"She is having the worst case of cognitive dissonance in the history of modern politics."
Peggy Noonan's take on Senator Clinton's continued perserverence despite the lack of a path to a nomination is staggering (Wall Street Journal). It's a great article, and it speaks to the petering out of her campaign. It brings up a few points (my own, not Noonan's) worth noting that will ultimately end her pursuit of the nomination before the convention. Here's the link.
http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html
Her money will run out.
Its hard to tell if she can continue to raise money. With only 3 million at hand by the end of February, you have to wonder how much more she could raise in March - especially now that there are more endorsements for Obama, that her negative polling numbers are going up, that he has weathered the Wright storm, and that her surrogates are writing threatening letters.
I've noticed that her campaign events now take on a much smaller feel. They're not the bigger rallies we saw before, even as late as before the Ohio/Texas primaries. Even if all her money wins her Pennsylvania, she has to win by 15 or more to make it worth while. Then how much will she have for Indiana or North Carolina?
No matter how good her policies are or how staunch her supporters are, money is what is needed to fuel her comeback - and money is not what she has in abundance.
The media narrative will change soon.
The media has been fueling the race. Lets face it, whichever side you are with, the media has favored the underdog. Initially it was Obama. Recently it was Clinton. When the Obama negativity was riding high, they pivoted back to favoring Obama. They love a tight fight, but only if they can keep a semblance of validity to their reporting.
The problem is that that validity is eroding. In the face of the lack of a path to the nomination, the increasingly negative Clinton numbers, and the SDs starting to shift towards Obama, they can't necessarily argue that the race is still close. While some will argue they are only seperated by 1.4% of the popular vote, 3.6% in RCP polling average, and 131 in delegates (after SDs figured in), this is after 85% of the nation has voted. It would take a calamity this side of Spitzer to overcome that lead for Clinton. The media knows this. They also know that viewers will start to question the media bias if they continue to report a tight race, when there is none.
(BTW, whoever was standing in for Olbermann yesterday did a horrible job. Stalemate? It's not by far. More like she's got her King and Pawn and he's got his King, Knight, a Rook and 3 pawns headed her way.)
Also, we are starting to see more discussion, more than ever, of Clinton bowing out. She is fielding questions daily now about whether or not she will bow out and when it will end. Presumably, the media smell, see, taste the blood in the water. On CNN, even Mark Halperin last night said that the media will quickly drive out a candidate the moment they sense that candidate won't make it:
Why do that if they want ratings? It makes for a reportable story. Clinton stays in the race despite this. Clinton won't give up even though Senator so and so says this. Once you get it in the head of people that she is fighting a losing battle, support and money start to erode. Its happened to every candidate that's dropped out. Its happening now. The ending of the Clinton era is a story in itself, and the media will run with it.
Obama will pivot towards McCain.
This last point is predictive and based more upon my own wishes, than actual fact. But it seems that he is pulling himself out of the kitchen sink battle. Let's be clear on this - Clinton started the negative campaigning. Somehow, I keep hearing people saying both are getting to negative. That's interesting given the fact that when Obama was taking the high road, everyone said he wasn't a fighter. When he started fighting, everyone says he being negative. Granted, his campaign is not as clean as free of dirty politics as he wishes it to be. But certainly, its not comparable to the scorched earth tactic Clinton has taken.
But this is where Obama can take advantage of the situation. He needs to come out and say, "Look, we can fight all we want, but I need to start fighting with McCain if no one else will, if not for me, for the sake of the party in November." At the same time, he needs to say, "This does not mean I presume to the nominee, far from it I will continue campaigning to win the hearts and votes of Democrats through the nation - its just that we need to keep or focus on what is important - keeping Bush III from the White House."
When Obama starts down this road, the media will increasingly focus on McCain versus Obama. Ultimately, with little cash in hand, with the media increasingly focusing on her demise, and the Obama vs. McCain title bout coming in to focus, there can be no way that Clinton can legitimately argue for her continued campaign. It would be then be it, allowing us to pivot to healing the party.
http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html
Her money will run out.
Its hard to tell if she can continue to raise money. With only 3 million at hand by the end of February, you have to wonder how much more she could raise in March - especially now that there are more endorsements for Obama, that her negative polling numbers are going up, that he has weathered the Wright storm, and that her surrogates are writing threatening letters.
