I didn't watch MSNBC's coverage of Wisconsin and Hawai'i, so I missed the spectacle of Chris Matthews grilling my state senator, and former mayor, Kirk Watson on Barack Obama's legislative record. I have seen and heard the clip, though, and you would have thought that Watson was hiding the identity of the second gunman on the grassy knoll and Matthews was going to get it out of him, no matter what. To his credit, though, Sen. Watson makes no excuses on his website, www.kirkwatson.com.
The thing was, though, Matthews missed the entire point in his humiliation of Kirk Watson on national cable television. Voters want to be inspired and challenged this year, and resume is less important. I'll tell you why on the flip...
Count me among the Edwards supporters who hopped on the Obama train following Edwards' withdrawal from the race. And I have my problems with the senator from Illinois; his refusal to repudiate the homophobic rhetoric of Donnie McClurkin was and continues to be a real problem for me. But at the end of the day, the 2006 and 2008 elections are about bringing a fresh perspective to Washington in the hopes that change will yield new solutions that have been plaguing us since the 1990s. Hillary Clinton was a great first lady, and she's been a capable senator, but she is not the right candidate for the prevailing voter attitude.
This crystallized for me when Clinton and Obama began running t.v. ads on local t.v. last week. Obama's ads have all the soaring rhetoric we've come to expect from him. Sen. Clinton's ads emphasize her dedication to helping one person at a time. There is nothing wrong with that; it is very admirable. In fact, it is why I believe firmly that Hillary Clinton will be much more effective in the Senate than in the White House.
We are in a year where people are yearning for someone to tell them everything's going to be OK, and that, together, we can solve the problems we face because that's what Americans do. Another diary today compared 2008 to 1932. I would say it's part of a cycle we've seen in the elections of 1932, 1960, and 1980. Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan understood that Americans wanted to be reassured with positive rhetoric and big ideas. And that is where Hillary Clinton is falling short. By trying to be realistic, she is misreading the tenor of the times. Whether or not Clinton or Obama can better deliver on their promises is not the point; experience is not the point; people want to be inspired. Barack Obama is delivering that inspiration, and that is why, IMO, attempts to deflate that are falling flat. American voters want the visionary, not the wonk.
And thus, Chris Matthews showed the limitations of his understanding in his interview (here, if you haven't already seen it. If voters were concerned with resume in this election, neither Clinton nor Obama would be fighting for the Democratic nomination. We'd probably be seeing Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd fighting for delegates instead. Perhaps instead of presenting laundry lists of legislation most voters haven't heard of, perhaps Matthews--and Sen. Clinton--should be asking instead: what is Senator Obama giving the voters to make them respond this way?