A two-faced primary campaign
Proving that the Democrat party is mentally unstable, both Obama and Clinton are forced to campaign as completely different people in Texas as they were in Ohio. After preaching against NAFTA in Ohio and promising the Canadian government he was just pumping smoke up our collective ass, Obama has to prove to Texans that he was just pumping smoke up our collective ass so he can win Texas (Wall Street Journal link);
After weeks of hammering the North American Free Trade Agreement on campaign stops in Ohio, the Democratic presidential candidates are singing a different tune in Texas.
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had to adjust their messages as they have shuffled between hard-hit Ohio and robust Texas, where Nafta is largely seen as an economic boost to the state’s border communities.
Saturday, Sen. Clinton dedicated her stops in Fort Worth and Dallas to talk of national security. Friday, she focused a speech in Waco on veteran’s rights, because Texas has a large military population. Sen. Obama is keeping his Texas message squarely set on uniting the country. He omitted mention of Nafta at a rally here Friday night that attracted 8,000 people.
Ohio and Texas may sit on opposite sides of the economic spectrum, but they are both must-win states for Sen. Clinton.
The Washington Post reports that Black “Super-Delegates” are under pressure to support Barack Obama, apparently for purely superficial reasons. At least one super delegate is pushing back;
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones doesn’t care to be lectured about her choice in the Democratic presidential race.
The 58-year-old congresswoman from Ohio has emerged as one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most outspoken black supporters, the rare African American politician willing to publicly question Sen. Barack Obama’s readiness for the White House.
Tubbs Jones has picked apart his record in campaign conference calls and lambasted the “Harvard arrogance” of Obama backers who have demanded that African American leaders fall in behind the senator from Illinois in his quest to become the nation’s first black president.
While Obama’s candidacy has often united blacks and whites at the ballot box, it has driven a wedge through the black political establishment, exposing a rift between a new generation, whose members see their political horizons as limitless, and their predecessors, who have struggled to establish a following outside of heavily African American areas.
Tubbs Jones is pushing back hard against the kind of pressure that has come down on Rep. John Lewis (Ga.) and other black Democratic superdelegates who are being pressed to back Obama’s candidacy.
“I say shame on anyone who’s engaged in that conduct, to put that kind of pressure on John Lewis,” Tubbs Jones said. “I’m not trying to be a martyr. I think Senator Clinton is the best candidate. And the beauty of the United States of America is you have the right to have your opinion, and I have the right to my opinion.”
“I’m not going to succumb to that kind of pressure,” she added. “If I change my mind, it will be because Senator Clinton said, ‘Stephanie, let’s make a move.’ “
So, what exactly does it matter? Apparently both candidates are soley in the business of telling a particular crowd what they want to hear, even though what the crowd wants to hear is diametrically opposed to what Obama and Clinton were saying a few days ago in front of a different crowd.
Of course, the standard reply from Democrats is; “everybody does it”, but that’s not true. George W. Bush has done exactly what he said he’d said he’d do in the campaign. John McCain certainly hasn’t gone out of his way to endear himself to the Conservatives, and most of the Republican candidates have dropped out mainly because they didn’t pander to particular groups – except Mike Huckabee who went from the front runner to the underdog in mere weeks.
The New York Times tells a different story about McCain, though (h/t WSJ Washington Wire blog);
His most striking turnaround has been on the Bush tax cuts, which he voted against twice but now wants to make permanent. Mr. McCain has also expressed varying positions on immigration, torture, abortion and Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary.
Mr. McCain’s advisers say that he has evolved rather than switched positions in his 25-year career in the House and Senate and that he has been remarkably consistent on his support for the war in Iraq and the American troop escalation there.
Um, arriving at different conclusions over a period of eight years is a little bit different that jumping from position-to-position over the course of a flight between Ohio and Texas. Stupid NY Times.
Category: Politics
