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That old up, down business Sunday, Feb 10, 2008 By John Brummett I was rapt by Barack Obama's rhetorical splendor the other night, as struck by the poetic phrases as the eloquent delivery. He's hiding a good writer back there somewhere. The Kennedys always had great wordsmiths, you know. Among so many other things, Barack was saying we need a new kind of politics that's not about who's up and who's down. He quit preaching right there and started meddling. It occurred to me I hadn't fired arrows in a while.  Barack Obama - It cannot be true that he will defeat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Can it? Surely it merely appears for the moment that he darned well might, aided by more robust funding and a schedule that seems to play to his strengths. It's not just his electricity, charisma and novelty. It's that he raises $32 million and deploys a vigorous and efficient campaign organization. Hillary Clinton - Oh, she'll get the nomination and the presidency after that. Right? Right? The Clintons are winners, you know. It only appears for the moment that she's blown a big lead. A new kind of politics - Hillary lost white people and black people in California, but carried the state anyway because of "others," primarily Hispanics and Asian-Americans. Meantime, she won easily in Massachusetts in spite of Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama. And let's not forget Mike Huckabee, who emerged in early January and had a night of rekindled glory a month later, doing so on both occasions without money or establishment backing or pundits' respect. And, of course, there's Obama, who mixes up the old political equations as well.Ted Kennedy - He was supposed to help Obama in Massachusetts and with Hispanics. How'd that turn out?Bill Clinton - It's not been a good couple of weeks for graying old Democratic mashers.John McCain - Down? Why, yes. He's going to be the Republican nominee, but that's only because conservatives are in total disarray. He has weaknesses in the base and the Deep South. Shoot, he got less than 50 percent in his home state of Arizona. Compare that to Hillary and Huckabee in Arkansas - she with 69 percent and he with 60. Of course, that may say more about our superficial home-team boosterism than about those two candidates.Mike Huckabee - Running mate to a guy in his 70s. Rush Limbaugh - How's that stop-McCain movement going?Blanche Lincoln - She's a key player in the U.S. Senate on efforts to broaden the president's "stimulus" package to help old folks and veterans and unemployed workers. She continues to fight for rural and low-income people. And I respect that - until last week, anyway - she resisted the pressure to fall in lock-step with every other Democrat in Arkansas and endorse Hillary Clinton. She seemed to want to adhere to a principle: Let the people of Arkansas vote without her presuming to advise them how.Mark Pryor - He'll not have a serious Republican opponent this year. He has made his play to ingratiate himself with Hillary. He was a key architect of the "Gang of 14" with McCain, and he endorsed Joe Lieberman, who has endorsed McCain. So Mark has covered every angle. Except, uh, oh, the President Obama angle.That Super Bowl - That was a very good football game. The Giants provided a compelling story. Tom Petty and his guys rocked at halftime, especially for men of that age. Troy Aikman is a reasonably articulate and insightful color commentator. And the commercial with the stock-trading infant who spat up on the computer keyboard - well, commercials don't normally crack me up, but that one did.------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
