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The last week has been a layer cake of outrages. First, Bill Clinton resurrected his wife’s Bosnia story. Then Obama called Pennsylvania voters “bitter,” which eclipsed Clinton’s flub. Then Kentucky Rep. Geoff Davis referred to Barack Obama as “that boy”—a gaffe that would have dominated headlines if it hadn’t been for the “bitter” furor.
Obama’s camp took quick and public umbrage, and Davis has since apologized. (Davis had meant is as a critique of Obama’s foreign-policy ideas, saying, “That boy's finger does not need to be on the button.”) But the most surprising thing wasn’t that he said it. It’s that no one had made the mistake before.
Think about it. The word boy has been tossed around plenty in this campaign. Back in November, Bill Clinton quipped that “those boys have been getting tough on her” in debates. More recently, Hillary Clinton told talk show host Ellen about how “boys” were always telling her to give up. Forget whether or not they were trying to play the “gender card.” It would have been a short rhetorical step from the plural to the singular. Given how many words have been exchanged over the past year, it’s amazing that no one slipped up earlier. (Joe Biden was in the mix, for God's sake.)
John McCain would be wise to take note. His age is likely to be a big issue in the general election, and the temptation to bust out a Reagan-like “youth and inexperience” line will be tempting. But he should be careful. One second you’re mocking your opponent’s political virginity, the next thing you know you’re a bigot. McCain likes to josh people, but he’s going to be on shaky ground. He’s already guaranteed to be painted as an old, out-of-touch white man who forget where he left his keys. Best not to add “racist” to the list.
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Pushing back against Hillary Clinton’s “Bitter” Tour 2008,
Barack Obama has a new
spot that uses her speech in Pittsburgh yesterday—the one with the
“boos”—as its hook.
First thing you see is Clinton
telling the audience that people were “disappointed by recent remarks that
[Obama] made.” Cue the digitally enhanced booing. “There’s a reason people are
rejecting Hillary Clinton’s attacks,” a friendly narrator tells you, and so on.
The problem is, as we pointed out yesterday, reports of
booing seem
exaggerated. There were audible murmurs, but she most certainly didn’t get
the Bill Buckner treatment the Obama spot suggests.
At least one group isn’t happy about the coverage, and that’s
the Alliance for
American Manufacturing, which hosted the event. They sent out this press
release, with a quote from AAM executive director Scott Paul:
“It is unfortunate that media coverage of AAM’s forum has
focused on determining whether Sen. Hillary Clinton received ‘boos’ for remarks
she made regarding her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama. AAM hopes that in the
future the press will provide voters with intelligent and meaningful coverage
of the issues and stop reporting to the lowest common denominator.”
Naturally, the group wants to maintain good relations with both candidates. That means making sure their events aren't portrayed as partisan circuses. But come on, "intelligent and meaningful coverage of the issues"? Has this guy watched cable news recently?
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When Hillary Clinton landed in our inboxes today announcing a new “wage-gap calculator,” Trailhead got a little giddy. We love all the interactive tools we can get our hands on (See: "Delegate Calculator"; "Map the Candidates"), so a Clinton-branded wage calc sounded more fun than arithmetic politics usually is. Educationally, the calculator is useless—it’s not fun, nor does it offer much personalized information—but politically, the tool sheds some insight into one of Clinton’s Achilles’ heels—young people (and the lack thereof).
The calculator offers five input fields: state, education level, race, annual salary, and age. The tool works for women only—enter all of that data and see how much less, on average, women make than men given your biographical info. All is swell until you hit the age box, where you get five options: 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, and 65+. Missing, of course, is the demographic Clinton has always struggled with, 18- to 25-year-olds.
In exit poll after exit poll, she underperforms in the 18-29 bracket compared with other age groups (even in states she wins). After she got walloped among the young’uns in Iowa (Barack Obama won 57 percent of the 17-to-29 vote; Clinton won 11 percent), she put a renewed emphasis on her Hillblazers and dispatched America Ferrera to convince the youth of America that she isn’t an old fart.
