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REYNOLDS |
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Democrat Debate: Clinton Done, Obama Winner
by John Mark Reynolds [author,
academic] 2/27/08
Senator Clinton will never be president. Obama would be a fool to put her on a ticket and he is no fool.
Against a weak field, cleared out for her, she failed. She is a phenomenally weak campaigner who is exhausted by crowds and people. She is smart, perhaps having the most book smarts in the race, but she has not “people intelligence.”
To give just one example of her bad ear for the “people” side of debate:
Contributor
John Mark Reynolds
John
Mark Reynolds is the founder and director of
the Torrey Honors Institute and Associate Professor
of Philosophy at Biola University.His
personal website can be found at www.johnmarkreynolds.com and
his blog can be found at http://scriptoriumdaily.com.
[go to Reynolds index] |
Tonight she pushed Obama in an area where he was winning. Barack Obama is no anti-Semite and getting to denounce anti-Semites is easy work for him. Her parsing of Obama for “rejecting” instead of “denouncing” anti-Semites was foolish. It allowed Obama to do the obvious thing, reject bigots, and win applause.
Because she has no substantial disagreements with Obama, she was forced to be make petty attacks that will always fail against an attractive and intelligent opponent.
John McCain and the Republicans should not attack Obama on stupid and petty issues. Obama is a patriot and a good man. He is as experienced as many men who have held the office of president with distinction. Bluntly, McCain either beats Obama on the issues or he will lose.
Here is the way to beat him.
Barack Obama: Wonderfully Wrong.
Obama ran a great race, but has been forced to say things to win in the primary that will haunt him in the general. That is not true of McCain.
The Clinton campaign failed, because she failed.
The bottom line was the Clinton campaign always had a sound leader, but was searching for a good candidate. Clinton would be able to govern effectively, but like Richard Nixon she hates to run.
Sadly for her, this year she ran into a candidate who loves to run . . . has only run for office in his political career. He even admitted tonight that his Senate job has consisted of running for president. The nation had better hope that he can govern, if he wins.
Republicans should take note. Obama is good at deflecting “pledge of allegiance” small ball attacks. He is deathly afraid of his liberal views on the issues. He dodged his voting record in his lamest answer of the evening, because the movement he has started depends on not forcing people to see him as pro-abortion (radically so), anti-gun, and for huge government expansion (health care) and taxes.
I thought we saw an indication that Obama is not a very good debater when pushed on his detailed positions. This is not because this brilliant man cannot give answers, but because he knows many of his answers will alienate voters he needs.
He seemed tightly coiled at times and did not respond well to criticism, but was fortunate in his opponent.
The most recent polls do not show an Obama landslide in the making, but a close race. Two show John McCain with a narrow lead and two show Obama with a wide lead. None show him, despite fawning press, with more than fifty-one percent of the vote. In short, not only can he lose, but he may actually be losing (depending on the polls you read).
He will get one more huge, fawning bump at this convention, but the Republicans will get the last word there. John McCain should compare and contrast without name calling. He does not need it, he is bad at it, and it will not work. We will get a great campaign of substance and we will see if America wants to shift left. ExileStreet
copyright
2008 John Mark Reynolds
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