Seeing the light in South Carolina

[sufrommich]

Seeing the Light in South Carolina
In the flesh, Obama is easy…maybe too easy
By Gal Beckerman Fri 25 Jan 2008 04:27 PM

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I read the New York Times endorsement of Hillary Clinton late last night in my hotel room in Columbia, South Carolina. I’d just driven back from attending a Barack Obama event 120 miles south in the gym of North Charleston High School (“Home of the Cougars!”). It was everything everyone said it would be, more like a revival than a political event. Even though Obama was an hour and a half late, the largely African-American crowd’s enthusiasm did not wane. People stamped their feet. Two little girls got up on stage and led the crowd in a chant of Obama’s name. The local field coordinator, Kevin, a short white guy with glasses and a goatee, got so excited that even his warm-up speech sounded southern fried. “We’ve been told too many times to wait,” he screamed. “That our time had not yet come!” Another speaker, stalling for time, mistakenly referred to the senator as “Bomrock Obrama” and was nearly driven from the gym by the booing, restless audience. When the senator did arrive, he gave a pitch-perfect stump speech, surfing the enthusiasm of the pulsating gym. When he took the stage he said, “At some point in the evening, a light is going to shine down and you will have an epiphany and you’ll say, ‘I have to vote for Barack.’”

If that epiphany never came, you couldn’t blame Obama. I’m not sure what more he could have done to make those people see the light.

Still, when I got back to my hotel room and read the Times’s assessment of the Democratic field, I realized that the editorial board understood something the rest of us consumers of daily media have missed, but which was obvious to me after just one Obama-in-the-flesh event: what the Illinois senator excels at is packaging himself for the press (and, consequently, the public).

I imagined, seeing him speak in person for the first time, that I would hear more of a discussion of policy than I’ve heard in the coverage of his campaign. I was sure that the sound bites that his stump speech produced about unity and change may pepper his talk, but could not possibly be the sum total of his message. But, basically, they were. There was very little sense that he was standing in North Charleston talking to a specific community of people. His transcendent talk was just that, transcendent. It’s not that this didn’t have a strong effect on the people who had waited to see him. It did. But there was something slightly gimmicky about his presentation. In my notebook, I wrote twice, “How will he make change?”



http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/seeing_the_light_in_south_caro.php

[lapfog_1]

1. Ok... you might have just as well included this little tidbit

from the same article...

"If I had to, I might use the same words as the Times used in its endorsement (of Hillary):

Hearing her talk about the presidency, her policies and answers for America’s big problems, we are hugely impressed by the depth of her knowledge, by the force of her intellect and by the breadth of, yes, her experience.

These qualities are not so easy to write about.

This is not an endorsement—though I realize it might read like one."

So a Hillary supporter attends (and slams) an Obama event. Gosh, and she is a journalism student too!
How "fair and balanced" she was in her report.

Unfortunately for her voters in South Carolina, by a two to one margin, saw the light.

[sufrommich]

3. Where in the article does the writer say she is a Hillary supporter?

[lapfog_1]

5. You are kidding, right?

If I had to, I might use the same words as the Times used in its endorsement:

Hearing her talk about the presidency, her policies and answers for America’s big problems, we are hugely impressed by the depth of her knowledge, by the force of her intellect and by the breadth of, yes, her experience.

These qualities are not so easy to write about.

This is not an endorsement—though I realize it might read like one.

----------------------------------------------

See, she isn't a supporter because she SAYS "This is not an endorsement-though I realize it might read like one."

Yup, that one convinces me she doesn't have any favorites in this race. :sarcasm:

See, if *I* write something that sound exactly like an endorsement, but in it I say it's not, then I can't be accused of supporting the candidate I'm writing about, now can I. And that makes my report on the opponent of the candidate that I just sort of but didn't endorse, why, that report must be completely fair and objective! :sarcasm:

Pardon me while I :puke:

[sufrommich]

6. Well, either that or not all political commentators have

succumbed to "The Obama Epiphany"as of yet. You seem to be proving her point.

