jackconaty's Blog

West Virginia is a beautiful state.  You didn't get to see much of it in the political coverage.  Like so much of this campaign it was reduced to a few carefully staged political events and then the inevitable exit polls.  By now you know it's very white, largely undereducated and very poor.  An easy place for the political elites to write off.  But that's a mistake and for the Obama campaign it could be a critical mistake.  No Democrat has won the White House since 1916 without winning there.  West Virginians liked Jack Kennedy in 1960 but they loved Bobby in 1968.  Robert Kennedy seemed to touch people there in a way no political candidate had before or has since. There's a lot of talk about a "new political paradigm" in this election and how the Obama campaign will define it.  But there's a little bit of West Virginia in a number of states the Democrats will need this November and that's why what John Edwards did on Wednesday was so important.

The temptation is to give David Axelrod another thundering round of applause for his brilliant sense of timing.  He handled the Edward's announcement with such skill you might be tempted to overlook just what he accomplished.  He changed the lead political story on the network newscasts (and on cable) less than two hours to air.  He deflated Hillary Clinton's thundering win in West Virginia and put the spotlight back on Obama and "the angry white guy."  Maybe you have to work in the news business, as David did, to understand how hard it is to hijack air time on the traditional network newscasts.  But on ABC, the Edwards endorsement grabbed almost five times the coverage it would have gotten if Edwards had done it at noon.  The spin, at least initially, is Edwards made his belated endorsement to try and unify the party at moment when a lot of angry white guys and white women in West Virginia sent another message.  But be careful and remember that what makes you feel that good can make you feel that bad.

Barack Obama and John Edwards did look like a "dream team" on stage in Grand Rapids, in a state that has its own share of angry white guys.  But Edwards alone can't  make the Obama message resonate with these folks.  Obama must find his own voice with these voters and he hasn't yet.  He has to develop a comfort level with these people and display a genuine empathy for the things that anger them.  He touched on these themes in his speech on race in Philadelphia but he's got to prove he can take it off the podium and down into the street.  Many of these people felt like Ronald Reagan, felt they did not leave the Democratic Party but the party left them.  They have no more in common with a Hollywood movie star than a Harvard lawyer.  The trick is the connection, the ability to relate to the reasons they stay in those small towns in West Virginia.  The geographic beauty is a part of it.  So too is the pride and sense of patriotism.  All they want is a fair shake in a global economy and some gratitude for the sacrafices so many families have made in the name of national defense.  Edwards knows it because he grew up in the region and undertands the culture.  Obama knows it too.  But he has to prove the politics of a post racial candidate will be as color blind as the rhetoric.  It's not going to easy and some will never be convinced.  But this too is part of that new political paradigm.      

Barack Obama's chief campaign strategist told reporters Tuesday night that the Obama team "has a lot to celebrate and they (the Clintons) have a lot to think about."  The implication from David Axelrod is clear...the time for "spin control" is over in the Clinton camp.  A parade of network commentators and analysts have declared the race over.  But the TV networks and newspaper columnists aren't calling the shots.  The stunning headline on one of Clinton's hometown newspapers seemed to say it all.  A photo of her and the headline  "Toast"  greeted readers of the New York Post.  A prominent website reports superdelegates are "unavailable" to meet with Hillary Clinton right now.  But all indications from the Clinton camp, including strategist Howard Wolfson, are the campaign will go on.

 

As we noted on this blog last week, the controversy over the Reverend Jeremiah Wright was handled expertly and the timing of his outburst and Obama's denunciation was as choreographed as an Olympic figure skating event.  Clinton's call for a federal "gas tax holiday" this summer was adroitly played as an example of old style Washington political pandering.  She looked very good on the campaign trail....better than her obviously fatigued opponent.  But it now appears that will play like a ballplayer going four for four while his team gets clobbered.  In American politics, there are no extra points awarded (or delegates for that matter) for good performances when you're campaign is outspent.  Losing is losing.  Clinton was clobbered in North Carolina and barely survived a last minute Obama onslaught in Indiana.  Her options and her money are dwindling quickly.  And to what end?  What is the rationale now to continue?  Is there something she and her husband know about Obama that will make him ultimately unelectable?  Or will the charge of the light brigade continue with a motivation born only of ego and ambition?  Last night in his speech, Obama again hit stride telling the country why he wants to be president.  One major reason is to try and put aside the politics of division.  Is it time for her to get out?  And who, if anyone in the Democratic Party, has the stature to tell her and her husband it's over.   Obama campaign co-chair Bill Daley says no one.  He told "Fox Chicago Sunday" the race will go down to the bitter end in June and only then will it end.

