Screenwriter William Goldman is famous for writing that in Hollywood, "Nobody knows anything." That sentiment could just as easily apply to presidential politics in 2008. Making predictions is typically a fool's errand, but there are conclusions that can be drawn.
The Wisconsin primary and the 2008 campaign will turn on making connections - positioning and messages matter. Simplistically speaking: Do we want hope? White House experience? A "maverick?"
With that in mind, some predictions about Wisconsin's Feb. 19 primary election.
Sen. Barack Obama wins Wisconsin. So does Sen. John McCain (I know, shocker!). It's looking likelier by the day that we'll be choosing from those two candidates again come November.
Ok, with that out of the way, some observations:
Wisconsin's open primary means the normal rules don't apply here.
A staunch Republican associate of mine doesn't think much of McCain and plans to cross over and vote for Obama. She's become an Obama backer, and I doubt she's alone in party-switching - which is perfectly legal here and lends some unpredictability to the process.
Why the heck is Mike Huckabee still buzzing around?
Huckabee is one tenacious guy. He's racking up some votes (not enough to translate into delegates) and running an ultra-low budget campaign that can remain relevant on free media alone. That's fine, but Huckabee will be prodded to step aside at some point soon if he wants to play a meaningful role in 2008 and beyond.
If McCain has the GOP nomination in the bag, why is he coming to Wisconsin this week?
Wisconsin will be in play this year, just as it has been for the last two presidential elections. Wisconsin has gone Democrat for a generation but McCain has a legitimate shot at reversing that. The razor-thin margins of victory for Democrats in 2000 and 2004 suggest the GOP could win Wisconsin this year, with a whole lot of grassroots wooing, a little luck and a candidate, like McCain, who can move conservative Democrats and independents.
Will this whole Obama/Clinton brouhaha tear the Democratic Party apart?
Nah. But for Republicans, it's fun to watch - and does threaten to leave the Dems in a weakened condition.
Does Sen. Hillary Clinton have to win Wisconsin to stay in the race?
No, but she sure needs the boost Wisconsin would bring to her seriously sagging campaign. The one-time front-runner lacks momentum – but don't count out the Clinton machine just yet.
What are the candidates' weak spots?
Obama is untested. Strong on 'hope' but light on experience. The press is lying in wait to start picking him apart once the honeymoon is over. But this year, those may be positives. Maybe America really wants a breath of fresh air after 20 years of Bushes and Clintons in the White House. Obama is optimistic, charismatic, personable, soothing. His public appearances and rallies are stunning displays, with huge and enthusiastic crowds.
As for Sen. Clinton, the 'machine' is in place, but the vein of anti-Clinton passion runs awfully deep in some circles. The GOP really wants Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, because Barack Obama is a force in ways that Hillary Clinton is not.
Still reeling from 2006, big chunks of the GOP are feeling great unease with the prospect of conservative whipping-boy McCain as the party standard-bearer. Recently, his campaign-finance reform partner, Sen. Russ Feingold, had very warm things to say about McCain. That had to cause heart palpitations on both sides of the aisle – but does acknowledge McCain's independent streak, which will strongly appeal to a lot of folks in Wisconsin.
So, if there is one takeaway here, it is this: Wisconsin is, as always, stubbornly independent and closely divided.
Watch the messages. And watch how people respond. Those differentiations will be key to victory.
Chris Lato is a public relations account executive at Avicom Marketing Communications in Waukesha. He is a former state Republican Party communications director who also posts blog commentary at www.wispundits.com.
6 Comments
Dear Barack
It is not that we dislike you. It is not that we oppose your optimism or your call for change. It is not even that we would not vote for you some time down the road. Instead, we stand proudly for Hillary because, while you may represent our hope for the future, she represents our hope for the present. While you talk about unity and change, our houses are being foreclosed, our families are getting sick, and our jobs are going overseas. Although we understand the sentiment of bringing people together, we know that some groups will always oppose the changes we seek.
Hillary Clinton, believe it or not, used to be like you. She may not have had your rhetorical skills, but she did share your unbounded optimism. When she entered Washington as First Lady, she already knew that providing health insurance to all Americans was the right thing to do. In 1992, she boldly fought insurance companies, lobbyists, Republicans, and even the conventional wisdom that health insurance for all could never be done in America. She did not waver because she could not compromise on what she believed was right. She did not beat Washington back then but it did not defeat her either; she was able to get health insurance coverage for many children and her dream lives on today. If we vote for her on February 19th and again in November, we may soon be able to say that every American, regardless of income, race, or pre-existing medical conditions, will have quality health insurance. You see Senator Obama, Hillary still has her dreams intact but she has realized, as you soon will, that achieving dreams is hard work.
