I've been checking out the discussions at various locales online. This has been a relatively slow news weekend in the nomination cycle, but that hasn't stopped hundreds, if not, at times, thousands of commenters from making their voices heard. It's really remarkable.
I have a simple diary tonight in that light.
It consists of three links, followed by a discussion...
New VF Bio of Senator Obama
First, if you are curious about Barack Obama's biography there's a nice profile of him up at Vanity Fair tonight by Todd Purdham. It fills in some neglected details of his personal story with fine prose:
"There was a fundamental rupture in my life between Occidental and Columbia, where I just became more serious," Obama said. While he was in New York, his father died, giving the son "a sense of urgency about my own life." He added, "Now, that doesn’t mean at that point I somehow instantly had these grand ambitions for political office. But I do think it was at that point in my life—those two years when I was in New York—where I made a decision that I wanted to, I wanted to make my mark."
He began making that mark in Chicago, the capital of the American black diaspora. Obama arrived not knowing anyone, but ended up finding his life’s work, a deep Christian faith, and the woman who would become his wife and the mother of his two young daughters. Chicago remains his home today. In his work in Chicago, he not only explored his identity as a black American but determined to get the law degree that he believed would best prepare him for a career in public life. Since then, Obama has never veered from the course he set. He became the president of the Harvard Law Review not because he had the best grades (though he had good ones) but because he won the trust of both conservative and liberal factions in an arena in which the arguments were passionate because the stakes were so small. He spurned a sure path to a Supreme Court clerkship, opting instead for a small civil-rights practice, part-time teaching of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and a contract for Dreams from My Father, his gripping memoir, which was published to general praise in 1995 but then sank from sight for almost a decade.
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Good analysis of Obama's Environmental Plan
Second, I think this article from Grist on Obama's energy policy, (link courtesy of Matthew Yglesias at the Atlantic) is fantastic and a must read for anyone researching opinions on Obama's policy positions:
...here are a few thoughts on Obama's energy plan.
Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised -- even shocked -- at its quality. It's a deft mix of good politics and strong, substantive policy. Here are what I see as the three headlines:
100% auction of cap-and-trade credits. This is a home run, a real act of standard-setting boldness (the kind that Obama always promises but rarely delivers). The green community should immediately use it to push Clinton and Edwards into making the same commitment, insuring that it's the new baseline for any cap-and-trade program.
Smart investment. The revenue from auctions will be considerable, up to $50 billion a year, and Obama's smart about putting it to work, dividing it between energy R&D, protections for low-income workers, and market deployment of existing clean tech.
A focus on efficiency. Clearly Obama gets that efficiency is the easiest route to emission reductions, and he's got a set of thoughtful, detailed initiatives to make it work.
That link is chock full of good stuff, and as you can see, there's an Obama on the environment piece in the works from me.
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Paths to the Nomination
Finally, here is a link from Mark Halperin...again, no friend to us Democrats really...that explains in DC terms the path to the nomination for either Clinton or Obama (It also includes a good list of "non-factors" per Halperin, so follow the link too):
For Obama to win, he needs some combination of the following:
- Beat Clinton in Texas and/or Ohio.
- Maintain his elected delegate lead by grinding out victories and keeping losses close.
- Convince superdelegates to coalesce around the leader in elected delegates.
For Clinton to win, she needs some combination of the following:
- Win the most delegates in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
- Whittle Obama’s elected delegate lead down to a statistically insignificant margin.
- Convince superdelegates that she is the stronger general election candidate and better prepared to be president - an argument which could be helped by an intervening outside event and/or negative campaigning.
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Implicit Messaging
Finally, in that light, I'd like to start a discussion here about something related to the above. Clearly, what either candidate needs to do now is to WIN delegates while keeping their eye on continuing to make their strongest possible argument before the Super Delegates. This is not necessarily an easy task.
What I'm wondering is what readers here at Dailykos think of the rhetorical strategies of either campaign...the campaigns themselves, their surrogates, their online advocates etc. etc....not simply in terms of those strategies in terms of their 'on the face logic', but also in terms of their implicit arguments.
For example, I think a winning implicit argument for Barack Obama online is that his supporters keep telling people to get out there and volunteer and donate. In fact, they are focused on teaching people how to do those things and giving them positive reinforcement. That's a win-win implicit argument. It gets more voters to the polls AND it tells Super Delegates that this campaign is building a pool of skilled and motivated volunteers who will come in handy in the general and in all sorts of down ticket races.
Now, on the other hand, I look at the arguments made by Clinton surrogates in the media and online and I'm left scratching my head at the implicit arguments they make. For example, we are headed into the Wisconsin primary which is an Open primary and has same day registration. Ohio and Texas which have varying degrees of openness as well. How can it benefit the Clinton campaign to be making the argument that this nomination should be decided by preferring Democratic voters? I mean, first, that would seem to be a big turn off to all the non-Democrats who, after all, are quite legally poised to vote in Wisconsin, if not also changing the rules mid-stream. And second of all, while that argument may or may not have persuasive power with Super Delegates...isn't it counter productive when every Democratic elected and DNC official knows that we will need the votes of independents and cross-over voters not simply in the general but to make the gains we seek in the Senate and the House?
Personally, I think that once again, the Clinton campaign's weakest link has been it's overall message control, in particular, it's implicit messaging.
Basically, you'd much rather have your supporters saying. "Let's all pitch in and get people to the polls" than "If you look at the results solely by registered Democrats, we're actually winning!"
What do you think?
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