Since Super Tuesday, one of the most interesting aspects of the Clinton and OBama campaigns has been focused on heresthetics. Heresthetics, a termed coined by William Riker, is when a rhetor manipulates situations aspects in order to get a desired result. For example, in the march on Selma during the Civil Rights Era, Martin Luther King Jr. allowed women and children to march because, first, he knew that the marchers meet violent resistance, second, he knew that the marches would receive media attention, and, third, he believed that the images of violence (water hoses, attacks dogs, and beatings) would cause the national audience to see the images and support the protesters and their search for full Civil Rights. The ethics of this strategy can certainly be debated; however, the images from Selma were very persuasive and helped to turn the tide against the South.
Since Super Tuesday, heresthtics has dominated both campaigns. Here are two important examples that benefited the Clinton and Obama campaigns.
Wednesday: The Clinton campaign announced that Hillary donated $5,000,000 to her campaign and that her staff would go with out pay. The Obama campaign swallowed the bait and announced it raised four million by Wednesday and five million by Thursday. Of course, on Thursday, Hillary announced that it too raised $7,000,000 by Thursday.
The purpose of the loan announcement was to secure fundraising and to try to define the Clinton campaign as the underdog and the Obama campaign as the establishment. The Clinton campaign succeeding in the first but did not in the second.
Thursday: The Obama campaign "Accidentally" released a memo that it predicted that even though the Democratic race would be close, it believed it would have a small lead by the end of the primaries. Whether or not their math is correct is one thing. However, the point of the released memo is remind the DNC that it needs to discern how the Super Delegate situation, as well as the Florida and Michigan fiascoes, will be figured out before the convention. Since the memo, Obama picked up a few Super Delegates. On Fox and Friends this morning, they reported that one Clinton supporter switched to Obama.
1 comment:
The spinning they have done has been dizzying. But it isn't just thw two candidates and their circles. Last night Harrogate was watching "Hannity and Colmes", and Sean Hannity and Lanny Davis spent several minutes arguing over who cleaned whose clock. According to Hannity, what mattered most was the amount of states Obama got. For Davis, Clinton's overall delegate edge (somewhat disputable, but Davis inisted she has more delegates)is what mattered most.
It's very strange to all of us, Harrogate supposes, that the Dems have a situation where the question, which candidate is ahed?, is a matter of interpretive spin, and not cold numbers.
But there ye have it.
BTW: In reference to a good point you made in the flaming sword thread below, and which got washed away in an argument over media fairness:
Harrogate does indeed loathe this whole notion of "Super Delegates" and of campaign surrogates, whether it be Chelsea Clinton or anybody else, trying to sway them.
Harrogate also confesses that though a political junkie, he does not yet fully understand what a Super Delegate is. Whatever it is, though, Harrogate imagines he wouldn't like it very much.
Would winner take all, per state, like the GOP does it, have been better--more representative, at any rate, of the people's voices?
At this point there seems no way getting around them going to Denver with the Nomination still in the air. A thing that is not to the Dems' advantage.
Post a Comment