Our neighboring states of Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota, may have voted for you because of your words or your charisma. But a rally at the Kohl Center or loads of TV ads are not good enough for us; Wisconsin demands more. Hillary may not be an amazing speaker like you. She does not try to sell us a vision of hope or change. She does not tell us that partisan politics will end if she is elected or compare herself to Martin Luther King Jr. or JFK. She is more interested in talking about the policies that will help bring affordable health care to all Americans, revive the economic fortunes of the middle class, and restore American foreign policy. In debate after debate, she shows her mastery of the various issues, from the sub-prime lending crisis to the situation in Pakistan. You share similar policies, but the 14 years she has spent in Washington fighting on our behalf has given her the policy expertise that you, with your 2 years of national policy experience, lack.
For us, being President of the United States is the most important position in the world. Hillary has the knowledge, skills, and passion essential for a successful President. She has spent her life listening to Americans' concerns, studying the issues, and learning about the political process. On February 19th, we will be forced to choose between two appealing candidates, yourself and Senator Clinton. And, although we love to hear your words and want to believe your promises, we will not allow these things to overshadow a lifetime of public service. Ultimately, we will decide to vote for the candidate of the present instead of the candidate of the future. Someday you may even thank us.
Please Kathy...if you are a part of the Hillary campaign why not just say so? I've seen this very same comment all over the internet today, and it's really disingenuous to present yourself as other than a campaign shill.
All that said, as a small business owner I am really worried that a health insurance plan like Hillary's will be implemented.
It relies heavily on businesses to pay the bill by imposing a pool participation or mandate that we cover our employees by the plan's standards.
I love my employees. I will do all in my power to help them in their everyday lives. I simply cannot afford to supply them with expensive health insurance so the insurance companies can make their profit margins.
If Hillary's plan were not based on evening risk pools for the insurance industry, we could all save a ton of money and do a whole lot more to providing true health CARE and not INSURANCE company profits.
I'll vote for Obama as he's much more realistic about what's happening out here in the real world. If Obama is not the Dem nominee, I will vote McCain.
Hillary's Debate?
How stupid does Hillary Clinton think we are? She "challenges" Obama to another debate in WI after 18 previous debates with #19 due to take place in Texas Thurs Feb 21, but why? Is it because of her "deep concern" for the WI voters? She has been so concerned about WI voters that she has been off campaigning in Texas and Ohio which don't vote until March 4 while Obama has been here in WI. She doesn't draw as huge crowds as he does so why not try to sucker him into another debate and get herself on stage in front of lots of people? If he doesn't fall for it and simply wants to keep campaigning she can claim that he is being disrespectful to the voters of WI. Sorry Hillary. We're not the stupid country bumpkins you think we are!
Posted on Wed, Jan. 23, 2008
The New York Observer
Endorsement of Barack Obama:
"Lost amid the sound and fury of this year's primary season is the certainty, not the promise, of change. For the first time since 1952, there is no heir apparent to the administration in power.
The stakes have rarely been higher in a presidential election. The question is not if there will be change in American leadership, but what kind.
And the change that is being offered has a focus and intelligence that is kindred to the best American traditions. It is embodied by one candidate in the Democratic Party who is offering a reinvigorated America: Senator Barack Obama.
The New York Observer urges New York Democrats to support Mr. Obama in the state's presidential primary on Feb. 5.
New Yorkers might ask why they should not pull a lever for our junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton. While Mrs. Clinton is an extraordinary United States senator for New York, we believe that Mr. Obama can be a great president for the United States of America.
Most of the other candidates have absorbed, assimilated or appropriated Mr. Obama's issue of change. It is a powerful concept. But a great deal of the argument for Mr. Obama's candidacy is about one great issue in American life: restoring and reinvigorating American democracy.
Democracy is the greatest strength of this still-young nation. Its living enactment is our gift to the world. It is the product of our best instincts and most powerful ideals. But it has been polluted, sullied and compromised by an obstructive administration that seems to have to have no particular regard for its attributes.
It is difficult to remember the last national candidate who has charged and jazzed the democratic system as Mr. Obama has. Partly as a result of his candidacy, college campuses have remembered why they are proud of the United States, kids are going door to door, runners are handing out leaflets on weekends, racial lines have been culturally melted and the electoral approach to presidential campaigning has been reborn.
And, as more than one commentator has said, America is being reintroduced to the world.
Because of who he is and what he stands for, a former constitutional law teacher with few ties to the Washington establishment yet a sophisticated respect for it, Mr. Obama stands the best chance of restoring the essential relationship between power and the American people. He is not flanked and blocked by an existing, entrenched power structure; his words are not muddied by layers of handlers; he still says what he means.
We believe that Mr. Obama's idealism and fresh ideas would ensure that the end of the Bush era would also mean an end to government by secrecy, Cheneyism, arrogance, oligarchy; an end to mindless armed unilateralism abroad; an end to the blustering, rank partisan disputes of the last quarter-century.
