The Iowa washup

Can Obama do in New Hampshire what he just did in Iowa - bring out the young voters en masse? It is what Howard Dean failed to do four years ago. He seemed feted by the young and yet they simply dematerialised when the cold night of caucus turned up.

In Obama's case, they followed through in the cold night of caucus. They put their bodies where their rally cheers had been.

I continue to harbour reservations about Obama - especially since I noted a new cadence in his voice, one taken directly from the "I have a dream" delivery of Martin Luther King. Cunning marketing ploy. Congratulations to whichever smart strategist groomed him up on that.

I would like Obama to be president in a few years, when that awful, pushy and divisive wife of his has learned a few things. We place First Ladies in power, too, you know. Michelle Obama is dangerous.
And I would like Obama to find some substance - since he is mainly sophistry.

So, why did he poll so well in Iowa? Could it be the Oprah factor? I bet she thinks so - and maybe it is so. Ah, and what a lot that would say about media power.

Talking of which, that featured appearance on the Jay Leno show, the much-publicised first show since the writers' strike, did no harm to Mike Huckabee. It was the most valuable sales pitch in the world. It made me wonder about Jay. Here we have another media celebrity throwing his weight into the electoral process. On the eve of the caucus, he provides national exposure which can only be compared to endorsement.

Huckabee did very well on Leno. Leno cunningly had all the old footage of the fat Huckabee who is now a slim Huckabee. If there is one thing Americans admire, it is a successful weight-loser. Vast amounts of television time are devoted to diet and weight loss. And Leno leaned away from the extreme right views espoused by Huckabee - moderated him nicely for the broad, mainstream audience. Intelligent design was not mentioned at all. We just got that very, very personable man. Oh my, he is a good candidate. He has a fatherly, protective, reliable, good natured facade and a lovely sense of humour. He is disarmingly attractive package.

So where was Hillary in all of this? She has the star of husband Bill shining at a discreet distance - and she looked and sounded wonderful. The pundits say she fared poorly because of her voting record in the Senate, because she was not against the war on Iraq, because she has never recanted that mistake... Gee, the negative market is tough. I don't know how many times she has to say "if she knew what she knows now she would never have voted as she did then". A zillion times is not enough. Perchance she is damned for ever on that cautionary stance which is seen and endlessly promoted by the Fox-driven anti-Clinton push as her buttering her political bread. If the Clinton campaign has made mistakes, not placing more emphasis on regaining this lost ground is at the top of the list. They have chosen to play ostrich. Wrong. They need to penetrate the dubious masses who have listened to Fox.

Hillary remains the candidate for the thinking voter, however. The thinking voter sees straight through Fox.

I was not at all unhappy to see John Edwards get some recognition in Iowa. One can only admire the utter dedication and determination of that man, the unswerving self-belief and the pure stamina in campaigning towards the presidency - again.
I like him.
I was sad Richardson fared poorly. I like him, too.
I was sorry that Biden and Dodd were presented with the writing on the wall and, wisely, stepped back. Good men, both. But there's simply not enough room for all these good men.

Romney is not a good man. I am enjoying watching this become evident. Romney and the mormon camp tried to look sweetie goody-twoshoes, happy families - until things started going against them. Then the facade came down and the dirty tricks and venom oozed out of the campaign like political pus. Romney must lose, for the sake of the USA and the world.

For all his sinister religious extremism, even Huckabee is a better choice.

Hillary - racing like a thoroughbred

The Iowa caucuses are just a couple of months away. So is the New Hampshire primary, come to think of it. The year has been racing forth mercilessly.
I continue to admire the incredible stamina of the leading candidates in sustaining the pace required to get the message across, meet the people, raise the profile…
Hillary now is so solidly in the lead that one has to fear that the opponents’ dirty tricks campaign are around the next corner. It has been a pleasure to watch her, the thoroughbred of political candidates, pull out into first place and keep the pace up without a backward glance.
Obama, who has never missed a chance to have a snipe at Hillary, has ramped up his television advertising in a last-minute bid to catch up with Hillary. But, last month he failed to show up for a Democratic debate in Iowa. What a mistake. I am not sure what his reason was but it was a golden opportunity for Hillary to shine – and she did.
The more she is diligently and consistently out there, the more the people are realising that she has depth and experience. She is spectacularly well informed and, oh my, she is disciplined and she is strong.

