Obama wins but Hillary still publicly unbowed
June 4th, 2008My inner clock woke me just in time to catch the 5.30 AM ITV News. Not surprising since this is the most important and fascinating US election in my lifetime. And almost as interesting is how the media on both sides of the Atlantic is reporting it. The sun was streaming in through the windows and from my vantage point on the sofa in front of the television I can look west where I can see in my mind’s eye the twelfth floor office of Forbes Magazine on the Hudson River, where I used to sit in the early 1960s, staring in the opposite direction.
This morning Barack Obama’s rhetoric once again echoed that of Jack Kennedy as he claimed the Democratic nomination after the primaries in South Dakota and Montana. He won both states and those victories, combined with the super delegates (including ex-President Jimmy Carter) who have switched their votes to him over the last few weeks, takes his delegate tally to 2,157 comfortably over the 2,118 votes he needed to secure victory.
Most of the words he used we have heard many times before: ‘marks the end of one era and the beginning on another’, ‘This is our time’, ‘new ideas for the country we love’. And even though he has said them many times before he manages to say them as if they are coming straight from his heart. And like Kennedy, he has been able to convince much of America’s youth, that he shares their idealism and hopes of a better world.
The result and the content of Obama’s speech were exactly as predicted by the media yesterday. By contrast, all those who said emphatically yesterday that Hillary Clinton was going to use her New York speech last night to concede have egg on their faces this morning. Including the flagship ITV News at Ten last night, which highlighted speculation that Hillary Clinton would be running for Vice President at Obama’s side.
Today’s Daily Novel wooden spoon awards go to the Daily Mail for its headline:
‘Hillary Clinton to bow out TONIGHT as she finally concedes to Obama in race for White House,
Second prize goes to Associated Press, the leading US news agency, which ran reports that Hillary was about to concede throughout yesterday. They got it seriously wrong but it does not follow that they invented the story. They were quoting an un-named high level member of the Clinton campaign and one who presumably has given them good information in the past. And, as the Financial Times reported yesterday, it might well be that she had been considering pulling out last night, but decided against it at the eleventh hour.
Last night, she had a rapturous reception from her supporters in New York, and they screamed and cheered when she congratulated Obama in winning the majority of the delegates but said that the important thing was, ‘Where do we go from here’. Her answer was a firm commitment to fight on. This is not as daft as it might seem. Because, as Sky News pointed out this morning, the Clinton campaign claims that she has a majority of the popular vote, with 18 million people having voted for her, slightly more than the number who have voted for Obama.
Individual newspapers get it wrong, but collectively they provide valuable guidance to what is actually happening. And, as I write here now on the Dorset coast, I can see I might be in a better position to assess the total picture, than I would be if I had been on the campaign trail, either with Obama in Minnesota or Hillary Clinton in New York.
So my analysis (and I am posting this before I read the media web pages this morning) here is my view., based on what I have read yesterday and over the last few weeks.
Obama will be the candidate. Hillary Clinton will bow out within weeks rather than months. Watching her this morning, I saw no tears running down her face, but it seemed to me that her brave smile, concealed her awareness that this speech is almost certainly her last in the bid for the Presidency. Obama spoke warmly and generously about her last night, but many of his senior advisers are not convinced she is the right person for Vice President. They point out that Obama’s support comes from that part of the electorate that wants a change, not only from George W Bush, but from the ruling regime in Washington, including the two term Presidency of Bill Clinton.
But from today most of the advisers to both sides will be working to find a way of healing the splits in the Democratic Party as soon as possible to give their party a better chance of beating John McCain next November.
STOP PRESS
Just visited the Washington Post website. Hillary actually won South Dakota. Just shows how you cannot rely on television news to tell you all the important things that happen. The Post’s Sketch, from their man with Clinton in New York, has other interesting things to report both from her full speech and private comments:
‘Clinton congratulated Obama — not for winning the nomination, but for running an “extraordinary race.” She recognized Obama and his supporters “for all they accomplished.”
It was an extraordinary performance by a woman who had been counted out of the race even when she still had a legitimate chance. Now she had been mathematically eliminated — and she spoke as if she had won.’
But what she was saying in private, apparently, was different:
‘Though some might think her remarks self-delusional, Clinton wasn’t kidding herself; earlier in the day, Clinton had told lawmakers privately that the race was over and she would consider being Obama’s vice president.’