealand’. I believe she opened herself up for those.
   At the end of the day, I want to see an even playing field, and I’ll do the little things that I know something about.
   And I thought today about Gov. Sarah Palin’s ‘bridge to nowhere’ remark.
   She said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ to the construction of a bridge to a community of 50 in Alaska.
   Critics say that she was for the bridge before she was against it—something pointed out by Charlie Gibson in the ABC News interview.
   As far as I can gather, Gov. Palin and her Alaskan Congress would try to apply to Washington for a share of infrastructure projects, which, from what I can gather in western politics, is normal.
   I read about something similar in John Major’s autobiography, recalling his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer, with each government department trying to get a cut of the budget.
   So securing a share of the cake is business as usual in most democracies.
   When Congress (Washington, not Juneau) requested that Alaska itself pay for the bridge, Gov. Palin said, ‘No way.’
   Maybe I am being totally stupid but I can’t see what she has done wrong.
   Folks, I don’t support a lot of Sarah Palin’s ideas, not least her environmental stance, and as I have pointed out, her English seems to be below par for a woman holding a journalism degree and with broadcasting experience.
   I am for the Second Amendment, personally speaking. I like how she reduced her mayoral pay in Wassila and how she sold the gubernatorial jet which her predecessor had bought, against the will of his congress.
   She could be a populist. So is Sen. Obama.
   But on this “bridge to nowhere” issue, I thought about it this way.
   I get free samples of various products here that I give out to our team members. They are happy to take them. But if I were to ask them to pay for them, they’ll say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ on most. They defend their own patch, as Gov. Palin defended hers.
   Critics say that Gov. Palin maybe should have said, ‘I said, “Thanks,” then “No thanks,” on that bridge to nowhere.’ But I think it was a waste of time for Gibson to even go there.
   There’s plenty of other stuff to attack the Governor on, just as there’s plenty of other stuff to attack Sen. Joseph Biden on. Americans tire of the politicking in the news not because they are disinterested in who gets to the White House, but because the media are so happy to sway the issue to things everyday people could not care less about.

As long-time readers know, I have come down on Sen. Obama’s side fairly regularly during the Democratic primaries but I have criticized him a few times, too. The first I can recall was I thought he was being petty about The New Yorker cover. Now he claims that he has more executive experience than Gov. Palin.
   I want a fairer fight than this but it is politics, and the fights are never fair.
   The Murdoch Press has reported:

“Well, my understanding is that Governor Palin’s town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees. We’ve got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. So I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute I think has been made clear over the last couple of years,” Obama said.

   These numbers’ arguments are never clear-cut. But the fact does remain a governor has more executive experience, and I would have said that if the Democrats had put in a governor on the ticket.
   Now, let’s look at these numbers from Gov. Palin’s time as mayor—which is not even that relevant now. I do not dispute these figures. But think about it: then-Mayor Palin ran a town with a mere 50 staff with a $12 million budget which is no small feat. That means dealing with everything from rubbish collection to collecting rates. I don’t think there’s much waste there. She ought to be congratulated.
   Sen. Obama has a 2,500-strong group dedicated to glorifying him. A single issue. He spends $36 million a month for that one thing.
   I am exaggerating, I admit that. I can use the same logic and say that John McCain is spending tens of millions to paint the war-hero image for himself.
   But there are many, many things on which Democrats can disagree with Sarah Palin on—pro-gun and pro-life for starters. How about the environment? Much easier things to go after than this comparison. 
   A similar approach on ‘experience’ did not work for Sen. Clinton, and it will not work for Sen. Obama.
   Sen. Obama has, for the second time, handed a big red target to the Republicans. He was lucky they left him alone on The New Yorker gag (which was designed to help him and point out how stupid some of the anti-Obama dialogue was), but I can just see the GOP now go on about how he needs 2,500 people and $432 million a year to promote himself.

On lighter fare, I was encouraged to put this up by friends because I use it as a bipartisan gag at the office. ‘The problem with Barack Obama is that he thinks he’s Jesus Christ. The problem with John McCain is that he’s met both gentlemen.’ Hmm, it’s not that funny now that I write it out. And wouldn’t it be way cool to actually meet Jesus? The humour must all be in the delivery.