I've noticed that her campaign events now take on a much smaller feel. They're not the bigger rallies we saw before, even as late as before the Ohio/Texas primaries. Even if all her money wins her Pennsylvania, she has to win by 15 or more to make it worth while. Then how much will she have for Indiana or North Carolina?
No matter how good her policies are or how staunch her supporters are, money is what is needed to fuel her comeback - and money is not what she has in abundance.
The media narrative will change soon.
The media has been fueling the race. Lets face it, whichever side you are with, the media has favored the underdog. Initially it was Obama. Recently it was Clinton. When the Obama negativity was riding high, they pivoted back to favoring Obama. They love a tight fight, but only if they can keep a semblance of validity to their reporting.
The problem is that that validity is eroding. In the face of the lack of a path to the nomination, the increasingly negative Clinton numbers, and the SDs starting to shift towards Obama, they can't necessarily argue that the race is still close. While some will argue they are only seperated by 1.4% of the popular vote, 3.6% in RCP polling average, and 131 in delegates (after SDs figured in), this is after 85% of the nation has voted. It would take a calamity this side of Spitzer to overcome that lead for Clinton. The media knows this. They also know that viewers will start to question the media bias if they continue to report a tight race, when there is none.
(BTW, whoever was standing in for Olbermann yesterday did a horrible job. Stalemate? It's not by far. More like she's got her King and Pawn and he's got his King, Knight, a Rook and 3 pawns headed her way.)
Also, we are starting to see more discussion, more than ever, of Clinton bowing out. She is fielding questions daily now about whether or not she will bow out and when it will end. Presumably, the media smell, see, taste the blood in the water. On CNN, even Mark Halperin last night said that the media will quickly drive out a candidate the moment they sense that candidate won't make it:
I think if you look at reporters and their questions, not every reporter, but some reporters have written explicitly, some opinion columnists have written explicitly that she should get out of the race. She is asked now every day. Anytime anybody suggests it, it gets big headlines.
I think we're of two minds. We like this story; bigger than O.J. and Anna Nicole combined for people like you. But people more often are trying to drive her from the race. It's not really an anti-Clinton thing, although there's a lot of that. It's really reporters always want to drive people who lose out of the race. It's just what we do.
It happened to every candidate who is already out of this race. The minute there's blood in the water, the question they're asked everyday over and over is, when are you getting out of the race, why aren't you getting out of the race, shouldn't you get out of the race? So and so says you should get out.
Why do that if they want ratings? It makes for a reportable story. Clinton stays in the race despite this. Clinton won't give up even though Senator so and so says this. Once you get it in the head of people that she is fighting a losing battle, support and money start to erode. Its happened to every candidate that's dropped out. Its happening now. The ending of the Clinton era is a story in itself, and the media will run with it.
Obama will pivot towards McCain.
This last point is predictive and based more upon my own wishes, than actual fact. But it seems that he is pulling himself out of the kitchen sink battle. Let's be clear on this - Clinton started the negative campaigning. Somehow, I keep hearing people saying both are getting to negative. That's interesting given the fact that when Obama was taking the high road, everyone said he wasn't a fighter. When he started fighting, everyone says he being negative. Granted, his campaign is not as clean as free of dirty politics as he wishes it to be. But certainly, its not comparable to the scorched earth tactic Clinton has taken.
But this is where Obama can take advantage of the situation. He needs to come out and say, "Look, we can fight all we want, but I need to start fighting with McCain if no one else will, if not for me, for the sake of the party in November." At the same time, he needs to say, "This does not mean I presume to the nominee, far from it I will continue campaigning to win the hearts and votes of Democrats through the nation - its just that we need to keep or focus on what is important - keeping Bush III from the White House."
When Obama starts down this road, the media will increasingly focus on McCain versus Obama. Ultimately, with little cash in hand, with the media increasingly focusing on her demise, and the Obama vs. McCain title bout coming in to focus, there can be no way that Clinton can legitimately argue for her continued campaign. It would be then be it, allowing us to pivot to healing the party.
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You know, when I'm writing on a Mac... the formatting never seems to work. I meant to bold the following sections:
Her money will run out.
The media narrative will change soon.
Obama will pivot towards McCain.
My apologies from me and my beloved Mac. (Great, now I've opened up another avenue for flaming)
March 29, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
It has nothing to do with a Mac.