Mr. Obama has found his strength in the generation that succeeded the baby boomers, speaking for the frustrations of those who wish that their leaders would get over themselves, get over the 1960's, get on with resolving issues that threaten our global leadership. Mr. Obama is an inclusive figure at a time when our popular culture demands that we embrace a new America while still comprehending the lessons of hard-won history—from World War II through the fall of the Berlin Wall—that have brought us to a free world in 2008.
He is also determined to mend this nation. Mr. Obama, as Walt Whitman did, hears America singing, not snarling. Too many candidates have turned opponents into traitors, critics into jackals. Mr. Obama believes the nation yearns to see hope and inspiration and courage emerge victorious from the era's gauntlet of hypocrisy and lies and false bravado. Imagine, for a moment, any other candidate this year saying what Mr. Obama said at the 2004 Democratic National Convention:
"The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and yes, we got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."
That is a song we have not heard for too long a time. It is the kind of song that can make citizens of spectators, Americans of couch potatoes, patriots of slackers.
Mr. Obama would also be the most formidable Democrat in the general election. He has demonstrated a capacity to energize young people and attract new voters, and is the only candidate in the Democratic Party who attracts independents, who are the fastest-growing part of the electorate. His refusal to demonize the Republican Party as a right-wing attack machine will appeal to those independents as well as moderate Republicans.
Mr. Obama, it is true, is hardly an experienced Washington hand, which surely explains the freshness of his vision and the power of his life experience. His opponents have hit this issue hard. But as far as experience goes, to those Americans who celebrated finding ourselves with our first M.B.A. president in 2000—we can only advise them to look at the $9 trillion national debt in 2008.
And when George W. Bush was driving a bleary, shocked nation into war with bait-and-switch deceptions in 2003, where was our experienced leadership? Meanwhile, in the west, an Illinois state senator—who has since served three years in the Senate, the same Congressional period that a fellow Midwesterner, Abraham Lincoln, had served when he sought the presidency—rose to exhibit courage and public judgment on that deceptive adventure, stating, "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."
Now we have paid the price many times over, and there are no clear paths in Baghdad. But there may be one in Washington. Mr. Obama is the emblem of a new America. He has risen too quickly for his opponents' taste; that fact is nothing less than a recommendation.
His relationship to truth and plain speaking and public transparency is the first step toward reviving democracy in the United States of America.
Barack Obama of Illinois is the future. Democrats everywhere should embrace him."(End of endorsement)
Because Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has risen so far, so fast many voters are not as familiar with his background as they would like to be.
In his books Barack Obama has told the story of the family into which he was born, about a father from Kenya whom he barely knew, who left when Barack was age 2, and about his white American mother from Kansas who along with his father was a college student at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. By age 6 young Barack was already living in Jakarta with his mother and his Indonesian step father before moving back to Hawaii at age 10 to be raised by his maternal grandparents when his mother and her second husband divorced. His "birthright," says Barack Obama, was that he was loved and received a good education.
Over the years Barack Obama had bonding experiences with white and black relatives and with Asian family members amidst an understandable struggle to find his own identity. Through it all he developed a keen ability to understand and to resonate with people of various ethnic backgrounds. Barack Obama worked his way through the racial complexities into which he was born to graduate Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School and become president of the Harvard Law Review. He worked as a community organizer, a lecturer, and a civil rights attorney prior to serving in the Illinois State Senate from 1997-2004 which ended with his 70% landslide election victory to the US Senate in 2004.
On a personal level Barack Obama has had 46 years of experience in understanding how perceptions of ethnicity and judgments about race can divide people, and he is uniquely qualified and committed to develop a sense of unity and common purpose in America and its people. He has the background, the communication skills and the intelligence necessary to reintroduce the United States of America to the rest of the world. As President of the United States he would appropriately symbolize our great and powerful country with its two simple yet profound ideals of personal freedom and equality of opportunity.
In 1963 when Obama was just 2 years old Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. that included the familiar phrase of "not being judged by the color of one's skin but by the content of one's character." That speech, of course, helped prompt passage of the 1964 US Civil rights Act and the next year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. If the people of America elect Barack Obama their 44th President in November of this year King's dream will have become much more than just a dream.
Some have said that Barack Obama's opposition to America initiating the Iraq war is a "fairytale" and that his position on the war has been "inconsistent." But on October 2, 2002 at the Federal Plaza in Chicago Senator Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, delivered these remarks:
"I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.
I Don't Oppose All Wars
I don't oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil. I don't oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.
Opposed to Dumb, Rash Wars
I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
On Saddam Hussein
Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power…. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors…and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.
You Want a Fight, President Bush?
You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that…we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."
