JUSIPER

 
Condescension and a costly miscalculation

Posted by Sini

One day, this story will appear in a book's preface:

I was an Obama delegate at the Dubuque County Convention yesterday in Iowa. Given the fact that there were over 250 people in attendence for an event that usually gets under 50, it was pretty chaotic. As per usual, the day began with brief speechs from various local Democratic politicans. These were interrupted, however, so that a special guest could speak to us. The Clinton campaign had flown in Sean Astin to shill for Hill. He's most famous for playing Sam, Frodo's erstwhile friend, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He proceeded to tell us all about what a strong women and great leader Hillary was and then went into the now-discredited accounts of her foreign policy accomplishments in Northern Ireland etc. He also returned to the idea of the joint Hillary-Obama dream ticket. But the culmination of his speech was when he talked about how the wonderful thing about the Iowa caucus system was that the county convention was essentially another caucus and that not only the undecided delegates (those pledged to candidates who have withdrawn) but even the pledged delegates could switch their allegiance.


Yes, Samwise Gamgee came to root for Hillary before incredulous delegates, who proceeded to defect wholesale from Edwards to Obama. By the end of the night, Clinton actually lost a delegate and Obama gained 9--as many as Hillary gained in Ohio. Astin turned out to be less Samwise Gamgee than Lynn McGill, the tragically incompetent CTU supervisor he played on 24

Finally, why, why could the Clinton campaign have possibly thought that party caucusgoers would have been swayed by Sean Astin? The convention was populated by committed Iowa Democratic party activists, not audience members on Jenny Jones. A colossal miscalculation caused by profound condescension.

11:33 PM |