I put on someone’s blog how interestingly perceptions worked.
   I would guess if you asked a typical American, ‘Who is the most experienced out of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin?’ one would respond that Sen. Clinton would be. It certainly was the image she portrayed during the primaries for her party.
   If one counts the number of years of elected public service, we have:

• Hillary Clinton: 8
• Barack Obama: 11
• Sarah Palin: 16

   One would rightly point out, however, that Gov. Palin spent some of those years as a mayor of a town with only thousands, and only two years as a governor of a state with around 600,000 people.
   To give her credit, those two years were in an executive position, which the senators in this race have not experienced.
   However, Obama supporters once attacked Sen. Clinton on her claim of greater experience by pointing at the years and ignoring the number of people represented—something that some of them have forgotten this time around in criticizing Gov. Palin.
   In which case, her 16 years are a sufficiently good sign of her devotion and success in public service.
   But if the numbers of people under one’s representation are important, then I wonder how the numbers look.
   This is not scientific at all, incidentally:

• Hillary Clinton, senator representing New York for eight years, pop. 19,000,000
• Barack Obama, senator representing Illinois for three years, pop. 12,000,000
• Barack Obama, state senator representing the 13th district of Illinois for seven years, pop. 700,000
• Sarah Palin, governor representing Alaska for two years, pop. 600,000

   If we look at these numbers, then the ‘inexperienced’ claim holds some water and Sen. Clinton, at least, had authority to claim at least that she represented more people for longer than Sen. Obama (not that she ever said it that way—she tried to count the years she had as First Lady).
   If one used the same defence of Palin as one (even I) used for Obama, then her criticism is unwarranted.
   One could say that politics, like any endeavour, is about human relationships. How effective was Gov. Palin in Alaska during her term? Her approval ratings paint a positive picture. She has been able to fight the institutions in her home state.
   However, those institutions are comparatively younger and less entrenched, so the argument then becomes whether Gov. Palin has the stomach to battle the institutions in national politics to get a president’s policies through, or will she give up because the task is so much greater?
   All I know is that among Democrats, voters are confident that Sen. Obama’s three years in the Senate are enough for him to get his ideas through: that he can battle the institutions well because he learned from them and from his time representing 700,000 people in his district in Illinois. Voters must also decide if Gov. Palin’s time representing 600,000 people in Alaska in an executive position (and in Wasilla as mayor and councillor) are enough, in among her other qualities and her own beliefs, for the vice-presidency.
   They will also have to decide based on their personal preferences and their belief in the candidates’ ability to keep their word.

This is no surprise given the promotions that Sen. Obama has been getting in the media: ‘Obama elicits more excitement than McCain’, according to USA Today.
   I want to be the voice of reason but 21 years in communications tell me that this is important. If your brand, personal or organizational, elicits excitement among its constituents, then you have a greater chance of mobilizing those people when you need them.
   Even when it comes to politics, to get messages across to voters, one has to resort to the tried and trusted techniques of branding and marketing.
   There are few in the present generations who will, as many bloggers do, investigate someone’s voting record or dig deeply into their histories. It would be nice to say that presidents are not elected based on how much excitement they can generate. Or that we should place greater emphasis on other qualities like honour and sincerity.
   While some might point to exceptions, such as the Tory victory in the UK of 1992, I beg to differ. That campaign was hard fought by the Conservatives and depended on party unity—which was sorely lacking in 1997 when Tony Blair was elected. The National victory in New Zealand of 1990 was a result of the cry for change and the belief that Labour was leaderless.
   And the cry for change is such a powerful message in politics, because politicians understand our nature: even the vaguest change is better than the strongest, best defined policies if a party has been in power for too long.
   Labour in the UK in 1997, National in New Zealand in 1990, Labour in New Zealand in 1999, Clinton in 1992—all these are examples of that message. And that, too, “excites”.
   Sen. McCain should not pursue an excitement route himself, but he should capitalize on mistakes that the Obama campaign is making with greater regularity. The New Yorker gaffe—where Sen. Obama felt the need to comment rather than appear presidential and above satire—was an opportunity missed. Meanwhile, I wonder if people appreciate the maverick, go-it-alone style of John McCain, which plays well in the Senate, but could be symptomatic of future Cabinet divisiveness under his administration.
   A winner is by no means clear, and a week remains a long time in politics. Months, as Sen. Clinton will attest as she went from dead cert to second-best, are an eternity.

