In general, as has been the case throughout his campaign, Mr. Obama sought to strike a lofty, inspiring tone, leavened with moments of humor and references to his own personal experiences. Mrs. Clinton’s speech was a more down-to-earth, meat and potatoes, narrowly focused recitation, and perhaps for that reason drew somewhat less applause, cheers and interruptions overall than Mr. Obama’s.
Though Mr. Obama did not stint on offering his solutions to the many problems he enumerated, Mrs. Clinton’s speech was more prescriptive, especially on the economy. She offered statistics to quantify every ill she named, and a program, often with a dollar amount, to solve it, including the situation of Montana’s eight traditional Native American peoples.
Her language was also more exhortatory in a traditional Democratic sense, using tropes that are always guaranteed to get Democrats on their feet. A line about borrowing money from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis drew particularly strong response, as did her declaration near the end of the speech that “one thing you know about me is that when I say I’ll stand by you, I’ll stand by you.”
Even the local references, obligatory in any speech on the campaign trail, differed sharply in tone. Montana, and especially Butte, is a mining area with a hard-scrabble history and an underdog’s feistiness, and Mrs. Clinton chose to identify with that history.
“Many times the national press and pundits have said ‘Butte is a goner,’ ” she said. “But you said. ‘No we aren’t,’ and your progress today proves you were right. I’m proud to be among people who have the determination to stay in the fight — and that’s the same spirit I’m bringing to this campaign.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/us/politics/06cnd-campaign.html
Tags: butte, determination, hillary, lofty, native american, on their feet
April 8, 2008 at 7:05 am |
Recent polls suggest that, in key swing states, the New York senator fares better in head-to-head matchups with Republican nominee Sen. John McCain than does Sen. Obama. In Ohio, Sen. Clinton led Sen. McCain 48% to 39%, while Sen. Obama led Sen. McCain 43% to 42% in Quinnipiac University polls conducted in the last week of March.
In Pennsylvania, Sen. Clinton had a 48% to 40% lead against Sen. McCain while Sen. Obama was ahead 43% to 39%. The polls credit Sen. Clinton’s advantage to her strength among white voters. No Democrat has won the presidency with a majority of white voters since 1964, and no president from either party has been elected without winning two of the three swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida since 1960. In those three states, some 23% of white Democrats would defect to Sen. McCain in a matchup with Sen. Obama, compared with 11% who would abandon Sen. Clinton, according to the Quinnipiac polls.
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“It’s a reasonable assumption that … part of that drop-off among white voters would result from his pastor’s notoriety,” says Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown. The Obama campaign says the concerns are overblown and the party will rally around Sen. Obama if he wins the nomination, in part because Sen. Clinton will campaign for him.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120752539182393613.html?mod=fpa_mostpop