Obama as McGovern?

You are a Democrat on the brink of your party's Presidential nomination, as long as you can calm down any late fears about electability. Which previous Democratic Presidential nominees would you be keenest to avoid being compared to?

I would suggest, in reverse order ...

5. Adlai Stevenson
4. John Kerry
3. Walter Mondale
2. Michael Dukakis
1. George McGovern

This is a pretty competitive race. I've let Adlai Stevenson pip Al Gore for the final spot. Stevenson lost twice. And, whatever the weaknesses of his campaign, Gore won. Sort of. Hubert Humphrey has faded from the frame.

EJ Dionne was worrying about whether Obama resembles Adlai Stevenson on Tuesday. Now John Judis asks if he has something of the McGovern factor.

if you look at Obama's vote in Pennsylvania, you begin to see the outlines of the old George McGovern coalition that haunted the Democrats during the '70s and '80s, led by college students and minorities.

Is Obama turning from a candidate with the ability to transcend the usual electoral blocs into a classic latte liberal insurgency Democrat?

Jonathan Chait has fired off a response to Judis, the most important point of which is that "Extrapolating from primary dynamics to general election dynamics is very dicey business".

However, it was not a good idea for Obama's campaign strategist David Axelrod to make a similar point in a way which could sound as though the campaign is conceding the white working-class vote to John McCain.

The white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections, going back even to the Clinton years. This is not new that Democratic candidates don’t rely solely on these votes

Jay Cost's analysis suggests that Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvanian numbers don't change the voting dynamics enough from previous primaries. Still, the victory gives Clinton the opportunity of gaining momentum. The TV news narrative is about who won and who lost, rather than the expectations benchmarks of inside the beltway. That could make some difference in the next primaries. But she is some way short of giving the super-delegates reasonable cause to change the result.

Clinton's problem is that probably means turning up the volume again. But the charge that she went too negative in Pennsylvania was not confined to the media, and seems to have cost her votes.

The Clinton-supporting New York Times editorial page criticism of her 'low road to victory captures the fears of many Democrats that the last few weeks have made both candidates less attractive:

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

There was a fascinating set of interviews with the 'white house losers' - including Dukakis, Mondale and McGovern - in the Guardian's Weekend magazine at the end of last month. The next month may have a crucial impact on whether Obama can avoid joining their 'misery circle'.

The marathon continues

It's something of a relief that the voters are finally getting another say in the Pennsylvania primary. The six weeks since the last primary have not been good for the Democrats, as the race has got more negative, and more trivial (not helped by the much critcised ABC candidates' debate)

Obama has firmed up as favourite for the nomination. But the long slog has exposed some weaknesses: his 'bitter' comments could prove a storm in a teacup or, in retrospect, seem like a clear clue about a Dukakis or Kerry style weakness. (EJ Dionne puts it well in a column asking whether Obama is JFK or Adlai Stevenson, or perhaps both. (It is an interesting contrast to today's politics of self-destruction to think that the Democrats ran the same candidate twice against Eisenhower).

Hillary Clinton is expected to win tonight. But the expectations game has her needing something like a 10 point victory. A race where she is favourite is more dangerous for her, since her campaign depends on achieving an 'away win' - overturning the odds in a state which Obama would have won - both to try to catch up on the popular vote, or put the issue in doubt for the super-delegates.

Obama seems to have weathered the storms without looking like imploding.

The excellent Jay Cost looks at the conventional wisdom and challenges some of it, defending Hillary Clinton's decision to stay in until the buzzer sounds.

Texas ad wars: that 3am call

Hillary refused in the last candidate's debate to say that Obama was not ready to be Commander in Chief - wisely, as giving that line to McCain would also have enraged Democrats in the primary. Still, that is the theme of her latest Texas campaign spot, where Obama would not keep your children safe if the phone rang in the middle of the night. (ad script; watch the ad).

It may perhaps prove the closest that the Clinton campaign has come to an iconic ad. But there are several problems with it.