 

There's no evidence yet he's wrong and no amount of "fuzzy math" in the Clinton campaign will change what has now become the inevitable outcome. 

 

 

Barack Obama's chief campaign strategist told reporters Tuesday night that the Obama team "has a lot to celebrate and they (the Clintons) have a lot to think about."  The implication from David Axelrod is clear...the time for "spin control" is over in the Clinton camp.  A parade of network commentators and analysts have declared the race over.  But the TV networks and newspaper columnists aren't calling the shots.  The stunning headline on one of Clinton's hometown newspapers seemed to say it all.  A photo of her and the headline  "Toast"  greeted readers of the New York Post.  A prominent website reports superdelegates are "unavailable" to meet with Hillary Clinton right now.  But all indications from the Clinton camp, including strategist Howard Wolfson, are the campaign will go on.

As we noted on this blog last week, the controversy over the Reverend Jeremiah Wright was handled expertly and the timing of his outburst and Obama's denunciation was as choreographed as an Olympic figure skating event.  Clinton's call for a federal "gas tax holiday" this summer was adroitly played as an example of old style Washington political pandering.  She looked very good on the campaign trail....better than her obviously fatigued opponent.  But it now appears that will play like a ballplayer going four for four while his team gets clobbered.  In American politics, there are no extra points awarded (or delegates for that matter) for good performances when you're campaign is outspent.  Losing is losing.  Clinton was clobbered in North Carolina and barely survived a last minute Obama onslaught in Indiana.  Her options and her money are dwindling quickly.  And to what end?  What is the rationale now to continue?  Is there something she and her husband know about Obama that will make him ultimately unelectable?  Or will the charge of the light brigade continue with a motivation born only of ego and ambition?  Last night in his speech, Obama again hit stride telling the country why he wants to be president.  One major reason is to try and put aside the politics of division.  Is it time for her to get out?  And who, if anyone in the Democratic Party, has the stature to tell her and her husband it's over.   Obama campaign co-chair Bill Daley says no one.  He told "Fox Chicago Sunday" the race will go down to the bitter end in June and only then will it end.

There's no evidence yet he's wrong and no amount of "fuzzy math" in the Clinton campaign will change what has now become the inevitable outcome. 

   

 

Did he look angry or sad?  Was he disgusted or hurt?  Should all of this have happened much sooner?

Senator Barack Obama does not speak as fast as some in the media would like.  In TV soundbite form he runs long, complete with pauses and what sometimes appears to be a superior intellect in search of the perfect word.  For far too long, glib has passed for intelligent and there's always that ever shortening attention span that sometimes appears to contracting faster in America than the GNP.  But this time it worked for Obama and it may well become the defining moment of his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright said Monday that "politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."  I think he meant that to be construed as a criticism.  But Wright has the cadences and the myopia of the 1960's.  His anger and his demeanor have been forged in the crucible of the african-american experience of that period.  When he references "liberation theology" he often cites 60's era thinkers and writers.  But for a man so filled with antipathy to the soundbite culture of the 21st century, he clings to that annoying habit that some men of the cloth wear so easily.  He will use one-liners from Jesus lifted from scripture without concern for context or extrapolation.

