Florida and the show goes on.

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. 

If you want to read about the race to get endorsments from the Kennedy family read this op-ed piece in the NYT or the analysis of an Obama tv ad. 

Watch the NYT video with a very short analysis of the Florida primary. 

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. 

The state of the union.

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). 

South Carolina

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?

New York Times article on the S.C. primary.

Answers to the final exam

Dear students, 

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. 

Best wishes, 

AM

This weekend's results; Nevada and South Carolina

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 ! 

GOP race opening even wider

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. 

Read or listen to NPR's report.

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. 

So the next significant contest  for the GOP is South Carolina on Saturday. The candidate that has won S.C. has always gone on to win the GOP nomination since 1980.

 Will it be the case this year? How much momentum will the winner get? 

In South Carolina there are 3 types of Republican voters : 

1. evangelical voters : probably most attracted by Mike Huckabee or Fred Thompson
2. 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)
3. fiscal conservatives : they could either go for Romney or McCain

Find out more and watch a N.Y. Times video. 

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 : 

1. John Edwards was born in S.C. and was a Senator representing a neighbouring State : N.C.
2. Hillary Clinton's support is very strong among African-American women in particular and she is counting on their votes
3. 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.

Michigan votes today

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.