* Its 3am in the campaign too - and this seems too late. The Clinton campaign have never offered a substantive contrast on national security, beyond the 'knows world leaders' (from time as first lady)' claim to experience. There was a debate to be had about national security last summer. But Clinton somehow ducked it, while Obama was bullishly confident about taking on the conventional wisdom on national security.

* The attack plays straight to an Obama USP and Clinton negative - making the right call on Iraq. He has his one national security contrast - for Clinton or McCain - buttoned down, and it plays particularly well to the primary audience. And his campaign have been quick off the mark turning his fightback comments into a super-rapid rebuttal pastiche. In cutting to the candidate and the Oval office earlier, the attack response has a positive, Presidential feel.

* On first seeing it, I immediately thought of the infamous LBJ Daisy Girl 1964 attack on Goldwater, though that was a different 'whose finger on the trigger' argument to argue that the world was not safe in the hands of his opponent. However, as Karen Tumelty points out, its a direct copy of a Mondale '84 ad.

Perhaps the lack of originality doesn't matter much. But Mondale lost in a 49 state landslide. Meanwhile, EJ Dionne is the latest commentator to think there's something Reaganesque about the positive Obama appeal.

Obama as Icarus?

An Obama nomination isn't inevitable, yet. But Hillary Clinton's final, best answer in the Texas candidate's debate last night acknowledged the possibility of defeat. This was an important signal. Clinton will still fight on to win, but now within the limits demanded by partisan loyalty. (But what alternative is there when a desperate bid to go nuclear would almost certainly backfire?).

The insurgent is now the clear frontrunner and Democrats have a final chance to scrutinize the potential vulnerability of an Obama bid: could he really go toe-to-toe with John McCain in November and win? Will Higham of the think-tank Demos dreads an Obama candidacy, articulating the fear that Obama 'is a political Icarus who's just now nearing the beating sun'.

I think there are three big fears about Obama's General Election resilience. And each threatens to evoke recurring Democrat nightmares from the ghost of elections past.

The first is that Obama wlll prove 'achingly vulnerable' (as Higham puts it) to the negative politics of personal destruction which have dominated and polarized US politics for a generation. Unlike the Clintons, that 'vast right-wing conspiracy' just haven't gotten around to him yet.

The second is that 'outing' Obama as a liberal, not a moderate, could damage him just as it destroyed Michael Dukakis in 1988.

The third is that McCain versus Obama would expose the Democrat vulnerability on national security, so that Obama follows John Kerry in 2004 in being beaten in an election which seemed to be the Democrats to lose.

Any one of these threats could prove fatal to Obama's White House bid. Yet the alternative - audacious, hopeful - view is that a Clinton candidacy which would replay once again the Democrats' nightmares, in the hope of exorcising them, and an Obama candidacy which might transcend them.

Indeed, the Clinton campaign essentially accepts these Democratic vulnerabilities as fixed, operates within them, and attempts to win despite them:

On negative politics, that means treating the war wounds of having been 'vetted' by a generation of partisan wars as a credential. This means accepting polarisation as a given, mobilising your own base, and hope to shift one or two decisive states from red to blue.

On policy and ideology, it means triangulating within the accepted centrist constraints, while persuading your own side not to foster false hopes.

On national security, it means being acutely aware of the Democratic vulnerability and try to neutralize the issue. Don't let the Republicans open up any space to your right, and try to get the campaign back onto the economic and healthcare.

This approach was tried and failed in 2000 and 2004. Gore and Kerry made avoidable tactical mistakes and could have won those knife-edge contests. The Clinton campaign fears that any alternative approach risks forgetting the lessons which enabled the Democrats to win in 1992 and 1996. But Obama rightly believes that the Democratic Presidential campaign playbook now needs to be rewritten for different times.

I believe Obama is well placed to fend off negative personal attacks with style and grace. John McCain is much less likely to fight the type of Bush-Rove campaign of which he was himself the victim in South Carolina in 2000. Might we be heading for a deep clash over issues and future visions for America in which each candidate respects the other's integrity? That may sound naïve, yet eschewing the politics of personal destruction will be in the enlightened self-interest of both candidates in an Obama-McCain race. It would damage McCain's 'straight talk' brand of integrity and Obama's appeal to a new politics. (Obama called McCain 'a genuine American hero' in his victory speech on Tuesday, before contrasting their views on the economy and foreign policy).

So far, this has been the year that going negative failed. (Sorry Mitt, sorry Rudy, sorry Bill Clinton too). Of course, Obama can expect Republican surrogates to attempt to 'swift boat' him, but his biography long ago put potentially damaging material on the record on his own terms. His entire campaign frame has built in resilience to the 'same old politics'.

Could his liberalism be more damaging to Obama? Karl Rove now advocates making this the central Republican attack. A fascinating study of voter perceptions of the ideological positions of various candidates was published last month by the Pew Research Centre: Obama does needs to persuade an electorate which perceives itself as to the right-of-centre to back a left-of-centre candidate. (And there is something in the charge that Obama has rarely challenged his own supporters or gone outside their comfort zone yet).

However, despite his impeccably liberal Senate voting record, Obama's domestic policy positions are often a slight step right of Hillary's, for example on universal health care mandates. Obama's authenticity demands that he stands up for his public record, rather than triangulate away from it. That need not reduce his crossover appeal. Andrew Sullivan, who has been the most articulate pro-Obama Republican, has stressed Obama's ability to debate difference with respect: 'What strikes me about Obama is not that he is conservative or liberal, it is his policy liberalism with conservative temperament', Sullivan has written.

The central McCain theme against Obama will be the contrast on national security: 'is Obama ready to be Commander in Chief?'. Again, here Obama seems ready to break with the conventional wisdom of how Democrats deal with this vulnerability. EJ Dionne worried this week that 'every political consultant worth a six-figure fee will tell the Democratic nominee that fighting the election on broad foreign policy questions (as opposed to a limited dialogue built around a simple "Bush Bad, Iraq War Dumb, McCain Backs Both" theme) would be to play to McCain's strengths'.

Yet Obama's audacious strategy could well be to challenge McCain directly on national security. There was a glimpse of this when Obama was accused of foreign policy 'gaffes' early in the campaign last summer, over his comments on meeting leaders hostile to the US and his willingness to pursue al-qaeda into Pakistan. The audacious nature of the Obama challenge was fleshed out in a revealing memo on 'conventional Washington' versus change from academic rising star and Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power. The spirit of that memo would lead Obama to offer a significant challenge to McCain's foreign policy philosophy - to articulate clear divisions over national security, not to minimize them.

Each of these choices would involve risks. But the most striking feature of Obama's campaign to date is that he has forced his opponents to run within his campaign frame, which has enabled him to anticipate attacks and turn these into a reconfirmation of the choice he is offering voters. He has dealt head-on with the charges that he is offering 'false hopes' or that 'talk is cheap'. (Comprehensively out-organising the Clinton machine in every caucus state counts as action as well as words). Win or lose, it is hard not to conclude that the candidate who began as a clear outsider has won the campaign.

Still, there remains a final chance for buyer's remorse in Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and beyond. Some cases of 'Obama comedown syndrome' have been diagnosed. And it would take a very serious dose of Obama-mania indeed not to admit that his nomination involves a leap of faith. It is a risk which Democratic voters seem ever more ready to take.

How Obama won the campaign

It certainly isn't over. The scale of Obama's victories last week took a neck-and-neck race into with one where he was the frontrunner. The Obama camp deny this and would prefer to stay the underdog - their last overdog phase lasted just days between Iowa and New Hampshire. But the central question of the Democrat campaign is now, in the face of greater scrutiny, he can close the deal.

And whatever the final result, it is difficult not to conclude that Barack Obama has won the campaign. Hillary Clinton's core problem is that she finds herself in the campaign which Obama has framed. His simply being there after Super Tuesday destroyed her 'inevitability' strategy in terms of strategy, public messages and campaign funding and organisation. Despite some mis-steps under pressure, Obama's campaign has been impressive in its consistency and relative calm.

Still, Hillary Clinton is not out of this. A good estimate might be that she has a perhaps 25%-33% chance of the nomination. But each of her routes there looks hazardous.

Going negative: The Clinton campaign complains about Obama being untested. Their latest negative ads in Wisconsin strike me as pretty tame, and unlikely to do much damage to Obama, while taking the hit from their opponent on 'going negative' and 'politics as usual'. Again, Obama finds his opponent is playing into his campaign frame.

The big state strategy: She has won some of the biggest states, and has poll leads in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania which could her back in front in elected delegates. But she is conceding most of the smaller states, and so is likely to have lost ten primaries in a row by March 4th. Shades of Rudy Giuliani?

Challenging the rules: It is difficult to find any non-partisan observer who thinks the Clinton campaign has a case over seating the Michigan and Florida delegates, who are barred because the state parties broke the February 5th on primaries or caucuses for those outside the four states given special privileges. The Clinton camp gave clear commitments, with all of the campaigns,that they would accept the rules. (The Michigan case is particularly risible).

The New York Times regards this move as 'potentially incendiary'. That may be an understatement, as Ezra Klein argues.

The Clinton campaign would do better to close this issue down - and quickly. It simply plays into the 'movement versus the machine' frame of the Obama-ites. It is difficult to see how this could be used to achieve the nomination without damaging the party. (Senator Chuck Schumer, Clinton's fellow New York Senator, gave a good and emollient performance, when billed as representing the Clinton campaign on Meet the Press yesterday, stressing the need for party unity) . A much better approach would be to propose that both candidates to agree to a new primary or caucus - if the practical logistics would allow it. That would be difficult for the Obama campaign to oppose.

Super-delegate edge: For some, the super-delegate issue is similar to the Michigan/Florida case. But the super-delegates are part of the rules and everybody has known it, as I argue in a longer post on this issue. But the ability of the super-delegates to save Hillary Clinton is much overstated. Her lead among super-delegates has fallen considerably, and pledges need not stay pledged. This is only likely to be a route to the nomination if the delegate race is very close to a tie.

So Clinton needs to win - and win well - in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and perhaps also find a legitimate way to bring Florida or Michigan back onto the map. It is not impossible. But it will be very dificult. And even a good performance in the key target states may take us back into neck-and-neck territory rather than a clear Clinton lead.

Obama's 'framing advantage' has helped him to respond deftly to attacks from his opponent. Demand more policy detail? He can do wonkery too and has a natural 'professorial' mode. Putting some policy heavy, somewhat boring passages in his speeches before getting back to the campaign uplift isn't too difficult for him, as the New York Times reports

“Today, I want to take it down a notch,” said Mr. Obama, of Illinois, standing on the floor of a General Motors plant. “This is going to be a speech that is a little more detailed. It’s going to be a little bit longer, with not too many applause lines.”

In return, he insists again and more powerfully that 'words do matter'. To respond, Hillary Clinton needs to combine the 'solutions business' policies' by showing she can soar and inspire. That's harder.

Perhaps as the Clinton campaign has adopted the unfamiliar role of the challenger, perhaps they have now become too focused on their frustrations in making the case against Obama when the problem is that they have yet to articulate a distinctive case for their candidate.

The race factor

Hillary Clinton on Meet the Press on Sunday:

I don't think this campaign is about gender, and I sure hope it's not about race.

This responds to a tension which has been simmering since the Iowa result.

Clinton was accusing the Obama campaign of distorting her remarks to make race an issue; others have found the Clintons' remarks ill-judged, particularly her comments that 'it took a President', contrasting the impact of Martin Luther King with that of LBJ in passing the Civil Rights Act. (Video clip). But isn't Obama running for President too, not to be leader of a new civil rights campaign?.

One view is that, if a backlash to sexism helped Clinton in New Hampshire, then Obama might be helped by a sense that the race card is in play. The Obama campaign's approach suggests they may think this.

As Joe Klein writes, this is not an argument which the Obama camp should want to have. He is not running on race - while he is consciously pitching a unifying candidacy which allows America to heal the race tensions of past decades. There is not much evidence that a 'Bradley effect' was a factor in Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire win, but the discussion of that in the media has again put race at the centre, and the Obama campaign have not discouraged that.

