Actually, the phone is not ringing. It's closer to 5 a.m., and I just walked into the house after spending the evening at the television station, posting election stuff.
I don't know if you were tracking results. On Debate Night, I spent a lot of time being obnoxious on Jenny's blog. Tonight was a lot more serious. I had a lot more races. I had candidates to call. I really hadn't been by the station to set anything up with them.
Above: Clinton and Obama talk about the fact I didn't get any sleep on Tuesday night. In this picture, Barack is suggesting I get a real big raise. Hillary is more concerned with national defense.
But how could you see Barack Obama drawing crowds in the thousands to Town Lake and Reunion Arena and every other venue in the state and still see him lose the state?
The simple answer that I was told was that Hispanics showed up and African-Americans did not. I haven't seen the numbers out of the races to confirm that. Although we wondered aloud in the newsroom tonight, Candra and I, how you can get the stars any more aligned to motivate African-Americans. You've got an eloquent African-American man with a populist message and a huge following and plenty of publicity... and you don't go vote?
I have to say, from the beginning, I've always thought that we had a farce of a campaign down here in Texas. I had conversations with a number of Dem operatives here ...
While all the local media were salivating over the huge rallies and thousands of people, I was thinking that these two candidates just didn't act serious enough. Now, I'm going to have a counter view on this theory of mine, but my theory was that we had the candidates here, but they just weren't saying much about Texas.
They talked... but never in specifics. They reached out to me, but not with a great deal of creativity. They sent surrogates and actors, but they didn't seem ready to dig into any real thought about the particulars of what is going on in Texas.
I guess I thought this was best illustrated by a luncheon I attended hosted by Obama. He sent a surrogate -- an economist -- to talk Obama talk. And so the first question out of the shoot is from a local Realtor. He wants to know what Obama's plan was for Texas on the foreclosure market, and specifically the fact that while the rest of the country is going bust, Austin is still generating a housing market.
So while Hillary is proposing a freeze on loans, and Obama is talking about a big bailout pool aimed at those in trouble, there is nothing in either plan that addresses an Austin. And I guess it just struck me that this economist -- and I hate to generalize him to be the entire campaign -- just wasn't prepared for variables like Texas.
I don't know if you were tracking results. On Debate Night, I spent a lot of time being obnoxious on Jenny's blog. Tonight was a lot more serious. I had a lot more races. I had candidates to call. I really hadn't been by the station to set anything up with them.
Above: Clinton and Obama talk about the fact I didn't get any sleep on Tuesday night. In this picture, Barack is suggesting I get a real big raise. Hillary is more concerned with national defense.But how could you see Barack Obama drawing crowds in the thousands to Town Lake and Reunion Arena and every other venue in the state and still see him lose the state?
The simple answer that I was told was that Hispanics showed up and African-Americans did not. I haven't seen the numbers out of the races to confirm that. Although we wondered aloud in the newsroom tonight, Candra and I, how you can get the stars any more aligned to motivate African-Americans. You've got an eloquent African-American man with a populist message and a huge following and plenty of publicity... and you don't go vote?
I have to say, from the beginning, I've always thought that we had a farce of a campaign down here in Texas. I had conversations with a number of Dem operatives here ...
While all the local media were salivating over the huge rallies and thousands of people, I was thinking that these two candidates just didn't act serious enough. Now, I'm going to have a counter view on this theory of mine, but my theory was that we had the candidates here, but they just weren't saying much about Texas.
They talked... but never in specifics. They reached out to me, but not with a great deal of creativity. They sent surrogates and actors, but they didn't seem ready to dig into any real thought about the particulars of what is going on in Texas.
I guess I thought this was best illustrated by a luncheon I attended hosted by Obama. He sent a surrogate -- an economist -- to talk Obama talk. And so the first question out of the shoot is from a local Realtor. He wants to know what Obama's plan was for Texas on the foreclosure market, and specifically the fact that while the rest of the country is going bust, Austin is still generating a housing market.
So while Hillary is proposing a freeze on loans, and Obama is talking about a big bailout pool aimed at those in trouble, there is nothing in either plan that addresses an Austin. And I guess it just struck me that this economist -- and I hate to generalize him to be the entire campaign -- just wasn't prepared for variables like Texas.
And that's the way it has seemed ever since then. Hillary sends me health care flyers but I don't know how she feels about increasing regulations of places like the BP refinery. Obama talked in Beaumont about NCLB, but I've heard a lot of diffuse talk about vouchers.
There are a couple of theories I heard on this one: Harold Cook, for instance, said no one planned for this contingency and no one really should. Six months ago, people stood before a table, they looked at the money they had and they decided a strategy. Look at Giuliani ... You know his Florida strategy didn't work. Look at all the early states that Obama picked up because Hillary spent no money, then you had a pretty good idea of her strategy.
And Obama's populist form of fund-raising worked well for him. Hillary hit hard and early with the help of big-money donors. But those donors eventually dry up. Obama, on the other hand, had many many many individuals. So he had an almost unlimited amount of funding.
So you come into Texas Obama a bit more flush and with the help of MoveOn.org, and Hillary scrambling to try to get precinct captains in place across the state.
For me, it was terribly frustrating. I looked for issues... I didn't see much. Kelly Fero has a name for it: the Potemkin Village. The candidates give every appearance of caring, but they're really sending surrogates. They hold their rallies, but it's not especially important how many people show up. You end up sending Bill to a lot of places.
I think Hillary all but put this strategy on the table this morning when she left Dallas. Some of the media thought she backed off of winning both primaries. What I think she did was confirm her bottom line on strategy as it had been all along: Every viable candidate has to win Ohio. I just have to split Texas.
And look how well it worked out for Hillary, at least at this point in time. I found the results really stunning, and I can't wait to look at some of the sub-areas of the state.
What I found less ingenious in tonight's discussion was the fact that Hillary used her "I won and thank you" e-mail to solicit money. That went over about as well with me as the "It's 3 a.m. and the phone rings..." ad went over with independents.
There's just something about Hillary that grates, that seems supercilious.
There are a couple of theories I heard on this one: Harold Cook, for instance, said no one planned for this contingency and no one really should. Six months ago, people stood before a table, they looked at the money they had and they decided a strategy. Look at Giuliani ... You know his Florida strategy didn't work. Look at all the early states that Obama picked up because Hillary spent no money, then you had a pretty good idea of her strategy.
And Obama's populist form of fund-raising worked well for him. Hillary hit hard and early with the help of big-money donors. But those donors eventually dry up. Obama, on the other hand, had many many many individuals. So he had an almost unlimited amount of funding.
So you come into Texas Obama a bit more flush and with the help of MoveOn.org, and Hillary scrambling to try to get precinct captains in place across the state.
For me, it was terribly frustrating. I looked for issues... I didn't see much. Kelly Fero has a name for it: the Potemkin Village. The candidates give every appearance of caring, but they're really sending surrogates. They hold their rallies, but it's not especially important how many people show up. You end up sending Bill to a lot of places.
I think Hillary all but put this strategy on the table this morning when she left Dallas. Some of the media thought she backed off of winning both primaries. What I think she did was confirm her bottom line on strategy as it had been all along: Every viable candidate has to win Ohio. I just have to split Texas.
And look how well it worked out for Hillary, at least at this point in time. I found the results really stunning, and I can't wait to look at some of the sub-areas of the state.
What I found less ingenious in tonight's discussion was the fact that Hillary used her "I won and thank you" e-mail to solicit money. That went over about as well with me as the "It's 3 a.m. and the phone rings..." ad went over with independents.
There's just something about Hillary that grates, that seems supercilious.
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