Better think again!
Tomorrow is the big day. Some might say it’s the biggest day for presidential politics in Texas that any voter can remember. For the first time, it seems that Texas voters may actually choose the next president of the whole United States.
You may think it was Texas who gave us our current President, but I have news for you: It was Iowa and South Carolina, my friends. Thank them or not, it was all over before we even got to vote.
Since it wasn’t until the late 1970s that primaries replaced the parties’ conventions as the controlling means of selecting candidates, and since until very recently Texas didn’t get to vote until May, the fact is that Texas primaries have never mattered.
Yup, but this time we’re important.
Not that we’d want to enter an era of the perpetual campaign, but the truth is that the extremely long races -- races so long that we think we’ve heard all the speeches before and are convinced we know more than we could possibly need to know about the candidates -- have been enormously informative in terms of what they unintentionally reveal.
John McCain is about to become the Republican nominee, it appears. It also appears that he has remarkable stamina for a man of 72, a slightly edgy persona, and an almost consistently conservative record.
Almost?
Well, he did say last week, at a town hall meeting, that “I am a proud conservative, liberal Republica- -- conservative Republican." He caught himself, demonstrating a healthy sense of humor: "Hello?" he said, drawing laughter, mockingly reassuring his audience, "Easy there."
Barack Obama has demonstrated an unflappability that must be maddening to his opponent. He gracefully accepts Hillary Clinton’s assertion that she really, really honors his presence after calmly batting back the slings and arrows of her attacks on his truthfulness, readiness and campaign tactics, and pulls out her chair for her when she stands.
Those attacks have begun to reveal much about Senator Clinton, just as his responses have revealed much about him.
Last week a new TV ad for Clinton was seen throughout Texas. Called, appropriately, “red phone moment,” the ad opens to a home straight out of Norman Rockwell; it is dark and quiet; inside the home, we are shown 3 or 4 (or 5? hard to tell in the dark) cherubic children in their beds, sleeping.
A spooky-sounding narrator begins: “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep.” Suspenseful music. A telephone begins to ring, softly.
The narrator: “There’s a world crisis and the White House phone is ringing.” And it keeps on ringing throughout the ad, a longish photo montage of sleeping children, a mother looking in on them near the end.
By now the viewer desperately wishes that SOMEONE would answer the phone. The narrator intones: “Your vote will decide who answers that call.” The ringing finally stops. Cut to a still photo of Hillary, wearing glasses (in an ultra-modern style we've never seen her wear, no doubt intended to convey youth and strength), holding a phone receiver to her ear.
Well, let me first say this about that: If it takes that long to answer the White House red phone, we are all doomed.
But where I am going here is to ask the reader to think:
Do you really want that phone answered by someone whose campaign has been bouncing from tactic to tactic, desperately in search of a winning message? Think about it: The Clintons have gone from inevitability to attack to charm to doggedness; from “strength and experience” to “change agent” to “vulnerable” to her “own voice” to “solutions” to “realist” to “underdog” to “victim” – making it clear not only that she was unprepared for the possibility that she might not win by Super Tuesday, but, most important, that she was miserably unprepared for an unexpectedly strong and talented opponent.
Sort of tells you something, doesn’t it?
Barack Obama, speaking at a town hall meeting, responded within minutes of the ad's release, saying that Hillary already had “her red phone moment” when she voted to go to war in Iraq; then his campaign had a counter-ad up and running on TV within just a few hours. In all, we were shown not only an ability to react rapidly and creatively, but with a useful sense of humor, perhaps.
The Obama “red phone moment” ad used the same narrative, the same imagery and sound (though his phone had a sharper ring and went blessedly silent after just a few moments). There was a warm classic view of the White House at night, followed by several shots of Obama on the job – not on the phone, but in various leadership moments -- while the narrator reminded us that “in a dangerous world, it’s judgment that matters.”
Maybe you’ll want to think again. Then go vote!
You may think it was Texas who gave us our current President, but I have news for you: It was Iowa and South Carolina, my friends. Thank them or not, it was all over before we even got to vote.
Since it wasn’t until the late 1970s that primaries replaced the parties’ conventions as the controlling means of selecting candidates, and since until very recently Texas didn’t get to vote until May, the fact is that Texas primaries have never mattered.
Yup, but this time we’re important.
Not that we’d want to enter an era of the perpetual campaign, but the truth is that the extremely long races -- races so long that we think we’ve heard all the speeches before and are convinced we know more than we could possibly need to know about the candidates -- have been enormously informative in terms of what they unintentionally reveal.
John McCain is about to become the Republican nominee, it appears. It also appears that he has remarkable stamina for a man of 72, a slightly edgy persona, and an almost consistently conservative record.
Almost?
Well, he did say last week, at a town hall meeting, that “I am a proud conservative, liberal Republica- -- conservative Republican." He caught himself, demonstrating a healthy sense of humor: "Hello?" he said, drawing laughter, mockingly reassuring his audience, "Easy there."
Barack Obama has demonstrated an unflappability that must be maddening to his opponent. He gracefully accepts Hillary Clinton’s assertion that she really, really honors his presence after calmly batting back the slings and arrows of her attacks on his truthfulness, readiness and campaign tactics, and pulls out her chair for her when she stands.
Those attacks have begun to reveal much about Senator Clinton, just as his responses have revealed much about him.
Last week a new TV ad for Clinton was seen throughout Texas. Called, appropriately, “red phone moment,” the ad opens to a home straight out of Norman Rockwell; it is dark and quiet; inside the home, we are shown 3 or 4 (or 5? hard to tell in the dark) cherubic children in their beds, sleeping.
A spooky-sounding narrator begins: “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep.” Suspenseful music. A telephone begins to ring, softly.
The narrator: “There’s a world crisis and the White House phone is ringing.” And it keeps on ringing throughout the ad, a longish photo montage of sleeping children, a mother looking in on them near the end.
By now the viewer desperately wishes that SOMEONE would answer the phone. The narrator intones: “Your vote will decide who answers that call.” The ringing finally stops. Cut to a still photo of Hillary, wearing glasses (in an ultra-modern style we've never seen her wear, no doubt intended to convey youth and strength), holding a phone receiver to her ear.
Well, let me first say this about that: If it takes that long to answer the White House red phone, we are all doomed.
But where I am going here is to ask the reader to think:
Do you really want that phone answered by someone whose campaign has been bouncing from tactic to tactic, desperately in search of a winning message? Think about it: The Clintons have gone from inevitability to attack to charm to doggedness; from “strength and experience” to “change agent” to “vulnerable” to her “own voice” to “solutions” to “realist” to “underdog” to “victim” – making it clear not only that she was unprepared for the possibility that she might not win by Super Tuesday, but, most important, that she was miserably unprepared for an unexpectedly strong and talented opponent.
Sort of tells you something, doesn’t it?
Barack Obama, speaking at a town hall meeting, responded within minutes of the ad's release, saying that Hillary already had “her red phone moment” when she voted to go to war in Iraq; then his campaign had a counter-ad up and running on TV within just a few hours. In all, we were shown not only an ability to react rapidly and creatively, but with a useful sense of humor, perhaps.
The Obama “red phone moment” ad used the same narrative, the same imagery and sound (though his phone had a sharper ring and went blessedly silent after just a few moments). There was a warm classic view of the White House at night, followed by several shots of Obama on the job – not on the phone, but in various leadership moments -- while the narrator reminded us that “in a dangerous world, it’s judgment that matters.”
Maybe you’ll want to think again. Then go vote!
posted by The Voice | 3:41 PM
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