The Obama campaign knew this confrontation was coming.  They made the decision that Wright would have to explain Wright and not Obama.  While Wright gave every impression of ego-centric narcissim at the podium in the National Press Club in Washington Monday, his appearance there was no accident any more than were his stops before the NAACP in Detroit or with Bill Moyers on PBS.  The results of the exit polls in Pennsylvania were indisputable.  Wright and those oft-played snippets of his fiery sermons were hurting the Obama campaign.  It had to end and it wasn't going to be pretty.  But please don't think that Jeremiah Wright got out of bed on Monday morning determined to end Obama's candidacy.  He had cancelled all of his public appearances when his "sermonettes" became a national controversy late last month.  He could have cancelled all the latest ones too and probably would have if asked.  The Obama campaign disputes this and says Obama really didn't know what Wright said until his aides showed him a video of Wright's seemingly arrogant and ignorant performance on Tuesday morning.  I don't buy that.  Obama goes out and plays basketball,  watches the Wright video and seemingly without breaking stride goes out and holds the most important press conference of his career.  Watch it again carefully.  He knows exactly what he's saying and knows exactly what he wants you to know about why he's saying it.

This isn't about the upcoming votes in North Carolina and Indiana. Not really.  Obama's statements yesterday will probably not change the outcome in either state.  North Carolina will be closer than it should have been though he will most likely win.  I think he will lose in Indiana.  But when it's all said and done he will net a few more delegates than Hillary Clinton.  So yesterday's press conference and comments were aimed at the superdelegates. Most of those who haven't yet commited publicly yet are reportedly leaning towards Obama.  But they were getting nervous about his erosion of support from "angry white males." and worried about what six months of Jeremiah Wright "swift boat" TV ads would look like and the damage it would do to his campaign in the general election.

Remember the first of those ads was set to air in North Carolina on Monday.  Instead Wright took center stage in Washington...Obama took center stage on Tuesday in North Carolina and by Wednesday the "Wright in the pulpit" ad is dated and somewhat anachronistic.  The Obama versus Wright confrontation may have looked like a car wreck but it was as carefully orchestrated as a crash scene in a Hollywood film.  And just like in Hollywood, in the end, no one really gets hurt.

On Fox Chicago Sunday, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod gave us the politically correct answer.  The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is his own man and he speaks for himself....not the campaign.  Fair enough, but not far enough.  Wright was a part of the campaign on an advisory basis until he became the living embodiment of what many Americans have since learned is called a "sound bite" in the media.  The ten or twenty or thirty second video clips honed from Wright's sermons over the years at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago have been the way Wright has been defined to millions of voters...but now he's redefining himself.  Axelrod would not say this is a campaign tactic, but I will.  Let Wright explain Wright instead of Obama explaining Wright.

The Reverend Wright says attacks on him are really attacks on the black church in America.  He says the church has a long history of liberating the oppressed by feeding the hungry, treating the addicted and marching for civil rights.  He himself draws the line with Obama calling himself a pastor and Obama a politician.  Wright says he hopes the controversy surrounding him will have a positive outcome by sparking and honest dialogue about race in America.  Obama said at least that much himself in his speech on race in Philadelphia earlier this month.  But in the midst of the dialogue and the dialectic...what happens to Obama's post-racial identity politics campaign theme.  Can it survive?

That is the enormous gamble Obama's advisors are making with this string of public appearances by his former pastor.  Axelrod, one of the most brilliant political strategists in the country, lives by the axiom that "anger doesn't sell on the campaign trail."  The selling of Barack Obama depends in large part on the notion that America can leave the politics of confrontation and embrace the politics of conciliation.  That was the reason some African-American political leaders had a problem with his candidacy right from the start.   "There is no black America or white America" made for a wonderful speech in Boston four years ago, but to find the full text of that speech you still have to look under "dreams."  To millions of Americans, Obama's candidacy does represent an historic opportunity to get beyond the politics of racial division once and for all.  But his challenge now is selling that to the lower-middle class white voters who believe, fairly or unfairly, that they have been asked to pick up the largest tab on racial reparations in America. How well he can do that, or perhaps now, if he can do that, may well determine whether he is a Jack Kennedy or an Adlai Stevenson.  

Watch the complete David Axelrod interview here

Did he look angry or sad?  Was he disgusted or hurt?  Should all of this have happened much sooner?

