I was just watching Larry King last night talking to both James Carville (who, as we know, supports Senator Clinton), and Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist who supports Obama. They were discussing the two campaigns, and what the likely results would be of the next weeks. When asked if Sen. Clinton had to win both Texas and Ohio, Carville bluntly said "yes." They then spoke about how the race had taken shape, how Obama had managed to get to where he is, etc. Jamal Simmons had a fascinating (to me) revelation, which I reflect on below the fold.
In the interest of fair disclosure, I am a former Edwards supporter who is now firmly in the Obama camp. I respect Senator Clinton, but I don't think she is our best nominee.
Larry King asked the two commentators about how the two campaigns had gotten to where they were. He asked Simmons about what Obama had done right. Jamal Simmons revealed that several months ago, back in October or November, Obama got together with his campaign organization and basically "took over" his campaign. Simmons used a basketball analogy, saying that Obama plays basketball, and that as a candidate he is like a great basketball player -- when the game is on the line in the last five minutes he wants the ball ("the rock" as Simmons called it) in his hands, to take responsibility for the game. Apparently, toward the end of last year, Obama decided that he needed to more personally direct the campaign, and Simmons suggested that, since Obama had done that, the entire campaign had started gathering speed.
Somehow, the fact that Obama is really at the reins of his own campaign suddenly made a lot of things clear to me. In the past few weeks since Edwards dropped out and I have paid really close attention to the remaining two candidates (and ultimately chose Obama as my nominee) I have been more and more impressed at how comfortable, relaxed, and "in flow" Obama seems to be. He seems -- despite the exhaustion and strain of such a campaign -- to actually (gasp!) be enjoying this!
Simmons' basketball-star analogy is actually on point in another sense. Since South Carolina, Obama has really taken control of the narrative of this election. To continue the basketball analogy, it's like watching Michael Jordan in his heyday when he would just take control of a game and seem to effortlessly do things that had never been done before and make them seem both ordinary because of the ease with which he did them and extraordinary because of the difficulty of the achievements and the beauty and grace of the performance.
It struck me after the Potomac primaries the other night that Senator Obama has really run an extraordinary campaign for someone who has never run a Presidential campaign before. There's no comparison, for example, between Obama's first presidential campaign and the campaign Wesley Clark ran in 2004. I was a totally committed Clarkie in 2004 -- in fact, the draft Clark movement (and Bush's rush to war) was what had brought me out of my political apathy. I worked my ass off for Clark, whom I felt was a brilliant, eloquent, and honest statesman who would have made a great President in 2004. But from the first moment he became a candidate, his campaign made one rookie mistake after another. The brilliant man we drafted made the mistake of allowing political operatives and "experts" to tell him how to run his campaign, and he lost the authenticity that had made him so appealing. Similarly, Edwards in 2004 was a non-starter for me, because he seemed too scripted and wooden. (For me, the Edwards of 2008 was far more compelling.)
I was concerned, when Obama first declared his candidacy, that he would go down the same path. It was one reason I didn't support him at first. There was no question that he was brilliant and eloquent, but there were moments in the early phases of his campaign when he seemed less than inspired. Personally, I wondered if he really "wanted" it enough, or whether he had been persuaded to run before he was really ready to do so. He did not always seem at ease and comfortable with his role, and his early debate performances were uninspired, to say the least.
At the start of the 2008 campaign season, it seemed clear to me that Senator Clinton had the best campaign going during the early months. She seemed totally in control and on message, racked up huge fundraising and institutional support, and made few mistakes. But the more I watched her -- and believe me, as a woman smack in her supposed "demographic", I had every desire to see myself inspired to vote for the first woman president -- the more I watched her the less I liked what I saw. I am not talking about positions -- all the candidates have similar positions, and the platform that will be written will be one all can support -- but the persona that has emerged is not one of someone at ease with herself and nturally emerging into a position of leadership stemming from that inner authenticity. Yes, there was that moment after New Hampshire when she claimed to have found "her own voice", but the moment (even assuming it was genuine) was truly momentary, and then the scripted persona reemerged.
