The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Lady in Red, and Questions of Momentum

Hanna, I had the same question about whether there was a secret Neiman Marcus store available for political women after watching the State of the Union speech: That night, all the Washington ladies--including Hillary, no aspiring first lady there--were wearing the same shade of fire-engine red. I'm sure part of the point is to help the camera find you. But it looked like the doings of a sly Oscar Wildean fashion consultant, slumming around behind their backs and telling each one of them, "You should really wear more red." (Melinda, how much do you know about your red-counseling astrologer?)

On the speeches last night: I actually thought neither Hillary nor Barack was at their best, but it almost didn't matter, since there was just so much energy in the rooms around them. Meanwhile, since I'm alone out here in Texas, I'm dying to know what my fellow XXFactorites (XXFactorettes? Yikes!) make of the narrative of Obama and "momentum." The conventional wisdom last night on CNN and NPR was that Obama could win in two ways: one, by accumulating enough sheer delegate-count and, more likely, 2) by gaining enough "momentum." Today's conventional wisdom seems to be split on whether last night offered a display of Obama "momentum" or not. Kevin Drum thinks not. I, frankly, can't tell.