I imagine South Carolina is going to be close. You would think that Obama would be able to do well with the black vote since he has shown he is electable. But, how negative will the Clintons go? I think they are still going to go very negative. They have no incentive not to. I think what the Obama and Clinton campaigns learned from Iowa and New Hampshire is that no matter what the polls say, you have to be on the offensive. Hillary approached Iowa as if she was the leader and Obama approached New Hampshire as if he was the leader. Hillary took less questions at her events leading up to Iowa and then Obama took less questions at his events leading up to New Hampshire. Obama campaigned very well in Iowa, building up and reinforcing the image he wanted Iowa voters to hear in the last few days, while seemingly ignoring that task in New Hampshire. It seemed as if he didn’t want to change anything in the definition of his image because it worked in Iowa. On the other hand, Clinton went on the offensive in New Hampshire, pulling out all the stops to show that she is likeable.

I think the Iron My Shirt incident was staged. It’s a classic campaign tactic: Recreate your opposition in a controlled environment and in a manner that makes you look better. Nobody likes it, especially when it works, but it’s effectiveness is hard to ignore. It’s the same thing that Foxnews does when they try to have a fair and balanced discussion with the lowest of intelligence liberal democrat they can find that will argue (poorly) for the liberal cause on their show. They can basically make the opposition look like a fool. And, I’m not saying I don’t think NBC does it either. The point of all this is that Hillary out campaigned Obama. That’s it. The polls were overblown and Obama bought into that, just like we did. He was not on the offensive in New Hampshire and Hillary was.  

South Carolina will be a toss up. Ultimately, I think Obama wins by 3 or 4%. I think the black vote will come out for him enough to get the win, but it’s going to be dirty and close. I think Bill showed yesterday what he is going to do in New Hampshire – basically try to call Obama a phony. I don’t know what Hillary will do, but I would imagine she is going to continue to do the emotional show because of how effective that was in New Hampshire. Who knows if that will work. Obama needs Oprah out there speaking for him. The sooner she gets on the trail with him the better.  

I’m not totally worried about Nevada. Unfortunately, I have not seen any polls from Nevada. The union endorsement Obama got last night was important. I have this feeling though that Hillary is pretty strong there. Basically, he must win South Carolina and Nevada. I don’t think he can win Super Tuesday without those two. He needs the face time more than anything.  

It’s not just that Obama has moving speeches, but that he has shown consistently the ability to make good decisions and explain his decisions better than any candidate. You can tell that he thinks deeply about what he is saying, not just what he will say. With Hillary there is a script and a general fakiness that is reminiscent to how Bush was on his stump speeches. He knew what he had to say, but throw him a curveball and he would sound like a bumbling moron. Hillary won’t sound like a moron because she is more studied than that, but she would say whatever scripted thought she had rather than deliver a thought genuine to the moment and intricacies of the question or problem proposed. I think Obama has supreme reasoning skills and, in my opinion, it is not always what policies you have made that are important to being a good President, but the type of experiences you have had. I think the most interesting people in the world are those with varied experiences. The people who have lived in Mozambique for 2 years as Peace Corps volunteers, or those who have given a year or two to take low wages to help the poor, or those who generally do something that is greater than themselves. There is no question that Hillary has sacrificed to get where she is at, but what did she sacrifice? She sacrificed having a true family, a loyal husband, and what else that signifies a depth of character? I just don’t know. I just do not see much a difference between her style of politics and that of Bush. I want change and until Obama started saying it, she hadn’t even mentioned the word. So, it’s not just a speech. There is more there, if you are willing to look.