Dueling conference calls, the morning after
May 7th, 2008 – 11:44 AM by Bob von SternbergThe tenor of the daily conference calls staged this morning by the Clinton and Obama campaigns couldn’t have been more starkly different.
Reporters did their level best to throw Clinton’s people on the defensive, even though aides said they have every intention of pushing onward. At one point, a reporter asked campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson point-blank: “Have there been tany discussions of not going forward?”
“No,” Wolfson replied curtly. “No discussions.”
When Obama’s folks got on the line, it was more like a victory lap than anything else, with campaign manager David Plouffe crowing, “We can see the finish line here.”
The campaign trotted out several of its heavy-hitting superdelegates, including Sen. John Kerry, the nominee of four years ago. Kerry said Tuesday’s results were “a giant and decisive stride toward the nomination,” adding: “Bottom line: He clearly did more than he had to. He beat every poll and every single expectation.”
Sen. Amy Kloubuchar took center stage for a few moments, harkening back to Obama’s blowout victory in the Minnesota precinct caucuses: “He did incredibly well in my state and unleashed an energy that will be impossible to contain.”
Pointing to Obama’s wins here, as well as in Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Colorado, Kloubuchar said “the heart of the heartland is with Barack Obama.”
7 Responses to "Dueling conference calls, the morning after"
This is better (and more entertaining) than reality TV…and, just like reality TV, there is a healthy mix of non-reality. In this case, it’s all located in the Clinton camp.
Ivana, in terms of reality distortion what do you make then of Obama’s claim to fame as the only anti war candidate though he made that momentous stance from the kindergarten steps of the Illinois State house where he had as much pull on this war as a high school principle ? Now that’s a reality check for the Prince of Lies !!!
Bob,
Read my comments in your pal Dennis McGrath’s blog. You two are about as entertaining as watching paint dry.
How about timely topics, or just shut her down. You “paper” is a flippin joke.
They should fire the whole lot of you no talent bums, unfortunately, your management is just as stupid as the majority of their employees.
I guess nothing has happened regarding the “Prez Fight” since May 7th.
Bob,
You are one of the best assets this fine paper has. Keep up the great work.
Seriously Bob, you should back up when you collect your check.
Robert, It’s not just Bobby V. becoming part of the furniture. It’s part of the ever faster fall of newspapers today. Besides falling readership from the rise of the American Idolators subset (mostly young, thus mostly in Obee Wanna Bees infant army, but I digress) when readership falls, ad revenue falls (i.e. the ad boyz never pay nothing for nothing) and so papers scramble to make their employees wear many hats.
Voila: each hat fits poorly and thus the quality of the paper declines even further. One small case in point. In the glorious past when people actually READ the paper, I or anyone could call the op-ed section of the Star or Press and get a secretary or even a letter’s evaluator. Not so now at least at the Star, when you call about a letter (but be tremendously obsequious since they treat every inquiry about a letter as a direct attack on their authority).
Anyway, now when someone calls the op-ed dept. about a letter they get Tim O’brien, an editor, not by any means some entry level phone answerer. So, the state the near bankrupt Star is in now akin to Obama shoveling snow on the white house steps. But Bob, be nice to them all. With all this extra job shifting work, they are very irritable. I know..
P3,
I understand your point, however Nancy Barnes has run this paper into the ground. The mission statements on the individual blogs are inaccurate, so why not shut them down and continue to write their liberal crap to the few remaining subscibers they have left.
I personally won’t feel bad if any of these people lose their jobs. Nick Coleman has personally been responsible for the majority of the people I know that used to subscribe and have cancelled. They have no one to blame but themselves. They sensationalize stories, they report false information, they steer their readers, and they have shunned the target market that could revive the paper. I fully expect them to play the victim card, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time.
Watch for the next hateful “contribution” from Syl Jones, the biggest racist fool in the upper midwest.
Check out the activity in the editor blog. That should be sufficient evidence as to how out of touch they are.
Nancy Barnes explaining how to report fair political issues?
How she can spew that crap with a straight face is very admirable.
Robert, the guy that slays me is Editor (don’t they all have that title) Timmy O’brien, a great name for a halfback but a little underwhelming for such a position.
But looking past his name, the man rules his op ed dept with an iron fist where there is a near constant scramble at the top with editors and staff being shuffled like substitutions in a T-ball game in order to come up with the hottest team since if the admen stops comin’ around he and everyone else looks for work at Walmart.
And perhaps nowhere is the effort to hook and hold the public more pronounced than in the evolution of the opinion pages, those pages traditionally read least in any paper by this once literate culture now on the decline. Where once these pages were filled with rich, varied and complex insight, now the printed word bursts, kept deliberately short for easier consumption, seem dummied down in an attempt to attract the “American Idol” crowd who by their numbers, it is hoped, will continue to attract advertisers searching for the best return on their funds.
One offfshot of this dummy down corporate attitude is we now have
workers running scared, trying to protect themselves from what they see as outside or administrative threats and armor themselves with traditional journalist’s long memories and even thinner skins, and by never forgetting any slight, real or imagined. Poor Timmy