Senator Barack Obama does not speak as fast as some in the media would like.  In TV soundbite form he runs long, complete with pauses and what sometimes appears to be a superior intellect in search of the perfect word.  For far too long, glib has passed for intelligent and there's always that ever shortening attention span that sometimes appears to contracting faster in America than the GNP.  But this time it worked for Obama and it may well become the defining moment of his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright said Monday that "politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."  I think he meant that to be construed as a criticism.  But Wright has the cadences and the myopia of the 1960's.  His anger and his demeanor have been forged in the crucible of the african-american experience of that period.  When he references "liberation theology" he often cites 60's era thinkers and writers.  But for a man so filled with antipathy to the soundbite culture of the 21st century, he clings to that annoying habit that some men of the cloth wear so easily.  He will use one-liners from Jesus lifted from scripture without concern for context or extrapolation.

The Obama campaign knew this confrontation was coming.  They made the decision that Wright would have to explain Wright and not Obama.  While Wright gave every impression of ego-centric narcissim at the podium in the National Press Club in Washington Monday, his appearance there was no accident any more than were his stops before the NAACP in Detroit or with Bill Moyers on PBS.  The results of the exit polls in Pennsylvania were indisputable.  Wright and those oft-played snippets of his fiery sermons were hurting the Obama campaign.  It had to end and it wasn't going to be pretty.  But please don't think that Jeremiah Wright got out of bed on Monday morning determined to end Obama's candidacy.  He had cancelled all of his public appearances when his "sermonettes" became a national controversy late last month.  He could have cancelled all the latest ones too and probably would have if asked.  The Obama campaign disputes this and says Obama really didn't know what Wright said until his aides showed him a video of Wright's seemingly arrogant and ignorant performance on Tuesday morning.  I don't buy that.  Obama goes out and plays basketball,  watches the Wright video and seemingly without breaking stride goes out and holds the most important press conference of his career.  Watch it again carefully.  He knows exactly what he's saying and knows exactly what he wants you to know about why he's saying it.

This isn't about the upcoming votes in North Carolina and Indiana. Not really.  Obama's statements yesterday will probably not change the outcome in either state.  North Carolina will be closer than it should have been though he will most likely win.  I think he will lose in Indiana.  But when it's all said and done he will net a few more delegates than Hillary Clinton.  So yesterday's press conference and comments were aimed at the superdelegates. Most of those who haven't yet commited publicly yet are reportedly leaning towards Obama.  But they were getting nervous about his erosion of support from "angry white males." and worried about what six months of Jeremiah Wright "swift boat" TV ads would look like and the damage it would do to his campaign in the general election.

Remember the first of those ads was set to air in North Carolina on Monday.  Instead Wright took center stage in Washington...Obama took center stage on Tuesday in North Carolina and by Wednesday the "Wright in the pulpit" ad is dated and somewhat anachronistic.  The Obama versus Wright confrontation may have looked like a car wreck but it was as carefully orchestrated as a crash scene in a Hollywood film.  And just like in Hollywood, in the end, no one really gets hurt.

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On Fox Chicago Sunday, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod gave us the politically correct answer.  The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is his own man and he speaks for himself....not the campaign.  Fair enough, but not far enough.  Wright was a part of the campaign on an advisory basis until he became the living embodiment of what many Americans have since learned is called a "sound bite" in the media.  The ten or twenty or thirty second video clips honed from Wright's sermons over the years at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago have been the way Wright has been defined to millions of voters...but now he's redefining himself.  Axelrod would not say this is a campaign tactic, but I will.  Let Wright explain Wright instead of Obama explaining Wright.

 

The Reverend Wright says attacks on him are really attacks on the black church in America.  He says the church has a long history of liberating the oppressed by feeding the hungry, treating the addicted and marching for civil rights.  He himself draws the line with Obama calling himself a pastor and Obama a politician.  Wright says he hopes the controversy surrounding him will have a positive outcome by sparking and honest dialogue about race in America.  Obama said at least that much himself in his speech on race in Philadelphia earlier this month.  But in the midst of the dialogue and the dialectic...what happens to Obama's post-racial identity politics campaign theme.  Can it survive?

