The 2008 Primary and double standards

I was reading an old post-primary debate analysis not long ago. It really made me think. We had two completely different standards, and the two candidates lived in alternate universes.

We have a female candidate and an African American candidate, both historic candididacies, and yet, only Obama’s candidacy was viewed in the media as a great accomplishment for America.

Hillary Clinton plays “divisive” and “racial” politics for merely mentioning the fact that she gets more working white class support and Obama was losing ground in that area. Even mentioning the word white is a racist code word, but Obama isn’t sending sexist signals by saying “you’re likable enough,” “at periods when she feels a little down” or “the claws are coming out.” No, those aren’t sexist code words, in fact, lets just say there is really no such thing as sexist code words.

Hillary’s surrogates are out of line for bringing up his middle name or saying it was a good thing he went to a muslim school in his childhood, while Obama’s surrogates talked about examining Hillary’s tears and questioning them. We have Obama’s surrogates saying there would be riots in the streets if Sen. Obama were to somehow not win the nomination. But Hillary’s surrogates were out of line.

We had a candidate that was able to take everything from the Republicans and the media for over 8 years and still managed to keep going, fight back, become the Senator and be re-elected to the Senate, and a candidate who has gotten nothing but fawning coverage since running for Senate against the formidable Republican candidate Alan Keyes; and yet, it was Obama who was best able to beat the Republicans.

We had one candidate who fought hard to take on the healthcare industry in an ultimately losing battle in the 1990′s and now knows what it would take to get things done and get these kinds of things passed, and one who has shown no evidence of taking on hard fights; and yet, Obama is the one who will get things done in Washington.

We had one candidate who we knew at least was involved in an administration that worked across party lines to get things done, and one who says he will but has shown no evidence of doing that. And yet, Obama is the unifying, bipartisan one.

We have one on one debates where Hillary is clearly the winner in every focus group, where every exit polls show people who cared about the debates chose her, and yet Obama is so “cool and collected” and “presidential” in the debates, according to the media.

We had two presidential candidates who during a debate was asked a question about a new leader in the world. Neither candidate was specifically asked, but Obama turned to Hillary as if it were her question to answer-likely because he didn’t know the answer. Showing her depth of knowledge, she answered the question. And yet, Obama is the great intellect.

We had a candidate who rightly called out the media for the blatant sexism that went on in the campaign and one who experienced no racist comments but preemptively calls or has his surrogates call any criticism of Obama, such as being presumptuous, a racist attack. And yet, Hillary is the one who constantly plays the victim card.

We had one candidate who was attacked by the moderators as well as other candidates including Sen. Obama in debate after debate and still managed to make it through and keep going; then we have one candidate who was asked some difficult questions in a debate and whined about the questions, the questioners, and the candidate who used the questions to raise questions, as well as vowing no more debates; and yet, Obama is the one who can show the biggest and best contrast against John McCain during the upcoming debates.

We had one candidate who constantly leveled attacks on Bill Clinton by slyly sending out surrogates to accuse Bill Clinton of being racist and constant attacks on the Clinton record; and yet we have the same candidate promising to make many things the same way they were during those terrible Clinton years.

We had one candidate who was able to connect with the economy and had detailed language on how to put families back on track, most probably because she was part of an administration that helped the economy. We know what the Clinton’s did with the economy, how we had a wonderful relationship with many of our allies in the world, how we had peace and prosperity from people who had expertise in creating jobs and benefits for people in Arkansas for years; we have no idea how Obama will deal with the economy or any other issue for that matter. We’re expected to put our trust in a first term senator who ran a year after he was elected and who has not done anything within Illinois to prove any substantial abilities to help families, in fact, who has people on his team who contributed to putting his constituents in rat infested housing and doing nothing about it. And yet, Obama is the safer and better pick.

We had a candidate who had foresight into the Georgia and Russia crises back in April, and one who had to deliver two different statements on the same day in order to sound better on the conflict after meeting with advisers, because he didn’t know what to say or what was going on. And yet, Obama is the leader we can trust.

We have one candidate who attacks another candidate for being entrenched in a corrupt system and promising change while he defends and uses the corrupt system within Chicago in which he fought against any type of change when Republicans and Democrats came together to try and do just that. And yet, Obama is the reformer.

We have a candidate who was not afraid to go on stations and answer questions from people who will publicly denigrate her campaign, such as Keith Olbermann, or someone who has not exactly been a favorite to Democrats such as Bill O’Reilly and can go toe to toe with them, and someone who is afraid of Fox News and constantly whines about the news channel saying bad things about him and his wife and refusing to go on the station to answer hard questions he once promised he would And yet, Obama, not Hillary, is the open and honest one.

We have a candidate who was skewered by the press for Bosnia and exagerations and whose baggage has been rummaged through for years, while we have a candidate who publicly takes credit for things he had no involvement in and the media is dead on the subject, just as they have been on so many subjects on Obama’s past. And yet, Obama is the forthright candidate and you just cannot trust Hillary.

We had one candidate who didn’t stutter and stammer in the face of hard questions, who didn’t require a team of 300 foreign policy advisors emailing her the question reporters would give and answers to give them, who doesn’t need a teleprompter to sound a certain way, who doesn’t have to stay on a set script to sound competent, whose “eloquence” only comes through in a scripted and teleprompter delivered speech and one who does. Like someone said, Obama doesn’t know what to say or do unless somebody told him. And yet, Obama is the magnificent one who will deliver us. All hail the wonderful savior from Chicago who has no experience or evidence of change but can deliver a damn good speech pretending to be outside of Washington corruption.

But in the end, great PR, marketing, close control of image and stage craft will only take one so far. Just ask Gov. Deval “Just words?!” Patrick about it.

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