Clinton concession
February 21st, 2008
Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I get the sense from watching the debate that Hillary Clinton has all but given up. Going into the debate, it must have been clear she needed some dramatic change to the campaign dynamic. She’s being smart and engaging, but she seems content with supporting the line that the two Democratic candidates agree on most things. I think that’s true, but that attitude isn’t going to change the result of this race in her favor.
Maybe she read Graubard’s op-ed in the FT.
February 21st, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Interesting point. I just linked to this post from my Twitter stream.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Maybe I wrote too soon. Clinton just used the line, “That’s not change you can believe in, that’s change you can Xerox”, referring to the wholly bogus plagiarism charges.
I think she lost a lot of people there. Petty and cheap.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:12 pm
She doesn’t read Lakoff. She still thinks it’s about the details. No one cares. He’ll do the best he can for us, that’s all that matters.
February 21st, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I suspect she does read Lakoff, but that’s not her. She can’t do it. In a parliamentary system I think she’d be a very successful prime minister. It’s a different tone.
February 21st, 2008 at 7:04 pm
http://www.scripting.com/stories/2008/02/21/unitedStates20.html
February 21st, 2008 at 7:05 pm
[...] the debate my friend Lance Knobel wrote a post saying he thought perhaps Hillary Clinton was conceding the nomination to Barack [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I thought Hillary Clinton was in elegiac mood from the start (I wrote my post at about the 45 minute mark), although that changed a bit in the second half of the debate.
But the ending seemed to me a clincher. Her reaching out to Obama struck me as not just good sportsmanship, but recognition for the nation that the better candidate had won. Marc Ambinder suggests something of the same.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:00 am
Reading Lakoff is easier than applying Lakoff. Lots of tech marketers read Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” but most products failed anyway.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:04 am
It’s not just what Hillary Clinton said at the close of the debate, but also the fact that what she said brought the crowd to its feet.
Clinton owned the two most memorable moments last night. When she slapped Barack Obama with a cheap joke, the crowd booed. When she praised him and promised unity, they gave her a standing ovation.
Hope she was listening.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
I agree with Michael’s assessment. And my sense of that final moment was very much that it was listening.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
“In a parliamentary system I think she’d be a very successful prime minister. It’s a different tone.”
I think this gets it exactly right. And it’s why her admiration of LBJ is completely understandable.
Trouble, LBJ found out the US isn’t a parliamentary system, to his cost. I suspect a H. Clinton presidency would be just as frustrating as LBJ’s for all concerned.
Teddy Roosevelt called the presidency “the bully pulpit,” and I think that comes much closer to the mark. And Obama is much better suited to that task than Clinton is.