 

That is the enormous gamble Obama's advisors are making with this string of public appearances by his former pastor.  Axelrod, one of the most brilliant political strategists in the country, lives by the axiom that "anger doesn't sell on the campaign trail."  The selling of Barack Obama depends in large part on the notion that America can leave the politics of confrontation and embrace the politics of conciliation.  That was the reason some African-American political leaders had a problem with his candidacy right from the start.   "There is no black America or white America" made for a wonderful speech in Boston four years ago, but to find the full text of that speech you still have to look under "dreams."  To millions of Americans, Obama's candidacy does represent an historic opportunity to get beyond the politics of racial division once and for all.  But his challenge now is selling that to the lower-middle class white voters who believe, fairly or unfairly, that they have been asked to pick up the largest tab on racial reparations in America. How well he can do that, or perhaps now, if he can do that, may well determine whether he is a Jack Kennedy or an Adlai Stevenson.  

 

Watch the complete David Axelrod interview here

The Pennsylvania primary is now history.  We're reminded one more time that some white voters...particularly women over 55 and lower middle class white men are still not convinced Barack Obama is the best choice.  His campaign spent more than $11 million dollars there...some of it on negative advertising...and he still got whacked.  He told me he didn't expect to win there but his campaign didn't expect to lose by nine points either.

Conventional wisdom says Hillary Clinton needs a "narrative" to reinvent herself for the super delegates...give them some reason to look closely at her for the top spot again.  That may never happen.  If Obama wins as expected in North Carolina and Indiana the race is all but over.  She can't really catch him in the delegate count or the popular vote.  But she has done damage to his candidacy, perhaps not irreparable, but real.  His speech in Evansville last night was flat, he looked weary and the soaring rhetoric wasn't there.  The politics of distraction and personal destruction are wearing on him and giving some voters pause about where it all goes from here.  The so-called "angry white man" vote will never be his nor will the women Maureen Dowd calls the "shoulder pad feminists."  But in this age of ever shortening attention spans and the American Idol syndrome of instant voter gratification, Obama and his people have to worry about a sense of voter fatigue and over exposure.  It all appears to be getting too petty, too similar to the politics he says he got into this race to change.

Pat Buchanan suggests Obama "has peaked" and like a ballplayer after a hitting streak  gone sour he's taking too many pitches with two strikes.  It's not good enough to back into the nomination, he has to impart the sense that he's won it.  For lack of a better phrase, he has to "keep the dream alive."  And it would help if he could find a narrative that convinces those "angry white man" that he understands them as well as he understood the anger of his pastor Jeremiah Wright.  He does, of course, but he's got to make the case with his gut as well as his head.  Hillary and Bill Clinton can't let their dream go no matter how implausible it becomes.  Barack Obama can't let the Cllinton  politics destroy his.    

I first got to know Pat more than twenty years ago.  He was my guide to what was happening while I did what are called "ride-alongs" with the Chicago Police Department.  It was a new and exotic world to me.  But Camden patiently explained why things we're done as they were done in District 11# on the west side of Chicago.

The Chicago Police Department has to handle the dirty laundry the rest of us don't want to see.  The cops don't create poverty and they deal with the corrupting influence of drug trafficking that has turned big-city police departments into the equivalent of occupying armies.   Street busts build statistics and put a lot of people behind bars....but that sort of policing does not curb the insatiable appetite of middle-class and upper middle class drug users.

Pat took me into a world I didn"t have the credentials to join...a world of teenage and pre-teen drug dealers sparring with cops in a seemingly endless game.  In fact, the critically acclaimed T-V series "The Wire" calls it "the game."  Pat likes that series because it's the only thing on television that can even resemble the life he's known on the department.  "There is no such thing as a non-political police department" Pat says and of course he's right.  Crime statistics can be manipulated, cops can and do go bad, and all of it reflects on the man in charge at City Hall. 

In his dealings with the media, Pat was honest if not always forgiving.  The false urgency of the evening news and its obsession with street crime bothered him.  But day in and day out he would hang in there....extremely careful about what he said and how he said it.