There have also been a few references to the 'Do the Right Thing' factor, the Spike Lee movie about inter-racial tensions. As Ryan Lizza writes in the New Yorker, the Clinton camp are confident of strong support from Hispanics, in part because Hispanic voters are thought less likely to support a black candidate.

The electoral demographics of race will be a key theme in South Carolina and Nevada. Race and gender are unavoidably part of the story which makes this a compelling race. But it will be damaging for the Democrats if the two campaigns continue these skirmishes. The Clintons' record on race is strong. Obama's better argument is not that attacks on his experience have racial undertones, but that they are examples of a negative approach to campaigning that he rejects.

The West Wing comes to Westminster

The US election is part of British politics too.

What can Gordon Brown learn from Hillary Clinton? Does David Cameron think he can create Obamamania in Britain - or is he really Mitt Romney? I have a West Wing comes to Westminster piece on Comment is Free.

The Clinton comeback numbers

Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire victory is no less dramatic than Obama's in Iowa.

There are clear contrasts in the support for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, essentially between the materialist and post-materialist left. With Obama ahead among Independents, we now have a Clinton running as 'the Democratic candidate for the Democratic nomination', and seeking to create suspicion among Democrats about why non-Democrats prefer Obama. Remember the third way anyone?

Massive turnout for the Democrats was assumed to be an Obama factor. The overall turnout suggests that that Hillary is mobilising traditional Democrats, Obama is bringing in new people, and that the voters are mobilising themselves too. The Democrats are hyper-mobilised for November's race. Bill Clinton's outburst over the Obama 'fairytale' (video)is a sign of how a close race could get very heated. But the Democrats strike me as much better placed to unite around their nominee.

Obama the frontrunner, Hillary the underdog

Hillary Clinton is fighting for her political life in New Hampshire. A number of factors have made Obama the frontrunner.

(1) The betting. Who is favourite at any one moment is a matter of fact. Follow the money. Overnight, Saturday night/Sunday morning, the mantle shifted as the markets tipped from Hillary to Obama.

(2) The New Hampshire polls. A 10 point Obama lead caught the headlines, though other polls are tighter. He has the big mo.

(3) John Edwards: His debate strategy - defending Obama against Hillary - revealed that he believes his best hope is to knock Clinton out and go head-to-head over change.

(4) The debate dynamics. Obama was comfortable in the role of front-runner. The strategic dilemma for the Clinton camp in adapting to their new underdog status - how to draw contrasts, aware of the price to be paid for going negative - was on display. Obama parried the contrasts effectively, particularly his answer on why 'words do inspire'

(5) The media narrative. Each of these factors has played into the media narrative that Iowa is giving Obama immense momentum. (It is not giving Mike Huckabee momentum on anything like the same scale).

There is some rationale to this, which the media reinforces and strengthens: the Iowa demographics were exceptionally good for Huckabee, as New Hampshire's are not. But there is nothing about Iowa that made it particularly promising Obama territory. The Iowa number-crunching Obama's turnout success and appeal to independents, and his ability to defeat Clinton among women, suggests he will do well in New Hampshire, given the high number of registered Independents. And there is also evidence of Obamamania on the ground in New Hampshire.

Hillary Clinton's problem is the loss of inevitability. There is one big Clinton argument. That the Democrats need to win - and that running Obama against McCain would be the greater risk in November. Hillary has negatives, but they are known. We don't know whether or not he has a glass jaw.

But the Clinton campaign are not going to get a hearing for that argument over the next 48 hours, and look likely to go nil-three in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The problem with a hope squashing 'reality check' strategy is that if Obama is possible, Democrats want him to be possible. He is asking voters to suspend their disbelief. And, if they do so, he wins.

After Iowa: Hillary's challenge

Both races are more open this morning than they were last night - but that also means it was a much, much better night for the Democrats than the Republicans.

