Obama, PA, and Defying Gravity
Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 01:55:03 PM PDT
Hillary Clinton has been HANDED every advantage in Pennsylvania since the campaign started their in earnest on March 5th. She led by 19 points when the Pennsylvania campaign started. And yet, after a month of unprecedented negative press, gaffes, and bad luck for Barack Obama, HER LEAD HAS SLIPPED BY 14 POINTS!!!
Barack Obama is a special politician. Every time he faces a potentially devastating challenge, he manages to turn it into a positive. What other candidate could have weathered a storm so intense and actually increased their standing by 14 points?
Below are the potentially devastating challenges that Obama has faced and overcome over the last month and a half:
- Hillary's wins on March 4th
Hillary received the glowing press afforded to a winner shortly after winning the popular vote in Texas and blowing Obama away in Ohio. Obama received the negative "What's wrong?" press that a loser receives. The narrative had turned against him, but Obama campaign (and allies like MoveOn and DFA) pushed back by (a) making the case forcefully that despite Hillary's March 4th wins, the math made her nomination nearly impossible and (b) that superdelegates should not overturn the will of the pledged delegates. We now take these memes for granted, but it was not a given - it took some serious PR work to convince the media that Hillary was a longshot and to bolster the importance of the final pledged delegate tally. This put his campaign back on solid footing and reframed Hillary's triumphant wins as insignificant blips on Obama's road to the nomination.
- Rev. Wright
Obama received horrific press after the Reverand Wright clips exploded onto the news and Youtube. This could have devastated any other candidate, but Obama managed to turn it into a positive (if not quite a net positive) by giving a speech on race lauded as "Lincoln-esque". Perhaps more importantly, in the process, Obama remained loyal to his church, his faith, and his complicated views on racial equality. While I will readily admit that it was smart politics to change the subject from Rev. Wright's controversial statements (politically indefensible) to race (a taboo subject where white pundits would be limited in their ability to criticize), the honesty, truth, wisdom, and courage of that speech vastly outweighed the small amount of political calculation involved in making the speech. Obama's political advisors didn't want him to make that speech. That should tell you something about his courage and the political risks inherent in making such a speech.
- Attacks from two fronts
Fighting a war on two fronts is difficult. Throughout the month, Obama has faced eerily similar attacks on his "lack of experience" from two fronts: Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Hillary's attacks served to "validate" McCain's partisan attacks. That could have crushed his crucial electability argument for superdelegates and collapsed his poll numbers, but he instead turned it to his advantage by appealing to Democrats' sense of party unity and (again) painting Hillary and McCain's experience (supposedly a strength) as a weakness by rhetorically tying it to Washington, DC and the system that Obama wants to change. The experience issue has been largely neutralized, as Obama's leadership numbers have climbed in many polls. Remember: part of what sunk Howard Dean (Dec 2003 - Jan 2004) was the fact that he sustained attacks from Democrats and Republicans for an entire month.
- San Francisco gaffe
Obama made an unfortunate comment at a San Francisco fundraiser. The comment can be divided into two-parts. One part was defensible ("bitter" working class families) while the other part was indefensible ("clinging to religion and guns") and required a walk-back/apology. The Obama's campaign managed to carefully steer the substance of the furor over his gaffe towards the "bitter" part. His campaign was assisted by Hillary's idiotic decision to focus on "bitterness" in the first day of the furor instead of "clinging"). This allowed him to (a) apologize for misspeaking about the "clinging" while (b) simultaneously pivoting to an aggressive economic populist posture in defense of the "bitterness" of working class families who have felt the economic squeeze over the last two decades. Instead of looking "out of touch", Obama was able to frame his opponents as "out of touch". "Haven't you seen the economic downturn? Don't you know we're in a recession?" And so on. These comments should have caused him to lose Pennsylvania, a largely working class state, by 20. And yet, he deflected and made lemons out of lemonade once again. What is most striking is that the press refers to this controversy as "bittergate" instead of "clinging-gate". That was a huge victory for Barack Obama.
- The ABC Debate Debacle
Whether or not you believe that ABC's debate was an unfair debacle (I believe it was), the truth is that Obama looked awful during that debate. He looked frustrated during the first segment, and that carried over to the second issues portion. Even though ABC used unfair questions, Obama still looked bad, and he should have been able to answer those questions a bit better (Jon Stewart pointed this out last week). It was not a given that Pennsylvania voters would see that this debate as unfair. It took an effective PR effort to solidify this meme. This was the most watched primary debate in the history of this country, so that made the job more difficult. This debate could have caused a huge dip in his poll numbers in Pennsylvania. Obama could have rallied his supporters by complaining about media bias/favoritism (Hillary Clinton has done this over the last year). Instead, he framed the debate debacle as a good government/process issue. He focused on the fact that issues were not discussed for 45 minutes, and he melded the debate moderators' conduct with his critique of politics as usual. That's a much easier (and effective) case to make than the more conspiratorial charge of media favoritism. Obama alies on the web mobilized and made the "good government" argument effectively (often by defending both Obama AND Hillary). Obama made a speech with this same message, which reinforced the "good government" frame. His poll numbers did not suffer.
Any one of these five controversies could have sunk an ordinary candidate, but Barack Obama managed to gain 14 points in the polls!!!!
Obama is a special candidate. The superdelegates are watching. Hillary's last chance (a coup by superdelegate) is not likely.
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