After Wisconsin, are voters leaning towards Obama?

Written by: Kyle Winslow on Feb 21, 2008 1:09 PM EST

The focus of Dickerson’s article “White Men Jumped” over at Slate cuts to the importance of the recent Democratic contest in Wisconsin: as in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia before, Clinton lost some of her ‘base’ supporters to Barack Obama. This is not only significant because it puts wind in the sails of Obama’s uniting message, which declares that his campaign will try to bring people who effectively want to be “for something” (like change, for example) together. Especially at a time in the race when the Clinton campaign is struggling to stay afloat and therefore attacking the Orator Obama, any verification of that rhetoric will obviously boost the Illinois senator forward—and conversely slow the Clinton machine. But, aside from just the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama’s support amongst women, white voters and the working class means trouble for John McCain in the November. It is a sign that bipartisan support could happen, and it is a sign that Americans (or, so far, at least Democrats) are willing to reach for what inspires them.

Though I think Dickerson’s mention of Obama interrupting Clinton’s ‘loser’ speech after the Wisconsin primary does capture some of its political significance for the Illinois senator, I think the analysis misses what was probably most disturbing for the Clinton campaign. Not only did the crowd not respond to Clinton’s “string of attacks against Obama,” showing a general tiredness with the futile remarks. But the Ohio crowd barely reacted to her policy rhetoric, which has been her stump speech and the public manifestation of her self-proclaimed annals of experience. In a word, policy rhetoric has been her campaign. It is meant to show that she is not living in a “fairly tale” herself, as President Clinton said of Obama, but has real experience dealing with real issues.

With a lack of reaction to policy-oriented stump speeches, Clinton supporters may be signaling a lack of interest in painting Barack Obama as the inexperienced candidate. The fact is that both Clinton and Obama have legislative experience in the Senate. And even their campaigns’ policy stances are similar. What’s the difference? Their message: the “steward” versus the “visionary,” as Ezra Klein notes in The American Prospect’s March issue. It is this difference that makes the Clinton speech interruption significant and even symbolic, as if to say, Breaking news: here is what actually matters. The interruption’s significance is not so much in the fact that it happened to cut off Clinton’s attacks as it is in the direct comparison of the very different moods surrounding two campaigns moving in opposite directions. And it is this kind of difference in message and difference in momentum on which Wisconsin voters, and Potomac Primary voters before them, based their choices.

Tags: