Welcome to the blog created to enhance the American Studies Lectures and Seminars that I give at the University of Cergy Pontoise. You will find links to the google group where I have posted the material you need for the class and links to articles, videos and audio documents of interest.
Enjoy your visit and feel free to leave comments.
Aude de Mézerac
On the Republican side, the Florida primary was a crucial test for Rudy Giuliani's campaign : he failed to deliver the goods and has now dropped out of the campaign. McCain won all the Florida delegates since in that State the winner takes all rule applies to the primary as in several other GOP primaries. This means a big boost for McCain's campaign who still needs to raise significant money to compete against Mitt Romney next week and for the rest of the season.
Giulianni dropped out of the race and has announced that he would endorse McCain shortly.
On the Democratic side, the primary was won by Hillary Clinton, but this is really a bit of an empty victory since Florida, just like Michigan has been stripped of its delegate by the DNC for holding its primary early.
John Edwards has probably taken stock of his defeat on Saturday and has announced that he was no longer running for the nomination. For now he has not endorsed another candidate.
On the picture of McCain and his wife you may notice that he needs help to raise his arms high, this is one the consequences of his having his two arms broken, and being hung by the arms and beaten at the time when he was a prisonner of war in Vietnam.
Last night, George Bush delivered his last "State of the Union Speech". This is an annual ritual established since the very beginning of the Republic. The president presents the policies and priorities of the year ahead. This tradition evolved over time but is rooted in article 2 section 3 of the constitution as you may well remember.
For the video and transcript of the speech : click here.
For a substantial summary and analysis : visit NPR'. You can download the speech by Bush, the Democratic response and the radio coverage from that page.
Or visit the NYT's page find out more ( summary and critical assessments).
Last night the South Carolina Democrats threw their weight behind Barack Obama in a massive display of support. He won 55% of the vote to Clinton's 27% and Edwards 19%. How did did he win a State in which the Clintons seemed quite strong a couple weeks back? John Edwards, who was born in S.C. and who won the State in 2004 was also defeated.
Apparently Obama's message and the viability of his candidacy won over the first Democratic consituency of South Carolina : the Black voters, 80% of them cast their ballots for him. They had not been certain that Obama was worth rooting for before the race began, but after his victory in Iowa and his strong standing in the face of attacks from the Clinton camp during last week's debate ( watch the video of the debate), he emerged as a strong figure capable of winning the nomination, maybe the election and bringing much yearned for change to American politics. Remember that the issue of race was at the center of the campaign for the last couple weeks, it's very interesting to see how it plays out now that Barack Obama has won the support of a huge majority of Blacks and only 25% of whites in a State. Obama is clearly running as a post racial candidate, what I mean is that he is the first African-American not to run as "the Black candidate", putting forth an agenda based on racial issues. Very interestingly, the S.C. crowd listening to the speech chanted : "race don't matter". Is that really the case? Can the Senator from Illinois continue to appeal to white voters after being so overwhelmingly endorsed by African-American voters? He has been careful to present himself as the candidate for change, regardless of race. Will this victory force him to define himself and his candidacy, more than he previously has, in terms of race? There certainly is a lot to look forward to. When Bill Clinton commented on Obama's victory in S.C., he compared his feat to the victory won by Jesse Jackson there in the 1980s. He was an African-American and a civil rights activist clearly running as the Black candidate for the Democratic nomination. Clinton wants to define Obama as such a candidate, appealing to a narrow racial base and thus tries to discredit his posture as a "post-racial" American. Read more.
