Political Wisdom: So Nasty, So Soon?
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Here's a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Sara Murray and Gerald F. Seib
NBC's Mark Murray, looking at new shots exchanged between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, is moved to ask: "Is the Obama vs. McCain (campaign) now beginning in earnest?" He looks at a testy exchange between the two over McCain's statement that he is the candidate Hamas would least like to see elected president. Obama himself seemed insulted, saying the McCain comment's implication that Hamas favors Obama and overall was "offensive" and an example of McCain "losing his bearings."
In return, Murray notes: "the McCain campaign didn't like the 'losing his bearings' comment. McCain adviser Mark Salter responded in a memo: 'First, let us be clear about the nature of Senator Obama's attack today: He used the words 'losing his bearings' intentionally, a not particularly clever way of raising John McCain's age as an issue. This is typical of the Obama style of campaigning. We have all become familiar with Senator Obama's new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity…."
Oh, but first there is this little matter of actually winning the nomination. On that front, Mike Dorning and Mark Silva note on LATimes.com: "While everyone keeps running through the math of the Democratic primary battle, Barack Obama's campaign already has come up with its own bottom line: The contest effectively ends on May 20." Why that date?. "The Obama campaign is likely to start pressing for commitments from superdelegates — if not right away, then after the May 20 primaries in Kentucky and Oregon. At that point, under any likely scenario, Obama will lock up a majority of the pledged delegates." Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, Dorning and Silva report, has told a Chicago radio station: "To my knowledge, the party has never nominated anyone other than the winner of the most elected delegates." The Chicago station reports that Obama's campaign "is planning a big victory rally" on that May 20 date, on "a scope well beyond the typical rally following past primary victories."
Sen. Hillary Clinton will have a tough time blaming her loss (if she loses, which is increasingly likely) on her gender, writes National Journal's John Mercurio. Here's one big piece of evidence: it wasn't "the largely male group of insiders" that caused her problems in this week's primaries. "While she won Pennsylvania last month with a healthy 14-point advantage among women, that support drifted away Tuesday. She lost women to Barack Obama by 12 points in North Carolina and led him by only 4 points in Indiana," Mercurio notes. Yes, it's true that when it comes to cable news anchors, Clinton gets a dose of treatment that Obama would never receive, but "given the historic success that other women are enjoying at the ballot box this year, in competitive races against well-funded men, it's hard to see how Clinton, given her own strengths, will be able to lay much blame for her imminent defeat on her gender," Mercurio writes. One such example is "former Rep. Jill Long Thompson (D) won her primary bid to become her state's first female governor."
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