I have not mentioned John Edwards for ages – because he really isn’t worth a mention. He has campaigned with great confidence and determination yet again. But he simply is not “it”. The daddy working for the mill patter now is tired and no one will forget that $400 haircut. It was the lethal misstep. That is all it takes in politics.

Obama has not made one, but there is still time. He is the Howard Dean of this primary – boosted by noisy young. But the young are flighty. I’ll take a punt that half his support base has not even registered to vote.

Hillary has had a couple of close shaves, if one is to believe the beat-ups of Fox news. But, the more solidly she leads the pack, the more respectful the detractors seem to be becoming, as if readying themselves to accept her as president.
Even the old chestnut of how “polarising” Hillary is has not been getting much ink in the media.

Ah, yes, things are looking pretty good.

Calling for Hillary

Behind the scenes, there is the hard grind of campaigning - none of it harder than working the phone bank.
I was among the few brave hearts of the Hillary campaign out there working through Nashua and Hudson phone numbers on this steamy, stormy New Hampshire night. And I do mean brave. This is not a chore for the shy, faint-hearted or super-sensitive. It is the work of valiant heroes, of true believers, of eternal optimists. Yes, we brave few.

Since the Nashua campaign office is still not quite finished, we were allowed the after-hours facilities of an ophthalmic practice where, with cheat sheet in hand, we four worked our way through the phone lists provided by Kristen, our organiser of the night.
We callers were a wonderfully representative mix: a senior, a college student, a committed Democratic activist and me, the supporter with outsider perspective.
Of course, almost everyone hates unsolicited phone calls and, indeed, they now are illegal. These political calls are exempt from the bans and, the people listed have, at some time, expressed interest in the primary. Not that you'd know it.

There is a fair share of hang-ups and blunt rejections. A lot of the 114 people I phoned tonight were either out or had their phones on answer. They are thus registered on the call sheets and another attempt to speak to them will be made on another night.

Our aim tonight was to ascertain who may be a certain vote for Hillary and, therefore, perhaps willing to be a volunteer. We then worked in incrementals: those leaning towards Hillary, those undecided, leaning away or anti-Hillary. If they were not pro-Hillary, we asked which other candidate they preferred and what issues concerned them. Well, if we got that far.
Mostly it was answering machines and automated responses which rejected calls without caller ID.

When I scored my target person it was: "Hi there. This is Samela calling for the Hillary Clinton campaign in New Hampshire - just checking in to see if you have yet decided for whom you might be voting in the primary?"
I found that, if I said it very fast, they were more inclined to answer.

There were people who hung up the moment they realised I was a political call. Oh what relish some of them took in that gesture. Only one of my hang-ups was polite about it: "Have a nice day - CLUNK". It was really very refreshing.

Then there was an angry independent who demanded to be taken off the list - and, worst of all, a woman who said she was not interested in Hillary and, when I asked if any of the other candidates interested her, she said "No, I'm a Republican". Ouch!


Of those Democrat voters who chose to discuss the primary, it was the issues of health care and the Iraq War or the Iraq War and health care which concerned them.
Of the other candidates, only Barack Obama and John Edwards were mentioned as rival choices. Those voters who were already firmly decided on Hillary Clinton were really enthusiastic and all to keen to sing the Senator's praises and enumerate the reasons for their choice - intelligence, strength, experience, values, policies...

There are a lot more of these calls to be made as the primary progresses in New Hampshire - hopefully each wave bringing in more and more positive feedback. And, of course, the other campaigns will be doing it, too. These New Hampshire voters are under intense scrutiny. They are still the "gateway" electorate - the vote that matters.


