Some time back Hillary Clinton made an appearance on the Today show where I thought she did an outstanding job of defending the Bill Clinton presidency. I even remember thinking at the time that we might have the wrong Clinton for president. It seems very possible that we may see if there is any truth to that. I would myself consider her defense of the presidency as an answer to the question of what useful experience being first lady gave her. I will say up front that as of now, continuing on from that occasion that I would vote for Hillary Clinton.

You might say that has nothing to do with current issues. On at least one issue, going back a little less far, I do find merit in what Barack Obama's position was, and that is his speech concerning the Iraq war of October 26, 2002.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

In hindsight, I believe this to have been the "right" view as Obama is now stating in his campaign. However, I don't think the current postions of the candidates on the issue differ that much. As near as I've been able to tell, the actual differences on most issues for the Democrats isn't a vast chasm. Hilary Clinton on another issue seems to have been more out front concerning the mortgage crisis. As someone with an ARM, that one for me is to borrow a frequent campaign buzz word somewhat "personal".

Luckily, if differentiating on the candidates by issues isn't that easy for me yet, there have been many other things to at least focus attention on.

My Kennedy's Can Beat Up Your Kennedy's

Ted Kennedy from what I saw of the speech he made when he endorsed Barack Obama is a good guy to have on your side. Any other Kennedy as near as I can tell is simply name value, or symbolic, or fluff, or something else I just don't get. The same could be said for just about any other "celebrity" endorsement. Although, I might suggest that both Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone are possibly a little past their physical prime and it would be better for both if their political differences don't end up in a wrestling cage match, even if Schwarzenegger referees.

Unfair to who?

A while back, the accusation was being put forward that the "race card" was being played in just about any comment the Clintons made. I don't believe either of the Clintons were doing this. It actually seemed to me when Hillary Clinton appeared on "Meet The Press" that she was trying to avoid even mentioning Obama. She didn't seem to know who the person was really, "Nice guy is he? But what I did was this." However, when there was a opportunity to take a shot obviously not involving race she did go for it on the "paper work" weakness from the debate where the question was something like, "What do you consider your greatest weakness?". That again I thought was a complete non-issue. My own opinion is that there is no non-BS answer to this question. This is the sort of question that I think employers include in job interviews instead of out right asking you, 'How well do you BS?'. There seemed to be a struggle in the campaigns, since there are limited past records involved, as to how to actually do battle with the other side. Obama, on his side, seemed to contend that things got unfair when the campaign turned into a two on one contest with one of the two including a former president. To his credit he didn't ever seem to be raising race as one of his concerns.

It seems now that the conventional wisdom and what also appears to be the conclusion of the Clinton camp is that Bill's more aggresive involvment, hatchet man work? was a mistake. I think the mistake might not only be that Bill Clinton was too belligerent, or his involvement too unfair but that Bill Clintion himself makes a bigger, easier and more likely target for counter attacks.

But was there anything wrong in everything he was saying?

Lets consider a specific instance of where race has been indicated to be an issue to decide for ourselves if it was done so in a negative way. Say for example Bill Clinton's comments concerning Jesse Jackson actually made at the end of the South Carolina primary. A lot of people seemed to get up in arms over this.

When I first heard it, a clip was shown and then two announcers jumped all over how it meant that Clinton was really saying that 'oh, by the way, did I mention Jesse Jackson was black', or was it 'Barack Obama was black', to be honest I'm not entirely sure which one Clinton was supposed to be leveling this accusation at. After expressing complete scorn for Bill Clinton's comment they cut to Tim Russert discussing how race might figure in as a factor in the New York primary following the South Carolina result.

Huh? race is completely open to discussion if they do it?

Is there a possibility that race or demographics did figure into the South Carolina primary so that it just might make sense for Bill Clinton to make an association between two different African-american candidates past and present? Would it be more outrageous for him to consider it in the just completed South Carolina primary context or a news network to consider it in the context of a different upcoming primary actually in the other candidates current home state?

A little surprisingly I haven't been able to find a more complete quotation but part of what Bill Clinton said was...

Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.

So now consider the South Carolina results that Clinton was most likely speaking to. About 50% of those who voted in the Democratic primary were African-American. Obama got about 80% of that vote. I thought I remembered that Hillary Clinton had better results among African-American women but in checking, no, about the same as among men, so about 80%. The entire election was definitely along demographic lines. Obama got the African-American vote, Clinton won among white women, and Edwards got the votes of white men. These are facts, not biased facts, just facts. Given that, is it reprehensible that Bill Clinton might of considered race in the context of the South Carolina results. I would say no, not reprehensible, I would say it is unfortunate though if he might of felt he had to do it somewhat obliquely because there seems to be such a compelling interest in injecting race and gender into this campaign. Was it wrong for Tim Russert to consider race in New York? Actually, no again, not if it is or might be, a factor of the outcome. Race and gender were issues in South Carolina, but not because Bill Clinton made them ones.

Selected sources:

The exit polls: Why Obama won - David Paul Kuhn - Politico.com

Obama claims big win in South Carolina - CNN.com

Since South Carolina Bill Clinton has been a little more reserved while speaking. Hilary has probably properly again assumed the lead in her campaign. Obama may now find that she is actually the more difficult target. Consider, if you will, the State of the Union snub. He may well have sensed that unless he managed to shake an ungallant appearance from there that he was coming close to having the gender card more seriously enter the discussion. Or possibly even worse that it not be discussed but become an unspoken but pervading issue.

Chris Matthews of MSNBC made a comment in passing one day, something along the lines of this or that should be done with 'fair and equal treatment'. I don't want to take this out of context, which I don't even remember, or misrepresent his intent. Just the phrase "fair and equal treatment" struck me as something that should serve as a sort of Hippocratic oath for the political media. Some commentators make it clear that they themselves have someone they support or someone they don't like. This is up front and I would not consider a violation of 'fair and equal treatment'. But whether they are up front concerning their own biases or not I think sometimes treatment gets a little unfair just as malpractice still occurs despite the actual Hippocratic oath.

I thought there was an overlooked but interesting moment in the Democratic debate in South Carolina. As I remember it, Hillary Clinton was speaking to some fairly complicated issue. After discussing it at some length, maybe for two or three minutes, she finished. Wolf Blitzer then said, "Senator Obama, you have 30 seconds to reply" Obama just sort of stared at him for a second. John Edwards said, "Good luck". Obama replied, "Exactly". I'm pretty sure not all issues can be explained in the 30 seconds allowed for a debate response, which I think was the underlying thought here. I'm not even completely sure that an adversarial process focused around debates is the best way to select the president of the United States. I may of misunderstood that moment or might even be misremembering it. The next day the media coverage all concerned the bickering between Obama and Clinton. I do think issues matter, if you have an issue related reason to prefer someone you have a good basis to support your candidate. Trying to decide based on some of these other considerations is, I think, building on a little less firm foundation, quicksand maybe for some of these things. But they are often fascinating.

What about the Republicans? Well, thats already been decided to be McCain(/Huckabee?) hasn't it?