I know, because I'm using one right now. To make some text like "Her money will run out" boldfaced, just precede the text with the three characters:
using no spaces in the three characters and then at the end of the text insert the four characters
again with no spaces within the four characters. You'll get
I hope I haven't messed up my own formatting. That would be embarrassing.
March 29, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
The HTML tags work in replies but not in blog-posts, apparently. (Not that I have tried it in blog-posts.)
March 29, 2008 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is correct. It also depends on the browser you're currently using.
March 29, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, how do you make your quotes appear with a grey background?
March 29, 2008 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
never mind: just use the word blockquotes between to begin, and /blockquotes between to end.
March 29, 2008 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
escape characters don't work in blog responses?
March 29, 2008 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post! Thought Noonan was brilliant and on point. Agree with your analysis re: MSM role. Reminds me of Warren Buffett's comment that, by the time there is official declaration that "we're in a recession," we've been in one for six months. The death spiral is now irreversible. NC and Indiana will be it.
March 29, 2008 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes! I agree! Reagan's speechwriter is the go-to expert for assessing "the worst case of cognitive dissonance in the history of modern politics." That's GENIUS!
March 30, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
When they move people from the cheap seats in the balcony to fill the empty expensive seats up front, you know there is a problem.
When the woman sitting next to you turns and says "This isn't working", you know there is a problem.
March 29, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay. Look. When it comes back and says your password is invalid, just reenter the password and resubmit. The comments essentially require you to enter your password twice.
March 29, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that is an intentional feature of this site. It filters out those who aren't really determined. I once entered my password 6 consecutive times before I realized I had mistyped my screen name. You see, I am determined too.
March 29, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't feel bad. I changed my password six times before I realized I could just hit 'enter' twice!
March 29, 2008 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am so sick of typing my friggin password.
March 29, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't re-type it; just hit "send" again. Stupid, but it works!
March 29, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know what? I accidently forgot to erase and re-enter my password; I just hit "send" again and it works every time!
March 29, 2008 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
When they move people from the cheap seats in the balcony to fill the empty expensive seats up front, you know there is a problem.
When the woman sitting next to you turns and says "This isn't working", you know there is a problem.
March 29, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think she has a lot of seriously rich backers for whom a few millions don't even match their charitable donations and lots of channels through overseas banks, so I won't dismiss her financial prowess.
It's just that for Clinton herself, with the daily reckoning of plunging polls and impossible math, the prospect of devastating the Party for her pyrrhic victory, the slow revulsion by the majority of Americans, the Clinton fatigue setting in threateniong Bill's opwn legacy, for all that, a miserable end might just be preferable to endless misery.
March 29, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is that her "seriously rich backers" are maxed out. They've all hit the maximum amount they were allowed to give back before Supercalifragilistic Tuesday. All their rich friends who give them bundled contributions are also maxed out.
They thought they could get around this problem by starting a 527 to run ads supporting her until their lawyers finally forced them to face the blatant illegality of their plan and the likelihood of criminal penelties if they persisted.
March 29, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Peggy Noonan? ROFL. Are you lost?
March 29, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
What are you saying? Peggy Noonan reporting on Hillary is as valid as an Andrea Mitchell report on Alan Greenspan. C'mon!
March 29, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sticking to Taylor Marsh for an objective view of the race!
March 29, 2008 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hah!
March 29, 2008 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "lot of seriously rich backers" are mostly maxed out. They can't raise big soft money bundles any more. And Clinton doesn't have the army of small donors that Obama does. If she's not perceived as a winner her money will be drying up.
Hence the Don Corleone tactics from earlier this week. Her big donors can't give much directly any more, but they can try to blackmail the party leaders. Fortunately it looks like that gambit backfired.
(re: Billy Glad, I do agree that Noonan isn't the best jumping off point for an argument, but she does make some valid points, and the post that sprang from it is good and interesting)
March 29, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think he should go get us some David Brooks. At least Brooks has a sense of humor.
March 29, 2008 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
David Brooks? A sense of humor? I think you're thinking of Mel.
Now Gail Collins is funny. On the opposite end of the spectrum, is there anyone with less sense of humor than Paul Krugman? Every time I read him, I feel like burying myself alive.
