Home
In this issue
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 14, 2008 / 7 Adar II 5768

The Second-Look Primary

By Mort Zuckerman

Mort Zuckerman
Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The final victory of John McCain in seizing the Republican nomination is a triumph of the same guts and doggedness that brought him with honor through the tortures of the North Vietnamese. He is a genuine conservative who is also a constructive political leader. The fringe conservatives protesting him should now stop whining, because McCain will run a strong campaign against...whom? On the Democratic side, the show will go on at least through the Pennsylvania primary and probably through the convention. This is no bad thing. Junior Super Tuesday showed that the Democratic race is roughly tied with two strong candidates — one with rousing emotional appeal, especially to a new generation of voters, and one who has impressed Ohio (without which no president in the past 11 elections has been elected) as a gutsy underdog, fighting back with her assertions of superior preparation to be the commander in chief at the other end of a crisis telephone as well as a grasp of the lunch-bucket problems that affect a great many voters. In so doing, Hillary Clinton won back key groups — female, white, blue-collar, union-member, and older voters. She also did extremely well among late-deciding voters, indicating that her aggressive attacks on Barack Obama, particularly her ringing-phone ad about experience at a time of crisis, paid off.


Obama has emerged as the overnight Broadway star of the season. He entered the race when America's confidence in its governing institutions was at a low after seven years of President Bush and nonstop partisan bickering in Congress. Obama caught the mood of dismay. His soaring political rhetoric and personal narrative — combined with an ability to think on his feet during the debate-heavy campaign — won him significant support. He demonstrated a remarkable ability to relate his nonstrident liberal rhetoric to the emotions of his audience — whereas too often Clinton demonstrated only her command of policy and lacked a gut connection to the American voter.


The candidate of tomorrow. The change Obama brings is, by definition, a generational one speaking to a younger audience that has come to dominate the new technology of the 21st century. He is the candidate of tomorrow, of the young, and of the previously apathetic, with a theme of change and hope that is resonating.


But if hope is a good breakfast, it is also a poor supper. The continuation of the Democratic race means that Obama's record will get more critical examination, though he may emerge stronger if he deals candidly with the issues now being raised.


He has some explaining to do. Take bipartisanship. Obama decries Washington's paralyzing divisions but has rarely reached across the aisle. He did not join the 14 senators trying to avoid a showdown on judicial filibusters or the 68 senators backing a bipartisan agreement on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Also curious is the recent tangle he has gotten himself in over NAFTA. In Ohio, evidence appeared that while Obama was ripping the trade treaty (a popular stance among voters there), his top economic adviser was telling Canadian officials to ignore the rhetoric. When the story began to come out, his campaign lied about it and Obama himself stalked out of a contentious press conference. This is the old, not the new, politics.


Similarly, on national security and foreign policy, where Clinton has made her most effective attack, Obama's readiness to meet with hostile leaders and his opposition to defining Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group suggest naiveté rather than thoughtfulness. Nobody has talked a country out of nuclear weapons or charmed a terrorist out of the desire to blow up innocent civilians. This, of course, goes to the issue of someone whose experience extends to a few years in the Illinois legislature and even fewer in the U.S. Senate.


How he handles that scrutiny could determine what the superdelegates do. Both candidates are going to need those votes to win the nomination. The pundits and the Obama camp are saying that the superdelegates should not choose the nominee. But the superdelegates — who are party stalwarts and often elected officials — were created to work out what is best for the Democratic Party and, of course, for the country. The real objection many have to allowing superdelegates to be decisive is that they are believed to be disproportionately likely to support Clinton.


Another late-breaking solution would be to let the voters of Florida and Michigan take a second look at the candidates. The two primaries should be rerun, given that millions of votes were effectively disqualified by the Democratic National Committee after those states defied the party and moved their primaries up to an earlier date.


To be continued. No surprise there.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Mort Zuckerman is editor-in-chief and publisher of U.S. News and World Report. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

ARCHIVES

© 2005, Mortimer Zuckerman

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works