It’s been interesting watching the MSM dissect the Clinton campaign with a whole range of experts saying why she will not be the Democratic Party nominee for the presidency. I would venture to say these are the same experts predicting a Hillary Clinton win a year ago.
   It’s that which I have found remarkable today as Sen. Barack Obama becomes the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party, rather than the very strong likelihood that Sen. Obama has won.
   For months, the mainstream media have been promoting Sen. Obama heavily. One reason is that he is newsworthy to the left. More often than not, his race is used as the reason behind that promotion. In essence, most New Zealanders, and I would say most non-Americans who watched the news from the US, were left in little doubt that he would take the Democratic Party contest.
   Image sells in American politics, and probably politics in many western countries. George W. Bush got people used to thinking about a Republican president in 2000 by forming his cabinet while lawyers battled Florida. When he did win, only diehard Democrats tried to tell the American people they had been hoodwinked. Everyone else awaited the January 20, 2001 swearing-in. Go back a few years and Tony Blair, too, gave an inevitable image of a Labour victory in 1997.
   This time, Sen. Obama has done the same, and it has been a well thought-out campaign: his book, writing from a humanist perspective and admitting any faults that his rivals were likely to dig up; a consistent branding scheme (the use of the Gotham typeface, for example); and vagueness (to give his opponents less of a target).
   On some of these aspects, Sen. Obama has fielded a very different campaign. Only vagueness seems to be the common thread with other winners. A pre-campaign book was clever as well as admitting to things no other potential presidential nominee would, such as his having tried cocaine.
   In fact, when he began getting specific after a challenge by Sen. Clinton, he actually lost traction.
   I do not pretend to like all of Sen. Obama’s policies if I were to look at his voting record in the Senate, any more than I find myself in accord with Sens. Clinton and McCain.
   As a minority, I am glad that a racial barrier has been broken in American politics. Even though Sen. Obama is biracial, he has been branded an African–American through his father’s homeland, showing just how people are habitual pigeonholers. If by the quirk of genetics he had his mother’s skin colour, would his race have become such an issue?
   That one matter shows how far his campaign has come, in a country that would not have fathomed a “black” president other than in fiction, in the form of Morgan Freeman or Dennis Haysbert.
   We can accept God being played by Morgan Freeman, but a black president?
   While having huge African–American support, I totally understand the campaign Sen. Obama ran in terms of race: he plain didn’t mention it.
   I wouldn’t.
   Any member of any minority in the world, whether that minority is black, yellow, brown or white, who has been brought up on the idea of hard work and dignity, would not make race an issue—with perhaps the exception of others making race an issue for him or her.
   I think that earned Sen. Obama brownie points among many of the United States’ immigrants and people descended relatively recently from immigrants.
   It finally proves so many of those lessons from our parents right: that if you work hard, you can become a leader.
   Once upon a time, parents said that but knew that it would take a miracle for a minority to get there, whether we are talking about the US or New Zealand.
   Barack Obama is proof not only of his own abilities, but he represents the hope that the presidency is no longer governed by skin colour, but by sheer hard work. That speaks to a large part of the electorate, including Caucasian–Americans.
   In some ways this has allowed his policies to be overlooked, which is actually unhealthy for democracy. Americans need to be voting on who can bring them true honour and meaning. But just as Sen. Obama began attacking Sen. John McCain’s policies as he presumed himself the Democratic nominee, it will be up to Sen. McCain to reveal his opponent’s policy shortcomings.
   However, it was not always in the bag.
   Those same MSM experts seem to forget that Sen. Clinton, using a campaign that broke the rules on branding (a confused message and confused visual communications) got so close to Sen. Obama that it actually was a miracle she survived and gained as many votes as she did. Writing in a country that has had two successive female prime ministers and, at one point, women in the Governor-General’s and Chief Justice’s role as well, the gender difference means far less to me. What I saw was a clumsy campaign that had more traction than logic would allow me to admit.
   Sen. Clinton’s progress was nothing short of amazing considering she did not play from the rulebook, and we brand consultants will have to at least acknowledge her case and say: anomalies exist in marketing strategy.
   The question is now whether there is a Clinton vice-presidency, but Obama aides are dead set against it. Equally, Clinton aides would not want their senator cosying up with Sen. Obama.
   If the Clinton image of “will say and do anything for the top job” is accurate, and as Sen. Clinton herself mentioned the possibility of assassination, I would not consider the senator from New York to be a vice-presidential nominee if I were Barack Obama. I might get “Arkancided” in the hope of her succession.
   But right now, Sen. Obama has a Democratic Party to reunite and invigorate, something that Sen. McCain may have difficulty doing for an uninspired GOP. Sen. Obama has media visibility on his side, reaching internal as well as external audiences.

This is National Headache Awareness Week. Show us what gives you a headache.

Warning: this may also give you a headache.

I guess rules and signing pledges mean nothing to Sen. Hillary Clinton. And if she takes such a callous approach to her own party’s rules, will she have much respect for the US, its Constitution and its laws?
   This is not a new news item, but it does echo the flip-flop nature of Sen. Clinton and her deafening insistence now that Florida and Michigan be seated at the Democratic convention. You know, those states that she said earlier didn’t need to be seated?
   She’s only louder now because we know Sen. Obama is gaining among white voters.

   Rules are rules, Sen. Clinton.
   If you didn’t agree with them, last September would have been the time to say no, rather than leading the people of Michigan and Florida down this path.
   Most Democratic candidates understood the rules and decided not to campaign, so how can you really keep a straight face and say that you fairly won those two states when they were largely uncontested?
   Sen. Obama’s name wasn’t even on the Michigan ballot. Because he remembered what the party rules were.
   Last year, Sen. Clinton, you agreed states not following the rules would not be counted; during the campaign in these two states, you led the people to believe that they would; then, in other contests, you said they wouldn’t; and now, you say they should.   
   That’s just in the space of eight months.
   I’d support the seating of delegates from these two states if they were given a fair vote, not an automatic admission of what was essentially a one-horse race.
   I would say an ex post facto attempt to rewrite party rules is un-American.
   With all this going on, Sen. McCain looks way more consistent than whomever will get the Democratic nomination.