March 29, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Given your persistent turn towards humor, which I appreciate to no end, I can definitely see this. Funny economists? Not likely. Kenneth Boulding comes to mind:
March 29, 2008 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gail Collins tries to have a sense of humor and falls flat every time. I agree with the Brooks guy - he's pretty funny. Maureen Dowd's okay when she's doing a caricature.
March 29, 2008 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
"""Every time I read [Paul Krugman], I feel like burying myself alive."""
Great line Genghis. And very true for me these days unfortunately....
March 30, 2008 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary's press coverage has turned the corner and they are moving against her. They called her this week on her "not my preacher" comment z merely a desire to push the Bosnia story off the screen and they didn't pay along. The interesting thing is watching her starting to use her "all the big guys are picking on poor little me" narrative she pulls out when she is losing as a way to gin up support among women.
I am a woman her age and my reaction is just the opposite. Hillary,if you are strong enough to be president and say you can stand up to the "big guys" around the world you won't be able to go all vulnerable as a tactic to get them to back off. You state that you have crossed the C in C threshold but that is as fictitious as you sniper fire stories.
March 29, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here come the women her age posts. I'll take your word for it. LOL.
March 29, 2008 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm a woman her age and also a black man who drinks lattes. I'm so torn.
March 29, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I was all three of those things until somebody stole my identity!
March 29, 2008 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
With whatever respect is due to Hillary's age, most of us women, especially the uppity variety, are younger than her. Most of us are generally grateful for her generation's pioneering work that enabled us to stick our feet into the crack they'd opened. But as one of the resulting gender pioneers I'm with katjam. Here in the real world, noone cuts you a break because you're a woman. I've never tried crying in court, but something tells me I'd never win before that judge again.
And Genghis, I'm glad you finally confessed your true identity. I'd suspected as much, but didn't want to out you.
March 29, 2008 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, OK, when I was a cute young thing a few decades ago I could get out of a speeding ticket now and then. I meant I get no advantage as a professional. Or maybe that's just because I'm in good ol' boy Utah.
March 29, 2008 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Hillary is using the "the boys are picking on me" ploy, I can see why NOW has been lukewarm in their endorsement of her. Wasn't Bill just saying "if a football player doesn't want to take some hits, he should stay off the field"?
March 29, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that is an intentional feature of this site. It filters out those who aren't really determined. I once entered my password 6 consecutive times before I realized I had mistyped my screen name. You see, I am determined too.
O god I'm so glad to find out it's not just me.
Whew.
Clunky commenting system. I'm sure it's there for a reason.
March 29, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not here for any good reason. At the old site your comment went up right away, you weren't booted off willy-nilly, and when you re-checked a blog you'd already read the new comments were highlighted. It was far more user-friendly.
March 29, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well I will spend any amount of time arguing on behalf of Barack Obama, who I believe is the best thing we Democrats have had happen to us in a very long time. But I cringe every single time someone cites Peggy "Magic Dolphins and Reagan's Zombie saved Little Elian's Life!" Nooners in support of my candidate.
ditto Mark Halperin.
I rather wish people would be a bit more circumspect about whom they turn to to say: "see, they like him too."
But maybe that's just me.
March 29, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Her backers may have maxed out for HRC, but have they maxed out for the dccc, dnc, and other dem candidates. At least some of them sent a pretty clear message to Pelosi about who they would be giving money to. This might be a pretty powerful incentive for some of the supers; that along with the possibility of getting smeared as disloyal. You have to hope that the supers have more character than than, but there is a huffpo entry today about that very thing. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/the-fear-factor_b_93971.html I wouldn't rule The Clintons out yet.
March 29, 2008 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's the trick though, that's all that is keeping her in, the threat of reprisal. Those donors just made that threat explicit. Support Obama and we will cut off funding to the DCCC. Notice how BOTH Dodd and Richardson mentioned their calls to Clinton as being "hard" and used almost precisely the same language to describe their attempts to explain their decision? Notice how quickly Carville came down on Richardson? how he accused him of betrayal and later suggest that he must have been bought off?
This is how things work in party politics. It is something the clintons have mastered. Look at their local support in Ohio and PA. I remember reading interviews with local officials and superdelegates that are basically functioning members of a political patronage machine. bill Clinton helped them out in the 90's and now they are there for him. There is NOTHING wrong with that, per se, but forgetting that it occurs leads us to the wrong conclusion about how many people are loyal to the clintons and who they are.
