For a change, the conventional wisdom and the expectations of the political world were pretty much spot-on yesterday. Hillary Clinton cruised to an easy victory, as expected, in Kentucky, winning by a landslide margin of more than 35 points. Barack Obama also saw smooth sailing in Oregon, winning by about 16 points. None of this was expected to fundamentally change the contest in any way, and none of it will.
The results in Kentucky were, like West Virginia a week earlier, somewhat disconcerting, at least with regards to racial attitudes: “Of the 21 percent of Kentucky voters who said that race was a factor in their decision, about 90% chose Hillary Clinton. In other words, more than 50,000 Kentucky Democrats are willing to admit that the pigment of Obama’s skin was a reason they decided not to vote for him.” We know that these numbers are often skewed downwards because of voter embarrassment, suggesting as Sullivan argued, that there is “a core of less educated white voters in the Appalachias will do anything to stop a black man being president of the United States.” No matter what your political stripe, this is not at all encouraging.
But the big news of the night wasn’t the vote count, but the passed milestone — with the results from Oregon and Kentucky, Obama secured a majority of the available pledged delegates. The campaign, not surprisingly, saw this as a major development worthy of celebration, and hosted a major event in Iowa last night. The occasion marked the semi-official beginning of the general election.
Under the rules used by Democrats, the split decision was enough for Mr. Obama to secure a majority of the delegates up for grabs in primaries and caucuses. His campaign has portrayed success in winning those pledged delegates as the most important yardstick for judging the will of Democratic voters, and has encouraged superdelegates — elected officials and party leaders who have an automatic vote at the convention — to fall in line accordingly.
“We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States of America,” Mr. Obama said in an address on Tuesday night, standing in front of a moonlit Capitol in Des Moines.
Even as Mr. Obama moved closer to making history as the first black presidential nominee, he stopped short of declaring victory in the Democratic race, part of a carefully calibrated effort in the remaining weeks of the contest to avoid appearing disrespectful to Mrs. Clinton and alienating her supporters. Instead, he offered lavish praise for his rival over 16 months.
“Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and your daughters will come of age, and for that we are grateful to her,” Mr. Obama said.
Obama stopped short of declaring victory — but just barely.
The Obama campaign is in a slightly awkward spot. If they continue to pretend the Democratic nomination fight is still underway, they lose valuable time and resources they need to take on John McCain. But if they’re perceived as slighting the Clinton campaign in any way, it might generate intra-party resentment.
So, Obama is threading the needle. While waiting for Clinton to step aside, Obama praises Clinton’s work and career. He’s not claiming victory, he’s just moving on, letting his insurmountable lead in the Democratic speak for itself.
McCain and the Republicans, meanwhile, have become Obama’s central and sole focus. While Clinton’s speech in Kentucky offered her rationale for continuing a primary campaign, Obama’s speech in Iowa offered his recipe for winning the general election. The two Democratic candidates simply no longer appear to be in the same place.
…Obama’s speech was, without a doubt, a general election speech. “The same question that first led us to Iowa fifteen months ago is the one that has brought us back here tonight; it is the one we will debate from Washington to Florida, from New Hampshire to New Mexico,” he said, ticking off no less than four potential swing states. ”The question of whether this country, at this moment, will keep doing what we’ve been doing for four more years, or whether we will take that different path. It is more of the same versus change. It is the past versus the future.”
Obama went on to reclaim the word that slowly disappeared from the landscape in recent months. See if you pick up on the subtlety:
“I will leave it up to Senator McCain to explain to the American people whether his policies and positions represent long-held convictions or Washington calculations, but the one thing they don’t represent is change.
“Change is a tax code that rewards work instead of wealth by cutting taxes for middle-class families, and senior citizens, and struggling homeowners; a tax code that rewards businesses that create good jobs here in America instead of the corporations that ship them overseas. That’s what change is.
“Change is a health care plan that guarantees insurance to every American who wants; that brings down premiums for every family who needs it; that stops insurance companies from discriminating and denying coverage to those who need it most.
“Change is an energy policy that doesn’t rely on buddying up to the Saudi Royal Family and then begging them for oil – an energy policy that puts a price on pollution and makes the oil companies invest their record profits in clean, renewable sources of energy that will create five million new jobs and leave our children a safer planet. That’s what change is.
“Change is giving every child a world-class education by recruiting an army of new teachers with better pay and more support; by promising four years of tuition to any American willing to serve their community and their country; by realizing that the best education starts with parents who turn off the TV, and take away the video games, and read to our children once in awhile.
“Change is ending a war that we never should’ve started and finishing a war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that we never should’ve ignored. Change is facing the threats of the twenty-first century not with bluster, or fear-mongering, or tough talk, but with tough diplomacy, and strong alliances, and confidence in the ideals that have made this nation the last, best hope of Earth.
That is the legacy of Roosevelt, and Truman, and Kennedy. That is what change is. That is the choice in this election.”
And so it begins.