I have been comparing the speeches by Hillary Clinton (watch her N.H. victory speech) and Barack Obama and I find it quite interesting to see what each of them mean when they use the word "we". Basically when Hillary says "we" she means "me" or "me and my administration" (or maybe even "me and Bill"!) and what makes this clear is that she uses "you" as opposed to "we". When she says "you" she is usually referring to her supporters, the ordinary Americans etc... When Barack Obama says "we" he means "me and you" or "me and my supporters". And he pits "we" against "them", that is the cynics, the washington politicians, the pundits all his "opponents" ( refer to my previous post on his speech to see how he uses the opposition to his own advantage). This is the first part of Obama's S.C. victory speech :
Here is the second part of the speech :
His rhetoric, the rythm of his speech and the lexicon he resorts to are clear indicators of his sources of inspiration and the tradition to which he is the self-proclaimed heir : the peaceful and aspirational branch of the civil rights movement, best represented by Dr. Martin Luther King (as pointed out by A.on the comment page). For instance he declares that he did not see a black S.C. and a white S.C. but that he saw S.C., this rings a bit like the achievement of the dream of unity of MLK who called for a country where "little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers." Barack Obama also reminds his audience of his work alongside white Americans and Latinos as an activist and a politician. Listen, watch or read the I have a dream speech. Most symptomatic is the last minutes of his speech (starting 7:30') when he says "we take this journey across this great country, a country we love, with the message we've carried from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire, from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast" which clearly rang like the end of the "I have a dream speech" :
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. (...) But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi
And finally I find that the way the crowd reacts to his words is also clearly remindful of MLK's speeches and Southern Black preachers.
What's next? There is a big contest coming up on Tuesday: guess why it is so important for the GOP and not so much so for the Democrats?
I have typed up the answers I was expecting at the exam. The document is on-line on the google group as usual. Hopefully this will clarify what almost all of you missed : the real interest of the text and the hidden agenda of the author.
I was quite happy with many of your papers : some students might be disappointed but on the whole you did rather well : the average is around 10,5/20. The marks range from 17,5 to 4,5.
I will answer any questions you may have by email or on the comment page of the blog.
Let's start with Saturday's caucus in Nevada. The result was very predictable on the Republican side : Romney was almost the only candidate that campaigned there and he won the contest, partly thanks to a massive support from fellow Mormons. He chose to concentrate on that State for two reasons : first he was not making any headway in S.C. where all the other candidates were vying for a decisive victory. Secondly, he is trying to get as many delegates as possible : so he is concentrating on races that are easier to win even though they are less hyped up by the media. For now this strategy has served him well : he is ahead in terms of delegates but he hasn't won any tough battle.
On the Democratic side, the caucus' results were a bit more surprising, proving the polls wrong again. The pollters predicted an Obama victory (he had the support of severalmajor unions) but this probably fired up the Clinton supporters and she ended up winning a close race. John Edwards didn't do very well in the caucus, only taking 4% of the vote.
So far Hillary Clinton is ahead of the Democratic race. See full results.
The next extremely important State is South Carolina, next Saturday (refer to previous post) where each candidates really wants/needs to break through.
The other exiting contest of the week end was South Carolina for the Republican side. McCain won narrowly over Huckabee. Remember that McCain's 2000 campaign had literally died in S.C. and that this primary is known as a national test since 1980 ("S.C. the GOP Kingmaking primary"). Will it predict the final outcome this time?
I wouldn't be too sure considering that the self proclaimed "national frontrunner" Rudy Giuliani was not competing there and has hatched a totally different strategy (win Florida and come into Super Tuesday with that momentum and a nationwide campaign).
2008 is very different from all the previous election : an open race, no real front-runner, no candidate able to appeal to evangelicals and fiscal conservatives and defence hawks.
Some people are clearly out of the race : Fred Thompson, for instance, is going to have to get out of the race after a very disappointing showing in S.C. Apparently he wasn't very engaged in the race, some people said he was not running for President but walking.
If were lucky, the suspense might continue even after February 5 !
With Mitt Romney beating McCain in the Michigan primary, the GOP race becomes more unpredictable than ever. So far 4 States have voted and 3 candidates have won these contests, and the national front-runner former mayor of N.Y. Rudy Giuliani has not even come in at a honourable place in Iowa, New Hampshire, Wyoming or Michigan. He is betting on winning the Florida primary on the 29th of January, this would give him momentum for Super Tuesday and let him run a national campaign rather than a local one.
