Political Hats

Democratic primaries are much more intense now than probably it was before the Ohio/Texas. I see an Obama campaigning and defending his stand just like any other candidate now than riding on his charisma and crowd pulling oratory skills. And the candidates are much more scrutinized on what they speak on stump speeches and its analysed by multiple media channels to give a 360 degree view. Its more intense now because less attention is going into Republicans as MC Cain is their presumptive nominee already and that leaves just two candidates- Clinton and Obama- for the whole media attention. Also it was interesting to watch how media generates content for their own viewers. The campaign trail was less tracked, when Spitzer issue broke and that makes me believe that lot of the media attention to candidates is the way the generate content .

Obama contesting as a normal guy with small tow-halls, bus trips and factory visits throughout Pennsylvania - a state everyone thinks he is going to loose to Hillary -is way different from his earlier campaign tones. That means smaller rallies and less motivational speeches and more focused issue-based discussions. That also showed his campaign's resilience to adapt to campaigning in a different kind of voters and such a move is already paying off as the poll margins between him and Hillary are on a decline. May be he learnt a lesson in Ohio esp. on the whole debate of NAFTA.

Politician wearing different hats to suit the occasion is nothing new. May be the issues like NAFTA are too complex for an average voter to make sense so a politicians will not attempt to explain the whole story. During the Ohio campaign, Obama's economic advisor Austan Goolsbee's assurance to Canadian officials that lot of Obama talks against NAFTA is a political positioning (it was based on a leaked memo with lot of media spin later added to it) was taken up by the Clinton campaign to demonstrate that Obama is just another politician. May be the campaign was successful in sending that message across the voters as we saw Obama was in a defending position then. Hillary slowly strengthened her position against NAFTA, mostly reflecting Obama's earlier position on it ( These candidates borrow heavily from each other's homework -:) ) but then came the Mark Penn's ( Chief strategist of the campaign)meeting to negotiate the the NAFTA in favor of Columbia , a position opposite to Clinton's campaign at that point. So the media view is that probably both these candidates don't mean what they preach and wearing a hat that pleases the voters. Both Ohio and Pennsylvania were the states hurt because of the NAFTA and outsourcing so candidates cannot ignore those. Clinton has a record of favoring it in the past but as many says she distorted her own record recently saying that she raised yellow flag whenever it was discussed and she always differed with Bill Clinton ( who i s a big supporter) .

So the point is politicians wear different hats to match the occasion . Both Obama and Clinton don't mean to alter the current NAFTA or outsourcing policies that have complex business impacts that an ordinary voter may not understand. However it appears that Obama means 'more' than Clinton when they say they are going to review those policies. Also the ever changing political postioning is liekly to hurt Hillary more especially after the 'Snipe Fire' from Bosnia.