Barack Obama delivered his powerful speech at the Federal Plaza in Chicago October 2, 2002 against the US beginning war in Iraq while later that same month Hillary Clinton voted for the authorization to begin US military action in Iraq. Once US troops were actually in Iraq and fighting a war, of course, it would be irresponsible for Obama to be against funding the troops. The key is that Barack Obama had the judgment to see the dumbness of the war in October 2002 and had the courage to clearly say so. Hillary Clinton did not and voted for funds authorizing the start the Iraq War. Judgment and courage are part of Barack Obama's character, and so is a belief in a united America, in its people and in its future.
The tactic of trying to characterize Obama's position against the war as "a fairy tale" is typical of some politicians who will say and do virtually anything to discredit their opponent in attempting to get themselves elected and is a perfect example of why America so deeply yearns for the enormous breath of fresh air Barack Obama brings to politics and can bring to the highest elective office in our great country.
Barack Obama's opponent insist that he is too young and inexperienced to be President of the United States, seemingly unaware of the fact that Theodore Roosevelt became America's President at age 42, JFK at 43, and Bill Clinton at 46. On January 20, 2009 when our next president is sworn in Barack Obama will be 47 years old.
Back in the 1960 Democratic primary election Senator John Kennedy was also told he was too young and inexperienced to become president, then by such notable members of the "old guard" as Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, and Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy was told to wait his turn! But, of course JFK won the 1960 Democratic primary and went on to defeat Richard Nixon in the general election despite Nixon's protest that "Kennedy is too young and inexperienced to be President." It wasn't true then about John F. Kennedy and it isn't true now about Barack Obama.
Senator Obama's opponent claims to have had "35 years of experience," but most of that was not as an elected official but rather as the wife of the Governor of Arkansas and as wife of the President of the United States. Actually she has had 7 years experience as a US Senator from her adopted state of New York.
Barack Obama served 8 years in the Illinois State Senate and was elected to the US Senate in 2004 for a total of 11 years experience as an elected official responsible to voters.
Senator Obama has been in Washington D.C. long enough to know what needs to be changed, and unlike his opponent he has already started doing some changing by refusing to accept money from lobbyists and political action committees. He is proving that being beholden to such money peddlers is not necessary. He raises money for his campaign directly from the people to whom he is accountable, people like you and me.
America needs Barack Obama and America needs him now!
Hillary is the one GUILTY of plagiarism.
The "plagiarism" charges against Obama are BEYOND LUDICROUS for two reasons.
First, EVERYONE is misrepresenting what plagiarism is. Plagiarism is UNAUTHORIZED usage of someone else's words. Deval Patrick simply donated his line of analysis to Obama to use during that Wisconsin dinner. And Deval Patrick and Barack Obama share the same campaign strategist for goodness sakes.
Obama only used TWO WORDS of Deval Patrick's anyways: "Just words!" The rest are part of our common currency of language "We hold these truths..." etc.
Secondly, Hillary is the one who should be accused of plagiarism. She lifted "turn the page..." and "fired up and ready to go" from Obama and she lifted parts of her Super Tuesday speech from Jimmy Carter, for goodness sakes!!
She makes me ill! I was dedicated to supporting her if she became the nominee against McCain. Now I will sit home in November if she is the nominee.
Every election year I start to wonder if voters are taking estrogen pills. Why the extreme emotional responses?! Its way too early to be able to see what policies the candidates will support once in office, but yet the daggers are already in position and everyone is ready to pour their heart out about why their candidate is the right one...ready to take all. We should be basing our judgement on policy and not politics. Modern day politicians have one thing in common - lobbyists. Does it really matter if a republican or democrat makes it in office? Your co-worker (to Chris) is so livid (and flighty) that she's ready to jump parties based because her conservative favorite isn't in the lead..what is that? Its disgusting what this country has played into with politics. All the modern technology we have has apparently not enabled the public to become better educated with the policies that affect them. I took the time in college to understand how our democratic system works, including classes that examine our governmental systems and the greatest living document ever - the constitution. I would bet what little money I've earned in this poor socialist state that a majority of the people headed to the polls wouldn't even know how the constitution affects us on a daily basis, or how bills are made and passed. They especially wouldn't know about how the executive branch works. The American society has reduced itself to "labels," the majority of the people choose their candidates like they choose a pair of jeans. Research is a dead word, and the media has convinced the county that they report all truths. If you read political commentary in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, or on one of the many broadcast stations, you are receiving easy information otherwise known as somebody elses slant and usually its the same regurgitated. Wake up and smell the policy. What do you really know about your candidate outside of the party you blindly pledged your allegence to? And I'm not talking about the weed they smoked in college, or the alleged affair, I'm talking about their work history. Did you really take the time to trace their record all the way back to law school? If Americans don't start looking more at policy, and less at the political labels...we will lose the power of the greatest living documents ever that our country is based on. Go Federalists!! I love you Alexander Hamilton!