If you are still having trouble remembering the candidates and their stances, Laura Pasqualetto sent me a very good presentation of the candidates. I have posted it on the google group. Check it out and download it.
Will it be the case this year? How much momentum will the winner get?
In South Carolina there are 3 types of Republican voters :
evangelical voters : probably most attracted by Mike Huckabee or Fred Thompson
military personel and veterans : probably inclined to vote for McCain ( who was a prisonner of war -POW- for four years in Vietnam and who is very knowledgeable in defence matters)
fiscal conservatives : they could either go for Romney or McCain
On the Democratic side the S.C. primary (January 26) is going to be just as important : the race is extremely tight with all three main candidates having a chance of winning :
John Edwards was born in S.C. and was a Senator representing a neighbouring State : N.C.
Hillary Clinton's support is very strong among African-American women in particular and she is counting on their votes
Barack Obama is also courting the Black vote in S.C. and might be able to get it now that he appears electable.
Race and gender issues are the subtext of the fight between Clinton and Obama, even more so after the statement made a couple days ago by Clinton who declared that Lyndon B. Johnson was at least as important in getting the civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965 through as was Martin Luther King. She has now qualified her comment but the harm was done. Visit her website and see how she is paying hommage to MLK.
Maybe this whole thing was completely blown out of proportion by the media: that's what Jon Stewart, from The Daily Show argues.
The Michigan primary is an important event for the GOP : indeed this is the first state in which the economic questions have been at the fore-front of the debate, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates on these issues. Michigan is a State that has lost many jobs to globalisation especially in its most important sector : the automobile industry. You will note that globalisation and the suitable responses to the economic changes that it has triggered is now at the heart of the campaigns of the Republican candidates. If McCain wins the primary this will make him stronger going in the crucial primary of South Carolina, taking place on the 19th and in which he is unlikely to score well. There is much less at stake for the Democrats. The State of Michigan has been "punished" by the DNC (Democratic National Committee) for holding its primary before Super Tuesday : their delegates will not count and the candidates were not allowed to campaign there. Only 3 names are on the ballot. Find out the peculiarities of the Michigan primary and what is at stake for each party.
As promised a couple days ago, here are a few words on Obama's victory speech after the Iowa caucus.
As one of you noticed Barack Obama uses a rhetoric and a rythm that echoes the way preachers speak, just like MLK was inspired by Baptist sermons. For instance he uses a lot of repetitions : "you have done what N.H. can do in four days, what America can do in 2008", "we are one nation, we are one people". In terms of content, it's interesting that he also uses inspirational words : hope, unity, honesty, and change of course, which is the motto of his campaign ( in the background you hear people chanting : "we want change". And its only later that he mentions policy without really getting into specifics ( health care, unemployment, tax cuts for the middle class, promising to "free this nation from tyranny of oil", war in Irak). It's a lot more about what he calls his "vision for America" and his belief that "in the face of impossible odds people who love this country can change it". Obama says the peopple who have voted for them have "torn down barriers". This reminds me of the kind of rhetoric you would hear during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, at least coming from the non-violent branch of the movement who relied on similar concepts and hopes for a better society, who aimed at fulfilling the true nature of America. The way he delivers this speech is extremely inspiring and emotional, let's take a quick look at the content. I would like to emphasize the way he casts himself and his supporters as people who have overcome great antagonism. They have won in the face of adversity, they had ennemies who apparently said that "this could not be done", they have overcome the "cynics". I'm not sure of whom he is referring to when he says all this. Is it Hillary Clinton and her supporters ( she has attaqued him for political reasons because she thinks she is more prepared for the job and because she does not agree on some of his policies not because she is an ennemy of hope and change!), or the press, or the political pundits? Basically he is positionning himself as the hero of the American people who fights the political system of Washington which has appeared as corrupt and has alienated the voters. And I do wonder if it's not simply a way to make his victory even more outstanding and unique. Is he creating artificial ennemies over which he has pacifically won? The last point I'd like to make is on the very interesting way he defines his victory in the Iowa caucus as a