March 29, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is really a ghost of an argument though isn't it? I suppose once upon time in the not too distant past you needed big money donors.
But as we have seen, nothing can match "millions of people calling for change" with their wallets open.
Obama has already shown repeatedly that he can bring that kind of enthusiasm to down ticket races. Before this campaign, he was the most requested speaker for Dems seeking re-election. He was the instrumental agent that pushed Bill Foster over the top winning the Denny Hasert seat that had been republican for decades.
Scare tactics don't hold water. Clintons big money machine has lost quite a few cogs. No big donor is going to want to throw away good money on a loser.
March 30, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect the big-macher threat is about as empty as most of the threats by Obama/Clinton supporters to vote McBush if their favorite doesn't get nominated. And I think that though a few SDs might get rattled, ultimately they'll wise up and go back to their customary dithering. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
March 29, 2008 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, "macher" is yiddish for big shot, and before you attack my syntax, "big macher" is yidlish for the same, and is not a big BIG shot.
March 29, 2008 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
"But this is where Obama can take advantage of the situation. He needs to come out and say, "Look, we can fight all we want, but I need to start fighting with McCain if no one else will, if not for me, for the sake of the party in November."
Could this be a way of calling Clinton out on the experience question? Attack McCain's wild-and-crazy ideas about economic policy, Iraq, Russia...and forcing Clinton to admit that Obama might be a just a wee bit more qualified candidate than McCain?
March 29, 2008 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama has long since starting the campaign with McCain. He started with the Iraq speech last week. Every big speech he's given since then has been a presidential campaign speech.
Do you really think he's going to bother to get all strung out about Mrs. Clinton nipping at his heels? He's more grown up than that and can see, crystal clearly, that it's time to move on.
Before the Wright uproar, he did address the Vice President Offer uproar. He got his laughs out of that in a few big rallies and then it was time to move on. Then Wright hit, either from the republicans or the Clintonians, I'm still not sure who originated it, and he gave the Race speech which he was planning to pull out sometime during the campaign, but not exactly then.
From then on he's been campaigning for President.
Just listen carefully to how he says things and when he takes the initiative.
March 29, 2008 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Although I'm an Obama supporter I would have no problem at all with Clinton staying in the race indefinitely if she was actually running an issue-based campaign and one targeted at McCain. If she decided to take the high road and focus on issues of concern to Democrats and spend a good deal of time going after McCain I would applaud her.
In fact, the model for her staying in the race is actually Huckabee who ran an energetic and positive campaign alongside McCain even when the numbers showed he didn't have much of a chance.
However, she seems to be doing the opposite. She's loosing track of the issues and lost sight of McCain while pissing around with silly negative attacks. Wading into the Wright nonsense in a chat with Richard Mellon Scaife of all people was really the last straw.
March 29, 2008 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reading Noonan's article gave me the same weird buzz I get every time I hear Pat Buchanan talking sense.
She is right about specifics of course, but I wonder if the point of saying Clinton has "the worst case of cognitive dissonance in the history of modern politics" wasn't put in there to exonerate George W. Bush.
It's true enough that Clinton gives off the same vibe as he does a lot of the time, but I think it's exaggerating a tad to say Clinton has it worse.
March 29, 2008 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't about that "buzz" you feel, even Hitler talked some sense.
March 29, 2008 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Godwin's law.
March 29, 2008 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, and I just had to!
March 29, 2008 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
exactly. I get the same feeling from Hitchens. Normally he is the smartest goon I know, spouting nonsense with stops to allude to 19th century british history and 17th century french literature. occasionally he is SPOT ON.
noonan is less likely to provoke that feeling. I feel that her article started out great and got worse as I read it. It is 100% true that people wither 'get it' with hillary or they don't. And that people either understand what proportional delegate allotment means when you are trailing by >100 delegates or they don't. That 'superdelegates demonstrating individual judgment' isn't the same thing as 'superdelegates giving the win to someone who lost'. those are all valid points.
But noonan doesn't win points for novelty (As this theme was stated OVER AND OVER even before the WI primary) or poise. Her column started with a call to look at conventional wisdom and turned into a standard broadside on the clintons.
#$@#$.
Can we just have ONE mainstream commenter that makes sense? I would love to read something in the WSJ that I didn't have to mentally redact to remove the ridiculous bias in it. That article would have been great had it just been about the primary and cognitive dissonance. But I guess it wasn't meant to be.