Let's hope their patience holds up.
Certainly, the experience of being the one making the calls has changed the way for ever after that I will respond to any similar callers. Even when I want to hang up, I shall do it with kindness. Now I know just what good people are on the other end of the line.

Come in Spinners

When the debate ends, the spin begins. And there is a special room for it.
Fortunately, on the drizzling, cold New Hampshire night, the Spin Room was in the building right beside the media's giant File Room. We just had to scuttle past a couple of rain-protected State Troopers and into the bright lights of spin. It was another vast, high-ceilinged Saint Anselm indoor sporting arena of some sort. But the sport was spin - with keen volunteers gathered around towers bearing the names of the candidates, all of tem holding signs aloft. These identified the candidates' spin doctors. Yes. True story. The media was invited to get the spin. Now, we all know that spin is PR - so this struck me as a bizarre ritual for journalists - go interview the PR people? Isn't that what we want to avoid? To be fair, these good news-bearers were campaign strategists, pollsters and, well, important people had endorsed a candidate.

Of course it was hoped that the candidates themselves would appear in the Spin Room before the night was over - but for some time they would be engaged in post-mortem interviews back in the debate hall which was some distance away. So the media swarmed around the Spin Room earnestly interviewing the spinsters.

They gathered in tight clutches, notepads and tape recorders to the fore, hanging on every word. Every grouping attracted curious rivals - anxious not to miss a scoop. I simply couldn't see this as scoop territory, but I played along.

Bruce recognised the very powerful political advisor and Hillary confidant Mandy Grunwald so I zeroed in. I liked the look of her, as it happens - but I was not about to make her like me. I'd decided to go for the nitty-gritty, the thing which is worrying us most of all in the Hillary Clinton candidacy - the "baggage".
Thus did I enumerate the Bill baggage, the 2002 vote for the War on Iraq baggage, the fact that American voters think she is too ambitious baggage and the fact that she is a woman baggage, asking Grunwald if America could ever let go of this, since every time I mentioned my preference for Hillary, people responded with a baggage agenda.
Grunwald gave me something of a withering look and said: "In case you hadn't noticed, she is ahead."

Yes, I had noticed, but there was a long way to go and media corrosion applied to baggage in American politics presented a need for constant defence. Could Hillary surmount the baggage over the distance? How hard was it?
Grunwald, her eyes raking the room for someone or something, told me that Hillary is definitely the most able candidate for the job, the most experienced and best and that, despite baggage, the polls were going strongly her way.
But what of the national sexism, what about America voting for a woman?
Here her spin ended.
"We shall just have to wait and see," she sighed.
I left it at that.
There really is nothing left to say. Indeed, there is a long way to go before the NH primary vote in January. Hillary has been working very hard in the state and I do believe she has won many hearts and minds. But there could so easily be a slipup. John Edwards lost ground with his $400 haircut. As the Washington blogger told me when we swapped notes, Edwards is now irreparably handicapped by that extravagance. He is a joke. Just as John Kerry in 2004 was doomed from the moment the media labelled him "Flip Flop". It only takes one little thing in this game.
The up side is that all the Democratic candidates are good - a quality of politician of which we could only dream in Australia.
And, unlike in Australia, they are accountable to the voters - not picked for leadership in some backroom, faction-driven party in-deal.


Clearly the Spin Room media was in for the long haul, waiting for candidates to turn up. They milled and jostled, killed time with interviews and photographs that will never see the light of day and jealously watched the CNN post debate interviews on a giant TV screen.


Bruce and I figured we could watch them more comfortably at home - and set off into the night drizzle, past the rows of trucks topped by satellite dishes, giant high-tech OB vans, damp outdoor reportage tents and the big, shiny CNN Express bus, parked in a dazzle of floodlights on one of the campus lawns.

Indeed, we were able to catch up on the television coverage at home and, heavens above, who was that looking earnest in the midst of the Spin Room throng? 'Twas me.

Websites and electronic friends

In this lull between visits, Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign has been beavering away in Manchester - getting the office humming along, the campaign outreach liaised and, most importantly of all, the NH campaign website up and running.
It is full of juicy details about the groundswell of support following Hillary's five NH visits and the plans afoot for a Hillary Day of Action on May 12.