I have the feeling with Senatory Clinton that she is running the same campaign that worked for her husband in 1992 and 1996, but the world has moved and changed, and she has not. Perhaps it's the reliance on the old machine politicians and political strategists -- the Terry McAuliffes and Mark Penns and James Carvilles. They crafted something that worked in 1992 and 1996, but that's all they know how to do. To continue the sports analogy, she plays from the playbook, whereas Obama creates plays as he reads the game around him.
Senator Clinton has survived and thrived in the system, but she doesn't have that intuitive grasp -- that ability to "read" the electorate or "feel the pain" that her husband has. And no matter how closely Bill and Hillary may work, he can't impart his "gift" to her anymore than she can impart her discipline and control to him. They were a great team, but it worked better when he was the front man, and she did the heavy lifting of actual work. Now it's reversed -- she's in front of the crowds and he's trying to prompt her to do what he used to do to work a crowd, and it's just not who she is.
I watch her speak, with the constant head nodding (as if that will make her audience agree) and the overuse of "I" "I" "I" and it is almost painful, compared to Obama's elegant eloquence. She calls it empty rhetoric, but leadership requires the ability to inspire people to follow where you lead. And once the Clinton campaign started to run into bumps, rather than "taking the reins" as Obama has done, she has apparently relied more and more on her loyalist advisors. I know she's let Solis-Doyle and another assistant manager go, but Mark Penn is still there, and Bill is clearly still the number one advisor, albeit muzzled in the background. And nowhere do I hear her personally admit that she has made some mistakes and needs to retool. Instead, everything that has gone "wrong" is ignored. It astounds me that she can just "ignore" the results or the significance of states that she doesn't win, as if nothing but what supports her view of reality counts.
As for Bill's actions in South Carolina, I have a different perception as to why he was angry. I don't think he was "defending" Hillary. I think Bill well knows just how capable of defending herself Hillary is. I also don't think he really cared about Obama's position on Iraq. Rather, I think what we saw was Bill Clinton jealous. For years, he has been the "rock star" of the Democratic party. Wherever he goes, he is mobbed and feted, and in fact he has been referred to constantly by the media as the party's "rock star". Well now here comes Obama, and all of a sudden the party has a new "rock star" -- and Bill's ego can't handle it. There's nothing less glamorous than an "aging rock star". After Iowa and South Carolina, Obama has morphed from a candidate into a movement. I'm not saying it's good or bad -- I have some concerns about the messianic projections involved -- but the phenomenon is real, and it threatens to push the Clintons into the shadows, just as they thought they were ready to once again step into the limelight of center stage.
I compare Bill's angry, red faced, finger wagging performance supposedly "in defense" of his wife with Michelle Obama's eloquence in support of her husband, and I know who I would like to see in the White House as First Spouse. Michelle Obama was on Larry King the other night and I was amazed at how similar she and her husband are in the sense of both being people who are genuinely authentic in their expressions and in their commitment to each other and to addressing the critical problems we face as a nation.
So, when I originally threw my support behind Obama after Edwards dropped out, it was genuine, albeit unenthusiastic. However, the more I hear, the more I see, the more I learn, the more I am convinced that Obama has the potential to be a historic president -- not because he is African-American, but because he has the potential to be a once-in-a-lifetime leader. Senator Clinton's election would be historic because she is a woman -- but not because she is this particular woman. Senator Obama's election would be historic because he is African-American, but that is far less important than his potential to be historic as a true leader. I say potential, because we have no guarantee that he won't be corrupted or derailed by the process or the Washington machine, but at least the potential is there, and how can you not hope that, when the game is on the line, and the corrupting influences of Washington threaten, Obama will step in to take the reins, call for "the rock" and lift the country to another level.