The strength of a political operation lies on its ability to understand the fundamentals of a campaign and to execute them with awe-inspiring precision.
Every campaign understands this principal and that's why they all have some sort of "chief strategist" or "Communication manager" and so on. In political terms, an operation is the foundation of a campaign and when well ran, it can forecast victories and defeats with the precision of a surgical procedure. Why? Because it is often inspired by success stories of the past and its performance is usually determined by the power of its engine: Money.
If life were a book, becoming president would be an equation with a single variable. It would only take Money to persuade the electorate as Money, argued by many, seems to be the sole component of Power.
But life as we know it is very practical and often unpredictable. Winning an emotional election such as the current one requires more than just an operation; it takes a movement.
Some will suggest that many movements have come and gone while operations remained undefeated, But arguing so is ignoring the moral of the story as I am aware that there are such things as successful and unsuccessful movements just like there are effective and ineffective operations.
The strength of a successful movement relies on three key elements: the passion of its supporters, the charisma of the leader and its reason for being.
Perhaps in the past, those movements who fell short on delivery lacked one of these ingredients.
Obama's movement for change possesses a superior operation; something other movements lacked. On a tactical level, it is challenging the effectiveness of a powerhouse known as the Clinton Machine. This movement has already changed the political dialogue before the race is even over because this election is of a historic significance and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Even Mitt Romney has embraced Change as his mantra as they all agree now that the public is awake, well alive and attentive.
Obama's movement for Change is going where others didn't. In the past, many movements were very partisan and limited to those of similar beliefs, but Obama sees what many other candidates can’t: when a steel plant closes, the worker loses, in spite of their political ideology. While other candidates are focused on just winning and fighting the other party, Obama is stressing the reason for winning and people are responding not just with their presence in rallies, but also with their questions in town hall meetings. They are not just funding his campaign, they are also voting for him in record numbers.
As Michelle Obama well said it:
when power is confronted with real change, they will say anything.
However, underestimating the intellect of the public comes at a high cost. Even if you’re successful, in the end you can’t be effective. You then will understand what Obama means by creating a working majority and bringing people together for a common purpose, a higher purpose.
[1] Clinton Operation Runs Aground Against Obama Movement in Milford http://bourbonroom.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/01/05/clinton-operation-runs-aground-against-obama-movement-in-milford/
[2] Michelle Obama defends husband's voting record, experience
http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080124/NEWS03/301240002
As I surf the Internet and flip channels on my tv screen in search for the latest information on the presidential race, I have come to the realisation that deception was being planned to be used as a means for support.
In the media, this election has become about race and gender and while some still believe that this is just a coincidence; it is clearly evident now that this is a long planned strategy designed to help a campaign that otherwise couldn't compete on the issues that matter most to the American people.
When reporting on the South Carolina’s primary, every news outlet is maintaining the focus on the African American vote as though the other half of the electorate could not matter more. I watched Senator Obama's Interview with MSNBC today and I have to confess that I was disturbed by Meredith's attempts to characterize the remaining of the contest as race battle where people who looked like Obama would vote for him and those of Clinton's resemblance should in their turn vote for her. This wasn't the first time it was displayed with such clarity. The debate in Nevada was heavy on questions based on race and gender and so was the one in S.C.
I just read an article by NewsMax and it all became clearer to me that the Clinton campaign is planning to use their speculated loss in S.C to divide the country along racial lines. Their goal is to portray Obama's victory as a result of a massive support by black voters which will then, as they hope, trigger a white backlash against our campaign as it would be perceived as a race fight.
This is very troubling and I certainly wouldn’t have expected it from any honest candidate running for the highest office in the country especially at a time where unity is a must in the fight against America’s challenges .
Senator Obama has always stressed the need for all Americans to reach for a common purpose and that message resonated very powerfully in Iowa and until now it is for that very reason that many thousands of people brave the cold to hear his vision for the country.
