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• Sunday, January 6, 2008 06:23 PM

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  For starters, her last name happens to be Clinton. For a substantial majority of what appears to be a tidal wave of young Obama voters in thier early twenties or younger, they apparently are fed up having never had a President in thier lives that hasn't been named Bush or Clinton and it's hard to blame them at this point. A "change" candidate probably shouldn't co-sponsor worthless flag-burning ammendments catering to the Republican faux-patriot divisive wedge issue narrative that waves of young voters are fed up with having to sit through. Nor should a "change" candidate let Rupert Murdoch host a fundraiser for her or accept and/or continue to solicit gigantic corporate special interest money contributions for her "change" campaign when those special interests have a proven and obvious track record of discouraging "change". One thing a "change" candidate really shouldn't do even if they are guilty of the above is hire a campaign manager with ties to huge "anti-change" corporate entities and have him start a negative whispering campaign in the media about how the favorite candidate of those young voters could never get elected because of his name. Probably not a real good idea for a "change" candidate to say things like "Lobbyists are people too."

  Full disclosure here - I'm $4600 into the Edwards run and proud of how he's hung in there. That said, I do think Clinton can make a case that she has busted her ass on behalf of Americans. Before last nite's debate I watched her answer questions on C-SPAN at an earlier campaign event that afternoon for what seemed like 2 hours non-stop and it was the best I've ever seen her perform. She was engaging and was able to break complex issues down in a manner that people could understand while able to point to specific votes and legislation she either supported or tried to stop. Afterwards, she was on to another event for more of the same. That's the forum where she's really at her best and if judged solely on that type of venue I think she'd already have the nomination locked up. But after a long day of campaigning in an attempt to catch up to Obama, I think the stress started to show in her demeanor at times in the debate and her charges on Obama not only didn't score but only reinforced the notion that her campaign is getting more desperate.

  As many qualities as she has or as deserving one thinks she might be, there's no getting around that her campaign has made some bad choices at the most critical times against two very skilled orators like Obama and Edwards. Whether one respects thier backgrounds and positions or not, there's no denying that both have demonstrated they are clearly more effective retail politicians on the debate stage. After this many face-to-face matchups and no success previously with the tactic, Clinton risked making it worse on herself trying to attack either or both of them when she had little margin for error. Her work is really cut out for her. She has to hope Edwards runs out of money to keep going and then pray Obama makes a big enough mistake that she can exploit, and even then I think voters may still be cynical of her.

  —BadgerBlue Read BadgerBlue's other letters
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