March 29, 2008 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
What about the taxes?
March 29, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good analysis, Rich. Plus I'm glad to learn about the password hitch. Being a man Barack's age, I'm at a loss as to how to apply HTML tags in the first place. Can anyone direct me to a primer on that. I'd love to use italics and block my quotes on occasion.
March 29, 2008 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.utoronto.ca/webdocs/HTMLdocs/NewHTML/htmlindex.html
works for me. Helps to practice. Trust me, you'll have a lot of <b>bold</b. and ,i>Italics</i>.
Now I hope the escape characters work properly.
March 29, 2008 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
You forgot the semicolons…
March 30, 2008 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Italics: to start, to end. Use "b" to bold. Without the spaces, of course; I had to stick them in so you'd see them.
Now if someone would only tell me how to get quotes to appear in grey-shaded blocks...
March 29, 2008 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
ARGH, the escape characters don't work. Now instead of looking awesome, I look like a tool.
March 29, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe the system parses escape characters. You can simply use the tags inline, but only in comments.
March 29, 2008 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
TerryCarroll, wish I could help, but as a woman older than Barack (tho younger than Hill), I don't have a friggin' clue. Soooory.
But Tena, take a look at Peggy Noonan. She's not only much smarter than Mark Halperin but much funnier. Of course, last time I sent a Peggy Noonan column to a friend, said friend accused me of being a Trotskyite snuggling up with Nazis. But you wouldn't do that, would you?
March 29, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
So now I'm reading a Peggy Noonan article that I find myself mostly in agreement with and Paul Krugman articles that annoy the shit out of me. What is this world coming to?
March 29, 2008 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
We finally got rid of a house that had been on the market 7 months yesterday. Had pinto beans, brown rice and collard greens like we used to eat at the Moveable Feast in Houston tonight with a nice little sparkling Vouvray. I'm going to re-read the Noonan article and try to imagine what it feels like to be a Republican. I'll get back to trying to figure out who's crazier, Clinton or Obama tomorrow.
March 29, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks!
Thanks! and
Thanks!
March 29, 2008 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
That third "Thanks!" was supposed to be underlined. Got a little cocky on my first try.
March 29, 2008 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Every time Peggy Noonan invokes the vox populi, an angel throws up in his own mouth.
March 30, 2008 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh! Blazing Saddles!
March 30, 2008 5:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh my, "THE NOMINEE'S A *BONG!*"
at least thats where I hope you were going : )
March 30, 2008 5:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rich: I agree with two of you major points: (1) than money is her biggest problem right now, and (2) that Obama should start acting like he is the nominee, which he is virtually, and start going after McCain. Let Clinton bury herself.
On another point I am not so sure. I am not yet convinced the media wants her out, though there are signs pointing in that direction. As a straw in the wind, Slate has just put up a Hillary Deathwatch meter. Well, you can say Slate is not MSM, but it is widely read on the Internet, and it does happen to be owned by the same company that owns WaPo, so yes, it is MSM.
Plus, as you point out the Times (Dowd) and the WSJ (Noonan) have put out articles virtually on the same day, the theme of which is, in a way, a death watch.
The reason the media is still boosting Clinton's story is that this is high drama, no question about it. And to the media that is red meat. They have no choice but to fuel and follow it. When you consider the awful news that is out there, Iraq in flames, the mortgage crisis, $4 gas, the Clinton soap opera comes close to entertainment and distraction. As long as there is life in this story the media will promote it.
For Obama supporters in a way this is good news. Hillary's fight to stay in the race is thousands of column inches and TV clips not dealing with Rev. Wright, so that is a relief for Obama.
Maybe that is one reason why Obama said Hillary can stay in as long as she wants. Just kidding actually. What else could he say?
March 30, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Note to Rich:
You might have had a great post if you hadn't quoted Peggy Noonan. But since you based your entire post on her seductively malicious op-ed, we'll never know.
I understand the allure of the "thinking female's" version of Clinton-bashing in the WSJ, but Noonan is simply an upscale Karl Rove.
Think about this for your next post: Why isn't Noonan writing about the Republican nominee? The nominee of her own party? Why is Noonan writing about the Democrats at all?
March 30, 2008 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink