Letter From America
Hillary works the refs and wins a close call
DEMOCRATIC presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton made the American media turn on a dime. In their last debate in Ohio on February 26, from the outset an aggressive Clinton employed the "kitchen sink" strategy of throwing everything at Obama. She complained that she always gets the first question, lending credence to the skit on NBC's Saturday Night Live comedy on February 23 that made fun of media's fawning over Obama. She asked sarcastically: "Perhaps we should ask Barack whether he needs another pillow!"
Instead of dismissing her whining -- she was on an 11-primaries and caucuses losing streak -- the media went into introspection, concluded that they were indeed anti-Clinton and turned on Obama. Instead of giving Obama equal time, on March 1 Saturday Night Live ran another skit that purported to show media's pro-Obama bias. Additionally, they invited Hillary Clinton to make a cameo appearance on the program and to pitch to the voters of the four states -- Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island and Texas -- that held primaries on March 4.
Then suddenly a picture of Barack Obama appeared on the Drudge Report website, showing Obama trying on the local garb, including a turban, tunic and walking stick during his visit to Kenya in 2006. The Drudge Report said that a Hillary Clinton campaign staffer submitted the photo, complaining of a pro-Obama media bias. In its March 10 issue, Time magazine published photographs of George W. Bush (China), Bill Clinton (Indonesia) and Hillary Clinton (Eritrea) wearing traditional garb on visits to those nations. Of course, Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton's "American-ness" are beyond question; Obama's is not. Hillary Clinton and the Republicans are trying to make the point that Barack Hussein Obama's name and the man himself sound and look "foreign."
Politics is a game of perceptions. Appearances do influence the uninformed. The golden maxim of politics is: if you cannot nail your opponent with the truth, try dirty tricks and rumours. Candidates who believed that the public is too intelligent to be fooled by dirty tricks (Dukakis, 1988, Kerry 2004), lost. As someone relatively new in politics, Barack Obama is especially vulnerable to lies and suspicions about his background. Most voters do not read up on the candidates: Obama's two best selling books and his website explain all about him. Voters are swayed by a candidate's portrayal in the media. Hillary Clinton and the Republicans have recently successfully painted a suspicious and negative picture of Obama. Consequently, Hillary Clinton is surging in the polls.
Despite Obama's assertion that he is a devout Christian, one rumour that has been circulated by supporters of Israel and other Obama detractors for months is that Obama is a "secret Muslim." On March 2, on the hugely popular CBS show "60 Minutes," Steve Kroft asked Hillary Clinton whether she believed Obama is a Muslim. Instead of categorically saying "no," Hillary added caveats "I take his word for it," and "As far as I know." The next day NBC's Andrea Mitchell asked Hillary the same question and she gave a similar answer. So, Barack Obama's assertion that he is a Christian is not good enough; the supposedly "pro-Obama" media wants it to be validated by his rival, Clinton!
Hillary is asked about something false but potentially damaging to her opponent, and while she knows it is false and cannot say otherwise, she still does not want that negative to disappear completely, so she leaves some plausibility that it is true! If Muslim relatives are a disqualification for high office in the US, then Senator McCain, who won the Republican nomination on March 4 and was endorsed by President Bush the next day, is in trouble, because he has Muslim relatives through his adopted daughter from Bangladesh, Bridget! What if Obama was a Muslim? What if his first two names "Barack and Hussein" (blessed and beautiful) are Arabic? What if he took his oath of office by placing his hands on the Qur'an (he did so on the Bible)? Are these sins? It is astonishing how many people in the US are apparently still bigots!
Under incessant attack from Hillary and the Republicans regarding his faith, I cringed as I watched Obama grovel on March 3: "I am a devout Christian. I have been attending the same Church for 20 years. I pray to Jesus every night." Obama has been brought up a Christian by his white Christian American mother, Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, who died of ovarian cancer in 1995. She must be turning in her grave watching Obama's Democratic rival and the Republicans refusing to accept his christianity.