[lapfog_1]

8. Proving what point?

I merely pointed out that the story you excerpted from was written by a Hillary supporter.

That the author "didn't see the light" is not at all surprising. That she wrote a hit piece about her experience at an Obama rally, complete with little snarks about everything she witnessed, doesn't surprise me in the least.

The only surprising thing is that she is, apparently, a journalism student.

[sufrommich]

10. The point that The Obama Show is easily digestible pap for

the masses with little substance. Are all less than glowing articles about Obama now suspect as "Clinton hit pieces""? Does the fact that Obama actually says " a light will shine down on you and you will have an epiphany" really not creep you out in the least??

[lapfog_1]

14. Nope

Doesn't voter suppression and the invocation of racism (well, you know, Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina, harrumph) creep you out.

Or the new Hillary campaign to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida (since she ran unopposed in Michigan and is favored to win in Florida) even though she agreed not to compete in those states because they ignored the ruling from the DNC.

Doesn't THAT creep you out?

Say anything, do anything.

I think it's great that Obama is a good or even great orator. Sometimes it's more important to get people on your side without policy wonking to death. So long as he isn't actually preaching to me (the gospel of his church) I think it's fine if he employs the mannerisms of a "preacher man".

And I might remind you that Martin Luther King used the same oratory skills (and was, in fact, a doctor of divinity and a preacher). I wouldn't mind one bit hearing MLK speak to me in the fashion of a preacher. Sadly, that will never happen.

[alteredstate]

2. LOL

"The local field coordinator, Kevin, a short white guy with glasses and a goatee......."

Senator Obama received 66 percent of the vote in Charleston County. The "short white guy with glasses and a goatee" was our fearless leader.

Dude's a legend.

[enough already]

4. "revival"...."largely African American crowd"...."short white guy with glasses"....

Thank goodness the Clintons aren't injecting race into the campaign...

[sufrommich]

7. I don't see a Bill or Hillary byline to this article. And pointing out the

racial characteristics of this particular event does not strike me as "racist".

[lapfog_1]

9. The reporter is a HillShill

and the language used was loaded.

[sufrommich]

11. I'd like some proof of that,other than she failed to genuflect

to Obama.

[lapfog_1]

12. Later on in the same article

she "endorses" Hillary.

I'm sure you've seen the sentence, I've posted it twice for you.

Here it is again

---------------------------------------------------------------

If I had to, I might use the same words as the Times used in its endorsement:

Hearing her talk about the presidency, her policies and answers for America’s big problems, we are hugely impressed by the depth of her knowledge, by the force of her intellect and by the breadth of, yes, her experience.

These qualities are not so easy to write about.

This is not an endorsement—though I realize it might read like one.

----------------------------------------------------------------

So, in an article ostensibly about an Obama rally, she closes by writing about Hillary.
She coyly uses the trick "this isn't an endorsement, it might read like one" to keep her supposed objectivity. But it's transparent. She even admits that it's transparent.

[sufrommich]

15. "This is not an endorsement" Whatever, you just go on

believing that there is no such thing as credible negative opinion about the Obama campaign.It's all a clever Clinton plot.Those who fail to adore him must be shown the light.:scared:

[lapfog_1]

16. Only a HillShill could read that quote

and argue in some twisted spin doctor way that the author is not a Hillary supporter.

I'm sure that there are valid criticisms of Obama.

But this one came from a suspect source.

And if an Obama supporter wrote a piece on attending a Hillary rally, and it was slanted as this one is, would you not be here attacking the author as biased?

At least I would not be posting such a piece and trying to pass it off as journalism.

[indimuse]

13. This is BS!!! Who does Obama think he is??

This is NOT what our country needs..Some Religious/Cult Awaking..."Right of Passage" dude from Chicago with zero experience in ANY policy! What is this crap!!?? I think Barack Hussein Obama is NOT running to be the POTUS....very scary.