It was difficult to see how the Republican race could prove decisive. The impact has been to make it more confused, though with one clear casualty. The Mitt Romney campaign looks fatally wounded. (John Ellis has a brilliant robust dissection of what went wrong with the most 'politics as usual' campaign offered to Iowans; while Michael Tomasky points out that his $6.5 million Iowa campaign comes out at $300 a vote).

I very much doubt Mike Huckabee will make the nomination in the end - nor how there could be a winning electoral coalition for Huckabee in November, as his economic approach is unacceptable to a large part of the Republican party, while his social agenda will scare off key groups of swing voters. This is good news for the absent Rudy Giuliani and for John McCain, though McCain did not do particularly well. But there is no Republican unity candidate - and that is going to affect their ability to mobilise in November.

Obama won big - by a striking seven point margin, exceeding expectations. The concentrated burst of primaries make timing matter more in 2008 than ever before. They may not pull it off, but right now, the Obama campaign have got everything right.

John Edwards edged Clinton for second place: a strong showing in such a competitive race. But it may prove the high point of his campaign, and may not be enough to keep his candidacy going into the Southern primaries after New Hampshire. Clinton-Obama will become a compelling media frame and Edwards will struggle to stay visible. What happens to Edwards fairly strong base of support in the South is an important unknown factor.

It is far, far too early to write Hillary Clinton off. This morning, she is probably still the favourite and frontrunner for the nomination. But for how long? I can see three strategic problems for the Clinton pitch, going into the next round of contests.

(1) Both results strengthen the sense that this is a 'change' election. The famous right track/wrong track indicator is at record levels, showing 7 out of 10 Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction.

Hillary presented two main 'closing' arguments on the eve of the poll and returned to these in her post-caucus concession speech.
- First, that she can win in November; she has been tested and presents less electoral risk;
- Second, that she is the President who will be 'ready of day one'.

So Hillary wants to stand for 'the experience to deliver change'. But the contrast with Obama risks making her 'the Establishment' against the risk of 'Change', in a race with no other status quo candidate.

(2) The high turnout and Obama's crossover appeal to independents may strengthen his core 'uniter, not a divider' argument. The risk of Obama is reduced if he demonstrates the ability to deliver. Over the next week, a sense of what these results and New Hampshire mean on 'electability' will emerge, from detailed number crunching and how that then turns into a new common sense among the commentators, bloggers and activists. That is a primary consideration for many Democrats this year, and will be the substance at stake in the post-match spin and counter-spin.

(3) If the momentum of Iowa and the media focus propel Obama to victory in New Hampshire, Obama would become the favourite. The Hillary Clinton campaign has been a 'safety first' campaign of the frontrunner. Could she emulate her husband's 'comeback kid' reputation? They are very different politicians.

Time magazine is already this morning reporting talk of a change of strategy but I doubt she could change her argument significantly without it looking like panic, and costing her in authenticity. If, as Time's report suggests, this means 'going negative' it would backfire and play to Obama's strengths.

The Obama campaign is still an unlikely insurgency - yet that is precisely its appeal if it can be shown to be a viable one. Hillary Clinton will have to hold her nerve, but she may find that she is in the campaign race on the terms that her opponent wanted to define.

Whose theory of change?

The Democrats have perhaps their strongest, and most progressive, field for generations. The party looks more able to unite around its nominee than after most hotly contested nomination races historically, and has the unusual experience of being much more cohesive than the Republicans this time around.

So what is the difference between the candidates? One of the most interesting pieces of analysis previewing the primary contests has been Mark Schmitt's essay in the American Prospect on the 'theory of change primary'.

This is not a primary about ideological differences, or electability, but rather one about a difference in candidates' implicit assumptions about the current circumstance and how the levers of power can be used to get the country back on track. It's the first "theory of change" primary I can think of.

Hillary Clinton's stump speech is built around the speechwriter's rule of three, applied to theories of change: one candidate believes you achieve change by "demanding" it, another thinks you "hope for it," while she alone knows that you have to "work for it."

That's accurate as a rendering of the candidates' language: Her message of experience and hard work, Obama's language of hope and common purpose, Edwards' insistence that those with power will never give it up willingly.

