I ended up watching the State of the Union address live last night. Comments about the speech aside, I thought one of the most interesting moments was the awkward situation between Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Barak Obama. Clinton went to welcome Ted Kennedy, an inevitable awkward situation given Kennedy's recent declaration in support of Obama. Obama, standing sort of between the two, awkwardly turned away, at least that's how it appeared in the shot captured by many cameras. While Obama and his advisors have downplayed that he was intentionally trying to ignore Hillary, I still think the moment raises some interesting points for the larger election:
First, there's no doubt the election has gotten extremely hostile recently, particularly on the Democratic side. It will be interested to see how this plays out both in voters response (such as those in South Carolina saying they switched to Obama at the last minute due to massive negative campaigning from the Clintons) and in how Obama will be able to toe the line of trying to be "above politics" yet not looking too weak in the face of the attacks.
Second, will the primaries have a larger impact upon the Democratic party as a whole. Historically, as mentioned on depth on the Daily Show last night, Democrats have a canny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Will this massive negative campainging create larger divisions within the democratic party that will undermine their ability to win the election?
This article helped contribute to this post:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/01/for-obama-clint.html
http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/01/for-obama-clint.html
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I saw the incident that you are referring to and Obama has come out and said that right when Hillary was going to shake his hand, Obama's campaign manager asked him a question. Whether that is the truth or no is still up for grabs. But another interesting point is that during the democratic debates the candidates seem to be going at each other, especially Hillary and Obama. What will be interesting is to see what happens now that Edwards has dropped out and there is no one to take sides with, how negative are these debates going to get?
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