Cross posted at MyDD. Haven't blogged here in a while but used to quite a bit.
Lately, I've started to fall prey to the media juggernaut that is Hillary Clinton. But, there is tremendous reason to hope. While Hill supporters will give you poll after poll after poll, the game is still on. And I now believe that Obama is still firmly in the midst of the game and positioned to win. He's playing chess while Hillary is playing checkers. She keeps going "King me!" but Obama is positioning his Queen for a triumphant "Checkmate!"
Caveat Emptor
I have made no secret that I support Barack Obama. And while I would support Hillary if she is the nominee, I would be disappointed. I would also be disappointed with John Edwards. Both would be fine presidents. But I feel like Hillary would be more of the same. And Edwards while changing the game would not do so in a manner that I think would ultimately move the country -- it's a matter of strategy.
More after the jump ...
The Media Race
Everyone is saying it: Hillary has solidified her lead. The latest fundraising numbers from Q3 have been used as a cudgel by the Hillary camp to blast home the trend that Obama's last hope of beating her has been conquered. And while that claim seemed spurious to me, the media has kept touting it. And, like many of Obama's elite supporters, I was feeling like the fight was being lost.
In recent weeks, Barack Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod has met with major contributors at the campaign's Chicago headquarters and in private homes to allay concerns about his candidate's lack of movement in the national polls. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe has presided over conference calls to calm down jittery bundlers. The candidate himself has even gotten on the phone with groups of big donors to assure them that the campaign is on the right track.
"They were spending time trying to make all of us confident that there is a strategy," said one major donor to Mr. Obama, who attended a meeting of the campaign's finance team at the Chicago headquarters about a month ago. "And I remember David [Axelrod] saying that he thought Barack was positioned well. And all of a sudden it's turning into October, and I'm not sure I see a strategy. And if it is being implemented--I'm not sure I see it being implemented so effectively.
"Is it frustrating? Highly," said the donor. "National polls do matter, number one. They say don't worry, don't worry, we're positioned well. Well, what does that mean?"
But there's a curious meta-media rumbling that is happening on the edges. It says that the race is still very much going on. It says that Hillary's win was not by much. It also says that at this level, it hardly matters.
Where Things Stand
Hillary effectively stepped on Obama's big anniversary speech. That was very good media management. But it didn't play in the place where it counted most -- Iowa.
The Des Moines Register gave prominent play to the speech on its front page, with the headline: "Obama: Put End to Nuclear Weapons." Beneath it, below the fold, was a one-paragraph squib with the small headline: "Clinton Edges Obama," referring to an article inside about the fund-raising.
As we saw earlier this week, Obama is gaining an edge in Iowa. While there is some controversy about Newsweek's poll and whether it has true statistical relevance (least of all that this is there first with no trend lines), it still shows that it is a three way fight there. More than that, Obama is the best organized candidate in the state.
But Obama's first words were not in his text, even though they may have been the most important words he spoke all day.
"If you have not yet signed up as a Barack Obama supporter, hopefully after the speech you will," he told the crowd at the Polk County Convention Complex.
"Fill out one of those cards. We'll have volunteers all across the doors. You won't be able to get out without seeing one of these cards."
Pretty mundane stuff, right? Which is why most candidates don't bother with it. Especially not in a speech being covered by the national press, with six TV cameras grinding away.
But that Obama did bother with it is the most important sign I have seen that he actually understands Iowa.
Obama has thirty-one offices across the state. He's doing the work that the Dean campaign didn't do. He truly understands how different Iowa is than the rest of the country. And he's working it. He may or may not finish first, but he will definitely not finish below second. And that will catapult him through to New Hampshire. Iowa is a three person race, and whoever comes in first and second there will be positioned to continue on in the race.
So, I've changed the channel. The lazy media punditocracy will continue to say one thing until the picture changes. Hey, remember how Iowa was a race between Clark and Dean a few years ago? Oh, yeah. Let's all stop playing into the traditional narrative. I know the diehard Hillary supporters will continue to spray the national and even state polls around as proof of her inevitability. I don't begrudge them that (and those who try to change their minds are a bit naive). It's part of Hillary's strategy. But the rest of us should watch things more closely.
Obama supporters should have the most hope of all. He's just turned it on. And in the place where it really matters, he won the news cycle this week and is finally beginning his real campaign.
Having had time to read Barack Obama's foreign policy speech and talk with some of his advisers and some of his rivals advisers, I'm drawn to the conclusion that yesterday was meant to be a launch pad of sorts for the final stage of Obama's campaign argument.
Obama, an aide said, wrote the speech himself. It is much less cerebral and much more direct than his usual forays into policy. Actually, it wasn't a foray so much as a surgical strike. Half the speech was a sustained, detailed criticism of the foreign policy establishment. The rest was a precis of the ways in which president Obama would challenge conventional wisdom.
Just when people are really starting to pay attention, Obama has upped the ante. And he's playing to win. I know I'm heartened. And I can now see a winning strategy through the media haze that's obscured my vision.