CBS News.com senior political editor, Vaughn Ververs, wrote an analysis on five reasons that Senator Barack Obama of Illinois had become the presumptive Democratic nominee. The Democratic race was a long and grueling one as Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton of New York kept fighting it out. While the odds were stacked against her, Clinton has refused to drop out of the race.
Ververs thoroughly described the five reasons that Obama had outmaneuvered Clinton in the race. While Obama is only a first-term senator in the US Senate, he had bested Clinton, who had changed the role of the US First Lady. Clinton had even more years in the US Senate than Obama. Still, it was Obama who had come out on top at the end of the Democratic primary which went through every single contest.
While Clinton nailed Obama on health care, Obama nailed Clinton on many other things.
Obama’s charisma and energy overpowered Clinton’s experience. He generated the buzz that Clinton needed. In short, Obama had many advantages over Clinton. Obama ended up as the true anti-Clinton candidate out of the other presidential hopefuls.
Obama bested Clinton in regards to Iraq. In the Senate, Clinton along with other Democrats in the Senate voted to let Bush invade Iraq back in 2003. While in the Senate, John Edwards of North Carolina also voted. However, Edwards said that Iraq was a mistake. Clinton did not apologize for voting to let Bush go into Iraq.
Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, a former Democratic hopeful voted against going into Iraq. Obama said that he has been against the war from the very beginning. In short, Obama outmaneuvered Clinton on the issue of Iraq.
While Clinton was the candidate of experience, it was overpowered by Obama’s message of “Change.” The message was so powerful, that others started to spin off on it. Recently, presumed GOP nominee Senator John McCain of Arizona called himself the candidate of “right change.” House Republicans desperate to reform the current image of the party launched the “change you deserve” message.
Obama had outmaneuvered Clinton with the DNC delegate rules. Clinton was looking for a quick victory. However, a quick victory is virtually impossible with the way the delegate rules of the DNC are applied. The rules are not winner-take-all, unlike the rules of the RNC. Due to the RNC rules, McCain ended up as the presumptive GOP nominee.
If the RNC rules were similar to the DNC rules as former Arkansas Governor and former GOP hopeful Mike Huckabee had suggested they should be, McCain may not be the presumptive GOP nominee right now.
Obama knew the DNC rules and ran a solid campaign. Clinton’s campaign was shaken up several times. One could say that Clinton got reckless and overconfident. A fatal flaw of Clinton’s campaign was underestimating the “inexperienced” Obama. Obama had won more contests than Clinton. In many of the contests Clinton had won, she barely defeated Obama. Clinton did win major states; but, she kept losing people to either controversy or Obama.
With funds, Clinton ended up with at least $20 Million in debt. Obama raised more funds than Clinton had. While Clinton won Pennsylvania, she lost donors and fundraisers to Obama. Recently, former donors to US President George W. Bush had come to join Obama’s side.
Overall, Obama had led Clinton in the delegate count. Clinton’s argument did not carried little to no weight towards the superdelegates.
In short, Clinton got reckless and careless.
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