BOSTON, Mass., 12:49 a.m. — 1) Did primaries always get so much media attention? Granted, I was a clueless high school senior last time ’round, but this amount of scrutiny just seems insane. Yesterday I watched Access Hollywood’s sultry Maria Menounos ask Hillary Clinton how she would spend a free Saturday night. Hillary’s response and – yes – this is a direct quote: “Usually I do some kind of cleaning activity. I find cleaning closets and drawers to be extremely gratifying. . .” Uh, I just don’t even know what to do with that.
2) Polls remind me of weather forecasts. People put so much stock in them and don’t shut up about them. When a friend says on Tuesday, “We shouldn’t plan on that beach trip this weekend because weather.com says there is a 64 percent change of precipitation,” when Friday rolls around, without fail, it will be gorgeous outside and you will be angry. Polls are like this. When they announced Hillary won, I said to my parents, “Uh, didn’t every poll say Obama was going to win?” There was no response.
3) Oration matters. Since all the speeches are essentially the same (riffs on change and young people and passion), the good speakers definitely stand out from the ones that put you to sleep. I am pretty sure that if I were a candidate, I would work on public speaking twice as much as any sort of policy. This is also why I would be a terrible politician. (Side note: I am totally going to institute a new drinking game in which you take a shot every time a politician says “change” or smiles like the Cheshire Cat.)
4) I noticed lots of young’uns taking camera phone pix of politicians at speeches. At first I found this strangely unsettling, but I think it is indicative of the fervor I have noticed among young people when it comes to this campaign. Politicians are the new rock stars. Zac Efron posters are being torn down for Obama pennants. And while “Kim is f-e-r-g-a-l-i-c-i-o-u-s” used to be a hip Facebook status, “Kim is YOU ROCKED IT, HIL!” has supplanted it. Kids are excited about politics. I am using words like “caucus” and “huckabee” and “iraq” in my gchats. For a notoriously politically apathetic generation, this is positive. As [INSERT YOUR FAVORITE POLTICIAN HERE] would say, “Change is good.”
—Josh Duboff
3 responses so far ↓
1 andrew // Jan 9, 2008 at 1:46 am
Nice - astute observations (especially #4!)
2 anon // Jan 9, 2008 at 2:22 am
Polls are inaccurate in this case because so many people will not vote for a black person even if they say they will. The scenario we saw today, where the double digit lead of a black person over a white person just vanished, has been repeated throughout history on dozens of occasions in elections throughout all parts of the United States.
People say they will vote for a black person if asked in a poll, or obviously in a caucus (like Iowa) they will (because it is a public vote), but when it comes down to the personal decision made behind a voting curtain, people don’t have to answer to anyone - they decide to vote for a person of the same skin color, even if they said in the polls that they wouldn’t. Unfortunately, that’s just how important race is to the collective soul of our country.
3 Kim // Jan 9, 2008 at 10:13 am
Obama lost because he let Hillary become a change candidate without opposing her.
He also lost because he let Hillary accuse him of being full of hot air.
Race had little to do with it.
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