But Schmitt goes on to offer a deeper analysis of Obama's pitch - and helps to explain how Obama manages to reconcile being probably the most conventionally 'liberal' of the major Democrats seem with his bipartisan appeal to independents and Republicans.

His piece has been much praised by commentators and bloggers. While this is a little late, this seems a good moment to link to it, just before we begin to find out which theory chimes most with the voters.

The race is on ...

The race for both nominations remains incredibly open as the first votes are cast. Firm predictions are probably foolish.

I have felt that John Edwards would do better in Iowa than many expect. He could come through to top the poll on the night. His union support and strong appeal to the Democrat base on economic inequality should help him in a caucus. It is less clear whether, even if it happened, that would make the nomination a genuine three way race for long.

The influential Des Moines Register poll was very good for Barack Obama. Still, that might not help him in the expectations game. (A lower profile CNN poll had Clinton ahead). That Obama's lead was based on his appeal to independent voters strengthens his claims to electability in November. But will they caucus tonight? (The New Republic blogunpicks the numbers).

Obama's chances depend on increasing the caucus turnout. The university holidays don't help him. (However, Time says his strategy is to 'campaign young, but organize gray'). First place would be a remarkable achievement. It is still an outsider insurgency campaign, but victory could give Obama the momentum into a closely contested New Hampshire primary to make the February 5th contest too close to call.

Hillary Clinton is still the frontrunner with a strong national lead, and remains the most likely Democratic nominee. She is electable in November, particularly this year. The experience and credibility cards are her strongest suit. But this is a 'change' election: standing for 'change' and for 'less risk' is a balancing act. With no President or Vice-President in the race, there are dangers in Clnton becoming the establishment 'continuity' candidate, despite being a Democrat bidding to succeed a Republican President. But a credible bid to be the first female President will mobilise support (as well as anti-Clinton opposition). The 'big bang' nationwide contest in 22 states on February 5th is good news for her campaign, but she needs to win one of the first three contests to prevent the campaign dynamic changing against her.

So I have a feeling its still going to be Hillary - but quite probably not tonight. And there is still everything to play for.

Does Rawalpindi matter in Iowa?

The parochial concern on the 2008 campaign trail was the need to appear Presidential in responding to news from Pakistan.

Despite the Bhutto assassination throwing US policy into deep flux, most candidates realised that their immediate responses should simply mirror the statements of President Bush and other world leaders - expressing shock and sympathy at the tragic news and pledging to redouble efforts for democracy and against terrorism.

Still, Mike Huckabee messed it up, bizarrely apologising for the assassination, before correcting his remarks later.

Fred Thompson was particularly concerned to make sure that people around the world didn't get the wrong idea from the apology.

With more time to consider, Huckabee put up a policy argument. The Bhutto assassination showed why the US needed to build a border fence with Mexico to keep out Pakistanis.

“We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country", he said.

Further clarifications defending these remarks did not seem to clarify much.

Mitt Romney had picked a bad day to argue that foreign policy experience doesn't matter all that much, though stressing the Reagan rather than the Dubya precedent to make his case:

“If the answer for leading this country is someone that has a lot of foreign policy experience, we can just go down to the State Department and pick up any one of the tens of thousands of people who’ve spent all their life in foreign policy.

Rudy Giuliani and John McCain stressed the opposite message to highlight their own experience.

On the Democrat side, the issue played to Hillary Clinton's experience on the international stage. Her personal relationship with Bhutto allowed her to stress that she will be ready on "day one" for the international demands of the Presidency. Perhaps for that reason, the Obama camp took an aggressive approach, bringing the issue back to the question of judgment over Iraq, sparking controversy about comments by Obama's strategist David Axelrod, who seemed to imply that Clinton's support of the Iraq war had contributed to the causes of the assassination.

Meanwhile, John Edwards placed a personal call to President Musharraf himself to press the case for democratic reform.

