The Anti-Charm Offensive
By GAIL COLLINS
New York Times
LAS VEGAS
For a while this week, the Democratic presidential race seemed to have morphed into one of those movies like “Singin’ in the Rain.” Two guys, a gal and an adventure. What a glorious feeling; they’re happy again.
“It’s great that we have this young man from the South who grew up in a mill town, an African-American who has so much to give our country, and we have a woman. This is good news for our country,” Hillary Clinton told a rally of her supporters after the good-vibrations Nevada debate.
(John Edwards always gets the short end of these formulations — the Donald O’Connor role. “Son of a millworker” does not offer quite the same scope as first woman or first African-American. Plus, the young man is 54.)
It didn’t last. By yesterday Barack Obama was telling his supporters in Henderson, Nev., that the Clintonites were misrepresenting his position with a flier that claimed his Social Security plan was “a trillion-dollar tax hike for hard-working families.” Still, the amity was a nice interlude.
Clinton and Obama both seemed a little chastened, or frightened, by the raw racial feelings they’d inadvertently stirred up in the near-hysteria that surrounded the New Hampshire primary. The debate, a thoughtful and polite discussion of the issues, didn’t make for political drama, but it did remind you that these three can be rather likable people.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
LAS VEGAS
For a while this week, the Democratic presidential race seemed to have morphed into one of those movies like “Singin’ in the Rain.” Two guys, a gal and an adventure. What a glorious feeling; they’re happy again.
“It’s great that we have this young man from the South who grew up in a mill town, an African-American who has so much to give our country, and we have a woman. This is good news for our country,” Hillary Clinton told a rally of her supporters after the good-vibrations Nevada debate.
(John Edwards always gets the short end of these formulations — the Donald O’Connor role. “Son of a millworker” does not offer quite the same scope as first woman or first African-American. Plus, the young man is 54.)
It didn’t last. By yesterday Barack Obama was telling his supporters in Henderson, Nev., that the Clintonites were misrepresenting his position with a flier that claimed his Social Security plan was “a trillion-dollar tax hike for hard-working families.” Still, the amity was a nice interlude.
Clinton and Obama both seemed a little chastened, or frightened, by the raw racial feelings they’d inadvertently stirred up in the near-hysteria that surrounded the New Hampshire primary. The debate, a thoughtful and polite discussion of the issues, didn’t make for political drama, but it did remind you that these three can be rather likable people.
(Continued here.)
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