Hillary wins Texas and Ohio
After losing eleven primaries and caucuses in a row in February, Hillary Clinton went on the offensive and ran negative ads against Barack Obama. On campaign stumps and in television commercials, Clinton trivialised and ridiculed Obama's experiences. Obama's campaign is based on just one anti-Iraq war "speech" he gave in 2002, the Clinton campaign asserted. In Ohio, Clinton blasted Obama for one of his aides supposedly telling the Canadian officials (denied by the Canadians) that his opposition to North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) was because of political expediency. In Texas, Clinton ran the "It is 3 a.m. ad," purporting to show that if a crisis call came to the White House that late at night, Hillary would be the one to keep America safe. Every political pundit knows that negative ads work. Flush with eleven victories in a row, the Obama campaign was far too complacent and far too late in responding to Hillary's deadly attacks. Consequently, Hillary won 54% to 44% in Ohio (winning 10 more pledged delegates than Obama), 51% to 48% in Texas (netting 6 more primary delegates than Obama) and 58% to 40% in Rhode Island.(winning 9 more pledged delegate than Obama). Obama beat Clinton 59% to 39% in Vermont, netting 5 more pledged delegates than Clinton. Texas awards 126 delegates in the primaries and 67 delegates in the caucuses, where Obama currently leads 56% to 44%. Overall, MSNBC estimates that Obama will win 5 more delegates than Clinton in Texas, and that Hillary will win only 8 more delegates than Obama from the March 4 primaries and caucuses. As of this writing, Obama has 1,321 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,186, a lead of 135. In the unelected superdelegates count, Hillary leads Obama 238 to 199. A total of 2,025 delegates are needed to win the nomination. Obama is expected to win primaries in Wyoming on March 8 and Mississippi on March 11. Expect the Obama campaign to go negative, asking Clinton to release her tax returns, and question her "experience" in her White House days when she did not have the security clearance to attend national security meetings. It still appears a daunting task for Clinton to close the pledged delegate gap. Superdelegates will be loath to overrule the will of the voters expressed through pledged delegates. As the Democratic contest intensifies, the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, will enjoy watching the two Democratic candidates bloody each other!
After losing eleven primaries and caucuses in a row in February, Hillary Clinton went on the offensive and ran negative ads against Barack Obama. On campaign stumps and in television commercials, Clinton trivialised and ridiculed Obama's experiences. Obama's campaign is based on just one anti-Iraq war "speech" he gave in 2002, the Clinton campaign asserted. In Ohio, Clinton blasted Obama for one of his aides supposedly telling the Canadian officials (denied by the Canadians) that his opposition to North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) was because of political expediency. In Texas, Clinton ran the "It is 3 a.m. ad," purporting to show that if a crisis call came to the White House that late at night, Hillary would be the one to keep America safe. Every political pundit knows that negative ads work. Flush with eleven victories in a row, the Obama campaign was far too complacent and far too late in responding to Hillary's deadly attacks. Consequently, Hillary won 54% to 44% in Ohio (winning 10 more pledged delegates than Obama), 51% to 48% in Texas (netting 6 more primary delegates than Obama) and 58% to 40% in Rhode Island.(winning 9 more pledged delegate than Obama). Obama beat Clinton 59% to 39% in Vermont, netting 5 more pledged delegates than Clinton. Texas awards 126 delegates in the primaries and 67 delegates in the caucuses, where Obama currently leads 56% to 44%. Overall, MSNBC estimates that Obama will win 5 more delegates than Clinton in Texas, and that Hillary will win only 8 more delegates than Obama from the March 4 primaries and caucuses. As of this writing, Obama has 1,321 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,186, a lead of 135. In the unelected superdelegates count, Hillary leads Obama 238 to 199. A total of 2,025 delegates are needed to win the nomination. Obama is expected to win primaries in Wyoming on March 8 and Mississippi on March 11. Expect the Obama campaign to go negative, asking Clinton to release her tax returns, and question her "experience" in her White House days when she did not have the security clearance to attend national security meetings. It still appears a daunting task for Clinton to close the pledged delegate gap. Superdelegates will be loath to overrule the will of the voters expressed through pledged delegates. As the Democratic contest intensifies, the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, will enjoy watching the two Democratic candidates bloody each other!
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