UPDATE: CNN quotes Huckabee campaign staff, explaining that his immigration comments were intended to distract attention from the fact that he has "no foreign policy credentials". Let's hope Iowa and New Hampshire care more about foreign policy experience than that.

Experience versus inspiration?

EJ Dionne offers an incisive analysis of what he calls Hillary's moment of great peril, as the campaign got interesting again at just the wrong moment for the long-time front-runner. As Dionne says:

if Obama, with his soaring and idealistic rhetoric, has been more theme than pudding, Clinton's campaign has been more pudding than theme.

Obama's broadside against "the same old Washington textbook campaigns" does score an effective hit against the guarded tactics and caution of his opponent. (But at least, the Clinton campaign pulled back from what looked like a potentially fatal flirtation with 'going negative', which would surely have played to Obama's strengths with primary voters, by giving him the moral high ground to go with his recent momentum).

Many Democrats' priority will be to pick a winner. But the contrasting strengths and weaknesses of the front-runners make the balance of risk a more open question than it had seemed. The Des Moines Register's endorsement may well capture the conundrum faced by undecided Democrats in trying to weigh experience and inspiration.

Indeed, Obama, her chief rival, inspired our imaginations. But it was Clinton who inspired our confidence.

Perhaps the experience card will still prove trumps for Hillary Clinton - but that may depend on playing it less defensively and with a smite more inspiration too.

Clinton v Obama: a generation divide?

Andrew Sullivan's Atlantic Journal essay on Obama was extracted in this week's Sunday Times here in London.

Sullivan does more than make the moderate conservative case for Obama; he claims that only Obama can end the culture wars of post-Vietnam United States. (That these are strange times for the Republican Party can be seen by Sullivan's decision to back Ron Paul for the nomination).

I was particularly struck by this claim that the generational divide between the candidates explains why Obama is less defensive than Clinton about progressive values.

A generational divide also separates Clinton and Obama with respect to domestic politics. Clinton grew up saturated in the conflict that still defines American politics. As a liberal, she has spent years in a defensive crouch against triumphant post-Reagan conservatism. The mau-mauing that greeted her health-care plan and the endless nightmares of her husband’s scandals drove her deeper into her political bunker. Her liberalism is warped by what you might call a Political Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Reagan spooked people on the left, especially those, like Clinton, who were interested primarily in winning power. She has internalized what most Democrats of her generation have internalized: They suspect that the majority is not with them, and so some quotient of discretion, fear, or plain deception is required if they are to advance their objectives. And so the less-adept ones seem deceptive, and the more-practiced ones, like Clinton, exhibit the plastic-ness and inauthenticity that still plague her candidacy. She’s hiding her true feelings. We know it, she knows we know it, and there is no way out of it.

Obama, simply by virtue of when he was born, is free of this defensiveness. Strictly speaking, he is at the tail end of the Boomer generation. But he is not of it.

This is a contrast between the tactical politics of triangulation, and what Sullivan takes to be Obama's instinctive and principled moderation. (Closer tom home, Sullivan's critique of Hillary Clinton chimes strongly with the lack of confidence being shown by the Brown government here in the UK. The scars of Labour's 1992 defeat still run deep: both Blair and Brown have feared that Britain remains an essentially conservative country).

Sullivan's neatly argued conclusion captures why it is so difficult to work out where voters will decide the greater risk lies, with Hillary still favourite but the momentum having been very much with Obama this past week.

The paradox is that Hillary makes far more sense if you believe that times are actually pretty good. If you believe that America’s current crisis is not a deep one, if you think that pragmatism alone will be enough to navigate a world on the verge of even more religious warfare, if you believe that today’s ideological polarization is not dangerous, and that what appears dark today is an illusion fostered by the lingering trauma of the Bush presidency, then the argument for Obama is not that strong. Clinton will do. And a Clinton-Giuliani race could be as invigorating as it is utterly predictable.

But if you sense, as I do, that greater danger lies ahead, and that our divisions and recent history have combined to make the American polity and constitutional order increasingly vulnerable, then the calculus of risk changes. Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution. Close-up in this election campaign, Obama is unlikely. From a distance, he is necessary.