"White Male GOP"http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/opinion/17rich.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin: Basically a feel good article for New York liberals, particularly Obama supporters, but it is amazing to reflect back upon the last two months:
"The 2008 primary campaign has been so fast and furious that we haven’t paused to register just how spectacular that change is. All the fretful debate about whether voters would turn out for a candidate who is a black or a woman seems a century ago."
The question though, is will any of this actually make a difference in the general election? Rich gets a bit ahead of himself when he writes that "I almost had to pinch myself when Mr. Obama took 52 percent of Virginia’s white vote last week." This is 52% of Democratic primary vote. I think the most interesting subtext of the article is the need to see what happens. We don't really know whether Obama can win. But by god, we have to see what happens.
Nicholas Kristof's
"The Poor Panderer"http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/opinion/17kristof.html?hp: I wonder whether Kristof actually wrote this article four years ago and then just dragged it out today because he blew the deadline. I think this article totally misses the point. This was a narrative we saw at the beginning of the primary when McCain visited Liberty University and tried to smooth things over with Jerry Falwell. That was poor pandering. Voting against an anti-torture bill, the language of which has consistently echoed McCain's own opposition to torture, is decidedly more than pandering. If there is a narrative today, it is that McCain's poor pandering has resulted in an actual transformation of his legislative action.
Maureen Dowd
"Captive to History's Caprice"http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/opinion/17dowd.html?hp: She strives for objectivity between Obama and Clinton...and she fails. Its a good idea for an article, similar in its excitement to Rich's. The truth is that we have even less of an idea about which candidate will be the better, more ambitious president than we have about which one is more electable. But then she only focuses on the uncertainty of Clinton presidency. In short, she imprisons both candidate in her prison of historical caprice, but Obama gets early parole, without any real scrutiny. As an Obama supporter, I don't know whether this sort of stuff double standard helps, although I'd certainly love for it to continue in the general election if Obama is the nominee.
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