Meanwhile, one can see a very different support base growing on My Space. This community is so vast that no one can afford not to be a member. Even I have a page. Hillary and the other candidates most emphatically are on board. It is interesting to see the growth of "friends" in that arena. Hillary had 52199 this morning. John Edwards had 30276. Meanwhile, John McCain had 25367 and Rudi Giuliani, with several aggressive My Space sites, seemed to have only 192. Giuliani's unofficial site had some pretty ugly anti-Democrat material. Hillary's has this:





The Republican Debate is happening tonight and the Repub candidates, all 10 of them, are out and about claiming their moment in the sun. Mitt Romney, the movie star-handsome Mormon with only 14186 friends on My Space, scored an airing on Jay Leno last night showing what a smooth operator he is with his well-scripted jokes and constant family references. He's a "family values" man and recommended that America "look at my wife and me to see American values". Jay did corner him on a question about the Mormon history of racial discrimination to which Romney replied: "One of my best friends is in Ghana bringing people into the church right now". Shudder.

Only in America, eh. Like this whole fascinating process.

And the debate verdict is...

There they stood behind their oddly tapering lecterns under the kitsch, over-arty red, white and blue MSNBC debate set - Hillary Clinton, the tiny one, Barack Obama, the tall one, and then John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden - and who the hell is that other fellow?

I'd never heard of Mike Gravel, the former senator from Alaska.
Well, we all know him now. The man who said he felt like a potplant perched at the edge of the lineup turned out to be the star of the debate. Talk about fresh blood and fresh perspective. He is an old-fashioned sage. A no-bull man! A realist.
Terrorism, he asserted, "has been with civilization from the beginning, and it will be there till the end. We're going to be as successful fighting terrorism as we are fighting drugs with the war. It doesn't work. What you have to do is to begin to change the whole foreign policy."
On Iran and nuclear threats, he noted that the US was the greatest violator of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. "We signed a pledge that we would begin to disarm, and we're not doing it. We're expanding our nukes. Who the hell are we going to nuke?" he blustered.
He also said this:
"We have no important enemies, We've got to deal with the rest of the world as equals. Who are we afraid of? We spend more on defence than any other country...the military controls not only the budget, it also controls our culture." Wow!

Straw polls following the debate have given Gravel a surprising surge.
On Daily Kos, he has zoomed to a 10 per cent vote, ahead of Kucinich, Biden, Richardson and Dodd - but behind Hillary, Obama and Edwards.

I was pleased with Hillary Clinton, however. She was my winner. She has a confident clarity. Her voice has a headmistress timbre, so we pay attention. She is emotionally controlled - calm and rational. She also is comprehensively informed on any topic you throw her. She can think on her feet. She is diplomatic, always knowing what not to say as well as what to say. She has been criticised for this, but, hell, that is what politics is all about.
She also has been endlessly criticised for insufficient mea culpa about voting for the War on Iraq. How many times does she have to regret it? How many times does she have to say that, if she knew then what she knew now, she would never have done so? Anyway, she said it all again - and was criticised all over again by the likes of Edwards and Kucinich.
It was a rather delicious irony to note that she was the most generous-spirited among the candidates, ready to give credit to others.
Oh, yes, she stood right out.

John Edwards lost ground for me in the debate. He says his $400 haircut was "a mistake which has been remedied now". How? He paid the campaign fund back? That is really not a remedy to the primping vanity of $400 haircuts. Edwards went on to defend his "privileged" millionaire lifestyle by claiming not to have forgotten his roots and went into a Southern boy, Down Home childhood tale of how the family left a restaurant when his millworker father realised he could not afford to pay its prices. I think we have had enough of these cornball anecdotes from Edwards. I, for one, have heard them all before. Furthermore, he was the only candidate to suggest that he felt a need to consult his "Lord" .