The new top cop Jody Weis wants a new face on the often bad news.  He has a right to make any changes he wants.  But there may come a day in the not too distant future when he'll wish he had Camden back there.  Intelligence and experience aren't easily replaced.         

 

It's become increasingly apparent that Senator Barack Obama, barring an unforseen bombshell, will become the Democratic nominee for president.   Polls show the race tightening in Pennsylvania and give hime more than a twenty point lead in North Carolina.

It's also clear that most Democratic party leaders want to end this thing soon.  Were it not for her Rasputin-like political reputation, the media would have foreclosed on the candidacy of Hillary Clinton weeks ago.  Why does it continue?  In part because it's simply a great story lthat has fascinated millions of Americans.  Race, gender and generational change at a time when the country is at war and most probably facing the most serious economic situation the country has faced since the Great Depression.

Odds makers in London put the chances of Obama's winning the presidency at better than 80 per cent.  Enthusiasm for his candidacy is palpable in Germany, France and across Europe.  The slow and steady dissolution of the Clinton candidacy is fasciinating to watch.  The mistakes, the arrogance, the sense of entitlement all combine to give her presidential bid the aura of the fading dominance of the baby boom generation.

Obama's candidacy will have more ups and downs.  But it has taken on an air of inevitability.  If he can finish within a few points of Clinton in Pennsylvania, let alone win, the race is all but over.   The only real question now is who tells Bill?. 

     In recent days there have been a number of articles and blogs that are describing the Obama campaign in terms that would suggest it bears more relationship to a charismatic religious fervor than a nuts and bolts political campaign.  One blog used the term "messiah" to describe Obama and the enthusiasm he is generating on the campaign trail.  One national columnist describes his campaign as "maddeningly vague" and implies that, in the end, it may prove to be a mirage.

     First, a couple of observations.  Obama does have an oratorical style that  would prompt some to see a resemblance to an evangelist.  When he talks about "hope and change" he is tapping into age-old yearnings for redemption and personal growth.  But the message is also grounded in rock-hard, secular politics.  Anger does not sell on the campaign trail.  Americans, at least many Democrats and Independents, are apparently attracted to a poltical message that suggests it is time to change the tone and tenor of the political game in the United States.

     A prominent Democrat from the Chicago area who served in the state legislature with Obama used the term "messiah" to describe him well over a year ago.  It was not meant as a compliment.  It was meant to suggest that the hype and hoopla surrounding the junior senator from Illinois was not justified by his resume or his rhetoric.

     It may well turn out that Obama is unable to jump from "hope" to "how."  It may yet prove to be true that "anything that can make you feel that good can make you feel that bad."  The expectations around him are enormous....the problems facing the next president are too.  But what Obama told me last October may yet prove telling.

     When asked what most surprised him about this presidential race at that point, he said the "superficiality of the national media."  What he meant then was position papers and professorial rountables don't make the evening news...or even most of the national columns....but tears in the eyes of members of the audience do.  The "messiah" analogy is but another example of that superficiality.            

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The baby boom has long been notorious for it's need for "instant gratification." The media wants it as well, not just for marketing purposes but because it fuels the sense of "live'...the sense that it is, to paraphrase Mike Huckabee, "events and not process" that define our lives and infuse public affairs.

But "You Decide 2008" is not shaping up or working out in ways that will play to that sort of immediate analysis and limited attention span.  Take the Democrats for instance.  Former president Bill Clinton is slowly but surely taking center stage.  Some think it unseemly that a former president would so deliberately play the role of "attack dog" in his wife's campaign.  He's called the Obama candidacy "a role of the dice" and Obama's opposition to the war in Iraq "a fairy tale."  The video of the former president working the the floors of casinos in Las Vegas, putting the arm on union workers before their caucuses created images something less than diplomatic.  And this week he will raise his profile on the super sensitive subject of race in Atlanta on Martin Luther King's birthday and later in South Carolina where the African-American vote is so critical in next Saturday's primary

For Barack Obama the challenge is stark and clear.  He must remind voters, black, white and Latino, that he is the first African-American candidate for president who runs in what he has tried to fashion as an era of post-identity politics.  The Clinton's are doing their even best to get him off that pedestal and define him both as an overreaching and overly ambitious political prodigy whose time as not yet come.

