The Long Campaign Ends with an Obama Victory

Congratulations to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois who is the winner of one of the most grueling primary campaigns ever. His triumph is an historic one as well-the first African-American to ever head a national ticket. It is being seen here as a glorious moment for the United States and perhaps it is.

There are several pieces available now looking at exactly why he won over the vastly more experienced and well-known (and well-funded) Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. Having gone through them, and looking into my own reasons, I come up with these two:

1) The Obama team put together a plan that fit the reality of what the Democratic Party nominating process was in 2008. The rules were very quirky, complex, and difficult to master. Yet the Obama team did master them and nullified the normal advantages that a candidate like Senator Clinton would enjoy in the party. By focusing on the small-turnout voting events called caucuses, the Obama campaign was able to leverage small groups of people into significant delegate advantages.

They also knew how to play the delegate game in the bigger primaries. The rules of the Democratic Primary awarded delegate totals unequally-that is, certain areas of a state received more delegates than others, based on previous election results. So the Obama campaign micro-targeted these areas and picked up enough delegates through this process to give them an insurmountable lead that held up week after week.

The Clinton campaign did not do this and effectively ceded the primary to him.

2) Senator Obama himself was the right messenger for these times. The electorate has changed and shifted over the past four years and Senator Obama's message of "change" resonated much more effectively with voters than Senator Clinton's message of "experience." The funny thing is that, of all people, Senator Clinton should have known this: her husband won in 1992 on a "change" platform over that of President George H.W. Bush who stressed his "experience."

"Change" doesn't win all the time but when the message is right, it works. Additionally, Senator Obama's race trumped Senator Clinton's gender with Democratic Party voters. The novelty of the first African-American candidate to contend for the nomination with a chance to win attracted more favorable press and reaction from party members than did Senator Clinton's campaign based on her sex.

I suppose one had to choose which "history" one wanted to be part of-the first African-American to head a national ticket or the first woman and voters in the Democratic Party made their choices.

Now the question shifts to Senator Clinton's plans in the fall campaign. She didn't concede, she didn't quit, she is somewhere in political no-man's land. It seems to me that she really wants Senator Obama to come to her seeking support.

He won't do it. He won't repeat the mistake that former Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale made in 1984 when he offered the vice presidential nomination to Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro under heavy pressure from party feminists. Mondale was seen as weak and buckling under to feminist influence, a charge that really handicapped him during the general election.

In this campaign, Senator Obama won, and Senator Clinton lost. As the victor, it is Senator Obama who gets to set the agenda and terms of what happens next. I still maintain that I would be shocked if he offers her the second spot on the ticket; it would be too forced a partnership and it wouldn't work on the campaign trail and insiders say it certainly wouldn't work as a governing system should they win in November.

I think he is looking elsewhere.

As far as the presumptive Republican Party nominee Senator John McCain of Arizona is concerned, he has been campaigning against Senator Obama for some time, so in a way, nothing much has changed. But he will be trying to make some inroads with frustrated Democratic Party female voters who are still enraged over Senator Clinton's loss to Senator Obama.

He will also be emphasizing Senator Obama's relative inexperience and sometimes muddied responses to answers.

Ironically, a focus group recently discussed Senator Obama and the voters in it said while they were intrigued by his campaign theme of "change" (whatever that means), they didn't really know all that much about him-what he really thought, what he would like to do, where he stands on issues (not policy positions and papers which have a habit of disappearing after the campaigns are over and the winner has to actually do the dirty work of governing) or what he is likely to do in given situations. That's the kind of stuff that voters learn over a politician's long career in public life. Senator Obama has had a short one, so voters really consider him something of a blank slate.

That is going to be a challenge for Senator Obama (among others) which is, strange as this may sound, introducing himself to the electorate at large which is quite different from the electorate that is restricted to the Democratic Party.