Dennis Kucinich also lost ground. I had respected his uncompromising leftist views - but in the debate, he showed a bitchy streak I did not like, sniping at his peers, glancing at Hillary and saying "apologies aren't enough". What the hell? Apologies are enough - and forgiveness is all. Kucinich also admitted to being a gun-owner. Hillary was one of the few who indicated never having owned a weapon, at the same time reiterating careful placations to the mighty gun lobby. Everyone seems to do this.

Bill Richardson is known as the darling of the gun lobby. He is a Westerner and he owns guns - but thinks the screening processes for gun purchase are lacking, as evidenced by Cho and the Virginia Tech shooting.
I found Richards a bit bombastic, something of a hothead and too fond of speaking in lists. From this quaint pressure-cooker appearance, I wouldn't put him in the White House.

Joe Biden is charming and he looks the way a president should look. When asked about his greatest mistake, he said it was in "overestimating the competence of this administration" and "stupid enough to believe that I could influence George W Bush's thinking". He brought the house down when, accused of "uncontrolled verbosity" and being a "gaffe machine" and asked if he would have the self-control for the role of president, he said simply "yes" - and not another word. Silence.

Chris Dodd pointed out his considerable qualifications for the job of president but was underwhelming in debate, especially when he spoke on civil unions versus same-sex marriage. He is for the former and against the latter. I liked his idea of diplomacy rather than war, and his quote: "This administration treats diplomacy as if it were a gift to our opponent; a sign of weakness, not a sign of strength".

Barack Obama was my biggest loser. He seemed extremely nervous, which is forgivable. But he also seemed arrogant. He never makes a speech that does not mention his wife and children, which is beginning to grate - and, gratuitously, he mentioned them again. His big mistake in my book was when he went to town on Iran, showing that he has swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the current media campaign to turn Iran into an immediate threat. It is rather reminiscent of the Iraq and "weapons of mass destruction" campaign. Obama said that he believed that Iran was a nuclear threat as well as the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the form of Hezbollah and Hamas and therefore was a threat to the security of the USA.
My conclusion is that Obama is, indeed, the young and inexperienced candidate - and it showed. He is simply not ready for the presidency.

Hillary is.

Candidates digging their own graves

Candidates are shooting themselves in the foot all over the place.

Republican John McCain is being media-excoriated for being so absurdly gauche as to mock the delicate issue of relations with Iran by singing "bomb-bomb-Iran" to the tune of "Barbara Ann". It was his idea of a joke and when criticised by reporters, he told them to "get a life", a very unpleasant and patronising put-down which simply exacerbated the friction. He justified his "humour" by saying he was speaking to veterans and they were friends. Oh dear. Still not funny.


Meanwhile, Democrat John Edwards has done the most bizarre thing. He has committed $400 of campaign funds to hairdressing. The country is simply incredulous. How the hell do you spend $400 on a haircut? Even a cut, five colours in foils, straightening, deep conditioning and drying don't come to $400. But, of course, he had his hair done in Beverley Hills where, clearly, clip joints are really clip joints.

Edwards has already been depicted performing extended hair preening on YouTube. Who knew he had a hair "thing"? Well, we all know now.

I am sure that, if I had donated to his campaign, I would not be happy to discover that I had just paid for an overpriced hair cut.
What else is the fund paying for?

John Edwards is a squillionaire lawyer who lives in some massive mansion with not only pool and tennis court etc, but two stages! Two stages? John Edwards is a lovely man and a very fine candidate. I heard him and, indeed, met him and photographed him, at the last Primary here in NH and was quite charmed by him. I'm looking forward to hearing him again.
And I'm looking forward to hearing him explain this extravagant indescretion. Frankly, anyone, let alone a very wealthy one, should pay for their haircuts from their own purse.
Somehow, policies about helping the poor and the American underclasses lose their sincerity when coming from a man with a $400 haircut. That sort of money is a month of groceries to many people - many of the people to whom he is trying to appeal for support as a presidential candidate.

One thing is certain, the New Hampshire voters will give him a run for his money when he shows up here. I can't wait.