historic moment , as the starting point of a new era (video : 9'30). "This was the moment when the improbable beat what Washington has always said was inevitable". He repeats the phrases "this was the moment" and "this was the place". What is striking is that he compares himself and his campaign to the Patriots who freed America from the British, to the militants of the Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery and Selma (video : 12'00) he describes his life story as typically American and himself as the embodiment of the American hero. So he uses historical references and the key moments of the past to prop up his victory (limited and small) as a new defining moment in American history. Basically, if he does win the nomination and the presidency this speech might be studied as the beginning of it all ! The final is grand : "Together ordinary people can do extraordinary things because we are not a collection of Red States and Blue States we are the United States of America. And in this moment, in this election we are ready to believe again"
This week's edition of The Economist is about the American primaries and offers several artcles and profiles of the candidates. You can either buy the printed edition or read it on the web :
John McCain's victory in the New Hamphire primary was predicted by the polls and might give momentum to his bid for the presidency. It's another blow to Mitt Romney who comes in second again although he had campaigned hard in the State. Mitt Romney, however, did win the Wyoming caucus on the 5th of January : so far he has two silver medals and a gold, as he likes to put it (remember he organized the Olympic Games of Salt Lake City). His campaign has yet to win a major primary but, as long as he remains a strong second, he may become a reasonable choice in a race with no clear front-runner. Let's see what happens in Nevada and South Carolina : will the evangelical voters back Huckabee again? How will Giuliani's antiterrorist message go down? Will the moderate, straight-talking McCain attract as many fiscal conservatives as he did in N.H.?
The last polls had been predicting another win for Barack Obama and yet he trails Hillary Clinton by three percentage points. Why? The most obvious reason is that the Clintons have always been strong among N.H. Democrats. In 1992, Bill Clinton's results in Iowa had been very poor but he came in second in N.H. and interpreted this as a victory, calling himself the "comeback kid" and went on to win the primaries and the election. He and his wife thus have a particular standing in N.H. Hillary Clinton campaigned hard in N.H., spending a lot of money and time there and that's probably another reason for her victory. There are very few African-American voters in N.H. The day before the primary, when asked how she coped with the campaign, Hillary Clinton broke up a bit and showed a lot of emotion, will this have influenced the voters, especially the women who supported her massively in N.H. after letting her down in Iowa? Here's this video that has been watched over and over again on youtube and elsewhere. Was this unusual show of emotion prepared or really spontaneous? Clinton's victory launches her campaign back into the fight which seems as open as ever... We really have to watch South Carolina, a State in which Clinton, Obama and Edwards all have claims to. Edwards was born there, Clinton has always been popular with African-American Democrats( Bill Clinton was sometimes called "the first Black President") and Obama might be able to attract this constituency now that he has emerged as a very electable candidate. Watch and see....
What does winning the Iowa caucus mean for Barack Obama? Obama won thanks to a massive ground organization (required to "get out the vote" = make people go to the caucus/polling station ) and the enthousiasm of young voters & first time caucus-goers, he also won most of the women's votes. All this is bad news for Hillary Clinton who came out third to John Edwards and seemed to appeal most to the elderly population. However she was never very strong in Iowa and her campaign even leaked a memo a couple months ago suggesting that Hillary Clinton should "skip" Iowa, because she was not very popular in that State and would have a hard time luring voters away from John Edwards and Barack Obama. As an example of this strategy, former mayor Giuliani "skipped" Iowa : he spent very little time and money in the State, as he was aware that he had little chance of doing well in the caucus. So the energy and the momentum seems to be flowing to Obama's campaign and makes him look like a very viable candidate indeed. New Hampshire will be the second State to vote on January 8. The Clintons are very strong in this eastern liberal State, so Obama's campaign will certainly be tested there. If he comes out a strong second he would be able to maintain momentum for the Florida contest and Super Tuesday. In these States what will prove determining will probably be the young voters and the African-American vote, for now, deeply divided between Clinton and Obama. As Obama appears more likely to win he will probably rally a lot of support. Moreover, despite his lack of experience he might appear more "electable" than Clinton who remains a divise figure and exites the hatred of Republicans.