We need to make certain that this machiavelic plan doesn’t go unnoticed. We need to counter it and denounce it every way we can and I suggest that our campaign reinforces our message of unity and change because those who conquer by division can be of no help to the nation. This election, as Senator Obama said, shouldn’t just be about winning; it should also be about the reason for winning.
We need to challenge the Clinton campaign to focus on what’s right for the American people. If they spent as much time pushing forward the people’s agenda as they inaccurately do attacking Obama; we would have never had this war in Iraq and America would have had a better economic stance.
God bless America and let truth, hope and unity prevail.
First of all I would like to express my highest esteem for the class with which Senator Obama has handled this past controversy that he never started. I feel valued that after submitting my thoughts on how to address that issue, the Senator acted on it accordingly. This either means that he was listening to all of us or that he was so concerned about the countries’ wellbeing that he did not want to see that issue divert us from our challenges and goals.
So today I would like to address the issue of experience as it seems now that many people in this race feel so at ease claiming it their own that it's meaning becomes a little nebulous. Senator Obama made a good case likening George Bush's kind experience to one of the worst presidencies America has ever witnessed.
The problem with the word experience is those who use it the most. Many claim to have a lifetime of experience changing people's lives, but fall short on judgement and vision— attributes that have had a larger impact on people’s lives in the past eight years.
Senator Obama hasn't just started talking about hope and change two months ago when it began to become popular. He wrote a book about it; brought a crowd to its feet in Boston in 2004 and applied his life to it when he could have made a fortune in the private sector as a lawyer. And when it seemed that this race was over even before any votes were cast, he reminded everyone that a victory shouldn't be a matter of convenience but rather one of conviction. We shouldn't just be taking pleasure in winning; we should be humbled by the magnitude of the call of presidency because the moment for this generation to make its mark on history has never been any closer. That moment is now!
It's ironic that those who use experience as their trademark spend less time talking about its meaning for the American people's lives, but rather choose to focus their attention on why others shouldn't be elected. Isn't this exactly what we're so tired of? It is one thing to claim experience one’s own; it is another to act on it when deciding whether to send young Americans into arms way or not. What America needs right now is more than experience as a political argument, because no matter how brilliant and talented a president could be; alone, he or she could never deliver on the promise of a brighter destiny. What America needs right now is a president who can inspire and unite a people around a common purpose; a higher purpose and who better than Barack Obama?
It’s funny how American many of us foreigners come to feel when a leader of the Obama kind emerges.
I'm really outraged by the strategy senator Clinton is using right now and I'm affraid she will mislead a few voters. We all know that all the quotes she's attributing to senator Obama as evidence for her case for change are all rudiculous. But we need to be as agressive as we were in the ABC debate that sparked her free fall if we are going to deal with this ill-conceived approach to campaigning.
We can still be positive and inspiring while making sure she doens't get too comfortable at doing a disservice to voters with false claims shortly after suggesting that she was not interested in attacking other democrats.
I suggest that senator Obama put her on the defensive for misquoting him, not opposing the law suit against the culinary workers Union long after the measure in question was approved by all campaings. Also, let's remind her that she's too calculating and this law suit is proof in case she's forgotten.
After her loss in Iowa, she had some concerns about the fact that the current caucus process causes "disenfranchisement" of working men and women who don't have the time to participate.
Well, these at-large precincts were approved since March 31 2007 and all campaigns had plainty of time to object it. Clearly Senator Clinton and her allies were on a high horse and could have never thought that our movement would be endorsed by the Culinary workers Union of Nevada. And now that it doens't serve thier purpose, they're complaining. Just like they did when those boys were ganging up on her or when the media was somehow praising saint Obama to their detriment.
It seems senator Clinton's camp is a big fan of gambling but hates the odds. Well, I've got news for them: America can't afford gambling anymore! We need clarity, vision and consistency from our elected officials. We need Obama.