It's a confrontation that is dangerous for Democratic Party and rife with the potential of sowing defeat into the threads of either candidate's victory in this compressed and super heated primary season.  There are reports now that both Senator Edward Kennedy and Chicago congressman Rahm Emanuel have warned Bill Clinton that he's playing a dangerous game here.  But the former president seems determined to take Obama on himself....and in doing so his legacy as "the first black president" is one the line.

All of this also raises disturbing questions about exactly what his role would be in a Hillary Clinton White House.  Whatever it suggests right now, there is no suggestion he would confine himself to a passive aggressive role.  And it may renew in some voters an unease about what increasingly appears to be the "dynastic" nature of American presidential politics.  Two families, the Bushes and the Clintons, both darlings of their respective political establisments, using their previous time in the White House as a justification to spend more time there.

Obama's campaign is built on the premise that, no matter how tempting, he will not resort to the politics of division.  But he's being double teamed on every pass pattern by two experienced defensive backs who are not above a hold or even grabbing the face mask.  This week will indicate whether there's any play in the Obama playbook to combat that.  Because, after a second place finishh in New Hampshire and Nevada, he's got to put another win on the board before Super Tuesday.  If the Clinton's manage to beat him in South Carolina they will play it as an "upset", manage the expectations game to their advantage and marginalize Obama with more than twenty states voting less than two week later.

It's Obama's challenge now to make sure voters stay in the process and avoid the perception that they are witnessing a "defining moment" in South Carolina.  The media will play a Clinton victory that way and the baby boomers and many others will be quick to accept that rather than deal with the larger questions this fascinating Democratic race has raised. Stay tuned, it may not be all over on February 5th.            

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Some politicians gravitate to t-v cameras like flies to honey....but Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan is not one of them.   The elusive Springfield power broker and chairman of the state Democratic Party is notoriously hard to get a quote from, let alone a free wheeling sitdown interview on the CTA crisis, his relationship with Governor Rod Blagojevich and his sense of the hurdles state government will face in 2008.

On "Fox Chicago Sunday", Madigan takes off the gloves with the governor, ridiculing the notion that Blagojevich is a "statesman" for eating the sales tax increase he has repeatedly said he would never allow into law.   Madigan says the Blagojevich compromise, allowing what Madigan calls "millionaire seniors" to ride mass transit for free was an act of political necessity and convenience and a "real statesman would have done this last August."   Madigan continues to insist that the governor practices the "politics of confrontation" and is widely distrusted by lawmakers in Springfield.

Madigan also says the confrontations are clearly not over.  The state faces still another budget crunch this year and Madigan is still essentially opposed to any massive expansion in gaming to close the budget gap.  The speaker prefers the governor show political courage and approve an increase in the state income tax.  That of course sets the stage for still more showdowns in Springfield in 2008.

Madigan says the fact that Blagojevich has been named as "Public Official A" in the corruption trial of his former confidante Tony Rezko is "not good" for the Democratic party in Illinois and he says "that's why I stayed away from those guys" when Blagojevich became governor.

Madigan is a very private man in a very public job.  He's only a name to many people in this state...the vast majority of whom would not recognize him if they saw him on the street.  But as he proved again the CTA crisis, nothing gets done in Illinois without him.

You would think Rod Blagojevich would know that by now.     