Barack Obama's victory in Iowa may well be the prelude to a wave of national support capable of displacing Hillary Clinton as the inevitable candidate. In short, his victory in Iowa contributes to opening the Democratic race.
What about Mike Huckabee's victory? What does that change in the Republican field? The former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister won the caucus thanks to the dynamic support of the evangelical movement. The religious right is actually scoring a bit of a comeback after months of lethargy and dissatisfaction with the Republican candidates ( Giuliani is thrice-divorced, Mitt Romney is a Mormon, Fred Thompson is also a divorcee and may have been involved in pro-choice lobbying, and his campaign never caught fire). Huckabee might gain momentum from this victory and attract the Southern social conservatives (South Carolina voteson January 19 and several Southern States vote on "Super Tuesday" February 5) and thus become a credible threat to the front-runners. But Huckabee's victory is probably less important than Mitt Romney's defeat. What do I mean by that? Mitt Romney expected to win the State and his dissappointing result ( 24% of the vote to Huckabee's 35%) actually sends a very negative signal : even though he spent a lot of money on groung organization and on ads (including negaative ads) he did not convince the Iowans of the strength of his candidacy. His second place might well have a significant impact in the primary in New Hampshire. In the polls, he is neck to neck with John McCain. His "defeat" might turn voters away from him and hand a victory to his opponent. This would probably have an impact on the rest of the primary campaign, opening the race to Giuliani in Florida, which is the State on which he is counting to lauch his campaign ( January 29). With such a scenario, Super Tuesday would really be exciting. To sum it up, Huckabee's surprise victory in Iowa opens wide the Republican race.
Your reactions to this are very welcome. good luck to all/break a leg!
Next on the blog : analyzing Obama's Iowa victory speech. Does it remind you of anything? Check it out :
I was lucky or right or both to mention the last DesMoines Register poll heralding a victory for Obama and Huckabee in the caucus! Now the question is : how much momentum does this give the two challengers? To go about answering this tricky question, I think you have to take a careful look at the constituency of each of these candidates and then go on and weigh how much this can influence New Hampshire primary voters and those who will take part in the following primaries. Basically who voted for Obama/Huckabee? Are these people likely to be as successful in the rest of the country as they are in Iowa? What do you think? I'll be back later with my prespective on the issue.
I truly wish you a great 2008 and many successes both academic and personal.
Here is a last update on the primaries : a new poll from Iowa seems to indicate that the front-runners in that State are Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee whereas most of the polls had the top three Democrats and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee in a tie. What does this mean? How can it influence caucus goers? How will it play out on the national scene? For more questions and some tentative answers visit NPR and listen to the 4 minute report. The suspense will end the day after tomorrow (January 4) when we hear about the results of the Iowa caucuses.
As promised during the lecture, here are a few videos from the past :
Do you remember George Bush's 1988 tax pledge?
In 1991, the excise tax on gasoline went up after a battle between Congress and the President leading to a shut down of the federal governement. To understand how the federal governement can shut down I recommend episode 7 and 8 of The West Wing Season 5: "Separation of Powers" and "Shutdown". Of course the entire series is extremely helpful to understand American politics and political idealism.
During the 1992 presidential campaign Bill Clinton used this broken promise against George Bush who was running for a second term.
A couple months before the presidential election, the aquittal of the police officers involved in the Rodney King beating triggered massive rioting and looting in Los Angeles. Here is the news report of MAy 1, 1992.
I have just seen Gone Baby Gone : it's an excellent movie although at times quite distressing. If you enjoyed Casey Affleck's performance in The Assassination of Jesse James by the traitor Bod Ford, you will undoubtedly like him here as well.
