The fight is for delegates from both Ohio and Texas. Obama leads with almost a hundred delegates and Clinton needs to up her game. “Time and tide waits for no man”, Clinton needs to move quickly before losing more ground to her opponent who seems to have signed a covenant with time and “judgement”.
The Obama versus Clinton battle rages on and tomorrow marks a crucial stage in a possible determination of who represents the democrats in the next US presidential elections.
The fight is for delegates from both Ohio and Texas. Obama leads with almost a hundred delegates and Clinton needs to up her game. “Time and tide waits for no man”, Clinton needs to move quickly before losing more ground to her opponent who seems to have signed a covenant with time.
Only a couple of weeks ago, a photograph with Mr. Obama donning traditional Somali garb released to the press was suspected to have come from the Clinton camp. The Clinton camp did not deny the picture came from their camp although they did claim that the circulation had not been authorised. If it was a campaign tactic to woo more people to the Clinton side, it rather helped Obama explain himself and launch an even better attack. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign of “shameful offensive fear-mongering” by circulating a photo as an attempted smear.
The campaign entered into a new dimension last week, when a Clinton campaign advert geared towards wooing voters in the delegate rich states of Ohio and Texas, showcased a rather interesting scenario.
In the advertisement, a phone rings incessantly as children sleep. “It’s 3am and your children are safe and asleep,” says an ominous voice as the camera scans over children lying in their beds. “But there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world. “Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.”
Mr. Obama’s answer came during a meeting with military veterans in Texas “I will never use the threat of terrorism as a way of scaring up votes” he said. “We’ve seen these ads before…It won’t work this time. Because the question is not about picking up the phone. The question is: What kind of judgment will you make when you answer?”
Mr. Obama is right when he says that this type of advertisement is a déjà vu. President Johnshon’s campaign ad in ’64 (The Daisy Girl Ad) featured a girl plucking flower petals when she suddenly starts a countdown for a nuclear weapon launch. There is also the wide propaganda of Iraq’s possesion of weapons of mass destruction prior to the war, which proved false.
Mrs. Clinton’s ad ends when she picks up the ringing phone. Mr. Obama who termed this scene as Mrs. Clinton’s “red phone moment”, refering to fear mongering and her 2002 senate vote that gave President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, countered with another ad which features a war veteran asking Americans to chose someone capable of good judgements.
Dick Durbin, another Senator, said “”There were many senators who decided at that time to give the president the authority. Barack Obama said clearly he would not. His judgment was right at that critical moment in history. And I think it’s judgment that people are looking for.”
This strong position taken at the time against war in Iraq was a very delicate political decision, considering that national propaganda favoured the Bush administration’s determination to go to war.
Even more delicate was when he still stood by his decision when French President Jacques Chirac opposed this decision to go to war, to the dismay of many Americans. Jacques Chirac had been favourable to the elimination of weapons of mass destruction from Iraq, but strongly opposed the idea of interfering with another country’s sovereignty, saying that “ there are many regimes like Sadam’s which i do not like. That is not reason enough to take up arms to replace them”.
Mr. Obama stood by his conviction even when America went beserk over Chirac’s decision against the war in Iraq. His judgement it seems has and is serving him well.
