I didn’t watch the debate last night, but I might listen to it on POTUS 08 on XM Radio today. I’ve read a number of articles and blogs about it and they all come to roughly the same conclusion. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did equally well in the debate, but that really is a loss for Hillary because she needed to really win big to change his momentum. This may or may not be true and we won’t have the answer until late on March 4th, but it does underscore a problem she has been having: She is much better in speeches than in the face to face debates. Her tough talk from this weekend didn’t materialize in the debate, and I wonder if the constantly changing tone is making her seem less consistent on some issues than she really is.

I think it’s fair to say, also, that her campaign has not been run real well. She has focused on things that have been meaningless and it’s hurt her in the debates. For example, when she tried out the line “change you can Xerox”, not only did she get booed, Obama was able to basically slam that back in her face and make her look petty. Why did she try to link Obama to Farrakhan? Does she actually think he’s a militant anti-semite? How about bringing up his associations with homophobic men of the cloth? She has yet to pounce on that, and I can only wonder if it’s because she has similar associations within her church. Bringing up the Saturday Night Live skit from last week (which was legitimately funny and somewhat spot on) last night brought her boos again. I don’t think it was because she was wrong to bring that up, but because it sounded so out of place, like she was just wanting to bring that up, without proper context.

So I don’t know what her campaign is thinking or what advice she’s been given. I do think her skill as a campaigner has been grossly exaggerated. She’s run two campaigns, one where she was running in a state that is two to one Democratic against an unknown Rick Lazio, and the other against an even bigger unknown (I don’t even remember who it was now). She’s never had to run a tough campaign (and for the record Obama’s run against Alan Keyes could never be called difficult or challenging), and I think it’s starting to show that she doesn’t have the people she needs right now.

The other possibility, is that she’s more like Gore than she is like her husband. Most people who like Al Gore, say he is bright, knowledgeable on all the issues, intellectually curious….and an awful candidate. I won’t say she is as bad as Gore, but it’s starting to become clear to me that she is the type of politician who loves to get immersed in an issue, explore all the options, and develop a policy, but not really engage with constituents. While I don’t agree with her conclusions for the most part, those are all good qualities for a senator. Since 1900 there have only been two sitting senators elected President: Warren Harding and JFK. There are reasons for this. What makes a good senator doesn’t necessarily mean you will make a good presidential candidate. This election will mark the first sitting senator elected in the last 48 years (unless you’re a RonPaulTard and think Ron Paul will be president).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 8:53 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.