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stay with me on this one if you will.  with a little more than 48 hours to go until we get the results in new hampshire...a new rasmussen poll gives barack obama a sizeable lead and shows john mccain in a tighter race with mitt romney on the republican side. there's still another debate on the fox news channel tonight...and that promises more fireworks.  but what mccain and obama seem to be selling so well at this point is a sense of "authenticity." mccain slipped to the back of the pack when voters began to sense he had lost it...and barely resembled the maverick who once rode the "straight talk express" in new hampshire back in 2000.  and obama has been saying throughout his campaign that he promises to tell you "not what you want to hear but what you need to know."  "the wire" is a gritty and ruthlessly honest cop drama about life on the streets of baltimore...but it could resemble any major american city.  i'm no tv critic but i think it's probably some of the best writing i've ever seen or heard about the complicated interactions that start on a street corner and weave their way into the politics of city hall.  what intrigues me about the connection between the wire and the presidential race is that sense of "authenticty."  politics and hollywood have many similarties, but the most obvious is both have an unyeilding desperation to please.  use polls, research, focus groups or anything else that will give one the sense of what the american people want...and then give it to them.  and time and again, whether on the airwaves or in political debates, we get material someone has "vetted" for likeability...the suggestion if not the insistence that there will be an easy answer, a quick solution and a happy ending.  but this political year, i sense a different hunger from voters i talked with.  they're beyond that now.  they want someone to tell them it is very complicated and our only way out may be good, sound judgment and a basic sense of decency.  the creator of the "the wire", former newspaper reporter david simon, has managed to capture that with a tv series that stays away from "black and white" and "good guys and bad guys."  in simon's series we're all in this together whether we like it or not.  good guys don't always win and black guys don't always lose.  and racial groups are neither perpetual victims nor constant perpetrators.  when obama talks about change and hope he's tapping into a nerve among many voters, people tired of anesthetics and slogans.  when mccain tells voters that dangers in the middle east will only worsen if america "cuts and runs", you're tempted to use that old slogan from barry goldwater in 1964, "in your heart you know he's right."  it's an old axiom in the media business that "jornalists don't shape public opinion...they merely reflect it." the world depicted on "the wire" is one of diminished expectations but a desperate sense that hard work on seemingly insoluble problems can still make a difference...that the only real bad guys are the ones who suggest it can't.  barack obama and john mccain may or may not win on tuesday and that may or may not lead one or both of them to the nominations of their individual parties.  but in their own way and in their own style both are telling americans that this is not the political year for commercials that talk about "morning in america."  it is in fact getting late...and the response their "tough love" talk is getting on the campaign trail suggests many voters know it. my sense is the results we get out of new hampshire on tuesday will make that clear.          

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For many people in Chicago, this must all seem a bit confusing. A state with fewer voters than the City of Chicago...and only about six per cent of them at best...get to make the first major statement in the race for the white house in 2008. And quite a statement it may be.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama is going to do well here...much better than it appeared even four weeks ago...and if the polls are accuarate...but they seldom are...he might even win.

At this posting, he's confident he will do well and it appears former frontrunner Hillary Clinton could finish a disappointing third behind Obama and former Senator John edwards.

Why? the message that sells here is "change" and that's been Obama's mantra since day one of his campaign. It's been more difficult for Clinton to sell experience when she's being attacked as a Washington insider - but the Obama people are still very worried about turn-out...who will show up and who will not.

If history is prologue younger voters stay away from the caucuses and that could happen again. on the Republican side former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has had a couple of tough weeks here since becoming the GOP frontrunner but his core supporters, conservative christian evangelicals are reliable on caucus night.

His primary challenger, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has spent a small fortune out here but negativity (which he peddles in his ads) seldom plays well on caucus night.

Surging Senator John McCain could surprise some people with a third place finish here, where he has barely campaigned at all and it could be over for former actor turned presidential candidate fred thompson if he finishes in fourth place.

What will turn-out look like? it will be very cold here with temperatures (including wind chill) in single digits but no snow is forecast. As many as 160,000 Democrats and as many as 90,000 Republicans may show up.

Is all of this too important based on too small and unrepresentative a sample size?

Probably, but Iowa is a "scene setter"; and winners here can get a boost in New Hampshire next week. That has always been the Obama strategy and its clear to me that Hillary Clinton's appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman" was her campaign's way of letting the rest of the country know its alright to ignore what happens here tonight.

But the media won't and campaign contributors certainly won't. Iowa matters...just ask Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, and maybe even Rudy Giuliani. winning in Iowa won't make you President, but losing badly here almost insures you will never make the White House.

We'll have the winners and the losers on Fox News Chicago after the game and live reports from Iowa on Good Day Chicago tomorrow. stay turned.