- The Obama camp refered to WI as a "No excuses state" for Clinton. There is no excuse for her to lose so much in a place that home to what is considered her coalition (blue-collar workers, those without college degrees, etc.) This is a loss that she can't blame on anyone but herself.
- Is Hillary pulling a Giuliani strategy? By relying 100% on Ohio and Texas, she's losing the opportunity to gain her own momentum to counter that of her opponent. And we all know what happened to poor Rudy himself...
- Although Sen. Clinton was rather upbeat in her speech tonight, pundits have pointed out that she needs some new material. She's too stubborn to face the fact that she's on a decline and refuses to ask her supporters for help. Instead, she keeps pretending that she's still on top of the world. Oops. Oh, and also, can she please stop the whole "solutions not speeches" and "when the cameras go off and the speeches stop" spiels? For one, Obama offers both, for Christ's sake. And two, the cameras and speeches never end as president. She sounds so silly uttering that phrase; her speechwriter needs to be the next to go.
- The Clinton Machine was not prepared for this. They expected to glide to the nomination on name recognition alone, holding the mentality that "Obama is a nice kid, but he can't beat us." Looks like someone made a slight miscalculation.
- Also, the Clinton campaign strategy was, surprise surprise, the old-school campaign strategy: focus on the big states and the small ones will follow or be irrelevant. In contrast, the Obama strategy was to focus on those smaller states and build a coalition that spans the entire country. And look at who's having more success. Yet another reason why Hillary is far from being the "agent of change" she claims to be.
- McCain also seemed to jump on the "Obama is all talk and no action" bandwagon during his yawner tonight. Talk about being late... (And did he remind anyone else of Emperor Palpatine? His wife also had a strong likeness to Voldemort. Maybe voting for him in the case of Hillary won't end up being so simple.)
- A lot is being made about the difference between Republican and Democratic voter turnout tonight (more people voted for Obama than for all Republican candidates combined.) But I urge my conservative readers not to despair. After all, with the nominee pretty much decided, why would voters even bother will this ritual anymore? There's more at stake, and therefore more reason to vote, in the Democratic race.
19 February 2008
Wisconsinland Primary
With 82% of precincts reporting, it looks as if Barack Obama will take Wisconsin by about 20 percentage points. That means I'll throw in my unpolished thoughts...