In the “methodology” section, the site explains that the Current Population Survey doesn’t provide salary data for 18- to 25-year-olds, but most young women won’t make it to the methodology if they’ve already been denied admission at the door. Moreover, because the age entered is used in only one of the metrics; they could have made an 18-to-25 option available but broken the bad news within the calculator. Instead, the Web team gave up at the first road block the rebellious youth threw at them. It may not have been purposeful, but it is indicative.
Granted, I may have issues with the calculator because I’m not the target audience. But that’s not because I’m a guy. It’s because I’m 21.
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Barack Obama's "bitter" comment gave Hillary Clinton an opening. But
the combination of hackneyed outrage and a fast counterpunch by Obama
suggests that the "scandal" may not last. Take Clinton down 1.8 points
to 12.4 percent.
On Day 4 of the controversy, journalists scramble to measure how much people care. So far, signs point to not really. A new Quinnipiac poll shows
Clinton's six-point lead in Pennsylvania holding steady. The poll
summary cites "no noticeable change" in the numbers on April 12-13,
when the "scandal" was entering full tilt. Then again, that was over
the weekend, when Pennsylvania voters were busy venting their
frustrations by shooting guns and going to church. Other surveys vary:
A SurveyUSA poll shows Clinton up 14 points in the state—less than her
18-point lead last week. A Rasmussen poll puts her ahead by nine
points, as opposed to five last week. An ARG poll shows Clinton jumping
from a tie to a 20-point lead but merits skepticism, given that it's a
robo-poll and a wild statistical outlier. Expect more thorough numbers
later this week.
Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence is mounting: Clinton gets shouted down when she brings up Obama's remarks at a forum; Pennsylvania booster in chief Gov. Ed Rendell downplays
the significance of the comments, saying it won't cost Obama more than
"a couple of points at the margin" (this could be more expectations
gaming, but still); undecided superdelegates seem largely nonplussed. ...
Read more at the Hillary Deathwatch.
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Clinton’s new Pennsylvania ad might be the most hilariously bad political spot since Ron Paul’s epic New Hampshire farce. But whereas Paul’s ad came off as charmingly cheesy, Clinton’s feels painfully forced. To call it cardboard would be an insult to the box.
Let’s start with the text. The ad quotes Obama’s remarks that some people "cling to guns or religion … as a way to explain their frustrations." That’s the exact excerpt. They leave out the part about immigration and xenophobia, which is arguably more offensive than the "guns and religion" part. We then hear from a few good citizens of Pennsylvania who are just outraged at Obama’s remarks. One woman says she was "very insulted" by Obama’s comments. Another intones, as flatly as possible, "I’m not clinging to my faith out of frustration and bitterness—I find that my faith is very uplifting." Then, the best part: "The good people of Pennsylvania deserve a lot better than what Barack Obama said." "Good people of Pennsylvania"? Who talks like that? It’s like a parody of a bad attack ad.
The ad represents everything that’s wrong with Clinton’s response to the "bitter" flap. For one thing, it violates the cardinal rule of gaffesploitation: Let other people pour the gasoline for you. That’s what surrogates are for. If the gaffe is bad enough, the offending candidate will hang himself with his own words. But to take this to the airwaves—and so clumsily, too—has the whiff of desperation. Secondly, Clinton is overplaying her hand. Obama’s comments were offensive to many, but they contained an undeniable kernel of truth—that people are bitter about economic conditions. Meanwhile, Clinton's response fairly reeks of cynicism even to the untrained nose. Whatever you think of Obama's condescending wording, Clinton’s manufactured outrage and the stilted delivery thereof should break the needle on anyone’s BS-meter.
It’s too early to say for sure, but early indicators suggest this line of attack is going nowhere. A new Quinnipiac poll shows Clinton’s lead in Pennsylvania unmoving. A national Gallup survey gives Obama his biggest lead ever, 50 percent to 41 percent. (Some robo-polls show him up from before; some down.) It’s hard to reconcile those numbers with what Clinton portrays as a national outcry over Obama’s comments. Maybe that’s why she felt the need to run this ad—because the tracking polls weren’t moving.
The timing is unfortunate, too—Clinton’s post-Penn ads were just starting to get good.
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