the race

I'm not sure what the word's like stateside, but here's the impression I'm getting about the primaries from the various newsfeeds: I've heard McCain is running for president, but what he's up to, who can say. Obama seems to stick to novel ideas for the country's future and occasionally, whenever an important voting day looms, becomes a mudslinger. This is opposed to Clinton's strategy, which seems to be almost entirely mudslinging, when not benig outright manipulative of whatever demographic she's trying to impress at the moment. Case in point:

She added [to a crowd of mostly blue-collar, Hispanic voters], "Some call you swing voters. I call you Americans."

I mean, this isn't isolated. I read about one of these a week, more during a voting week. I don't recall Obama throwing in many of these. I do recall him apologizing publically for getting to entrenched ni name-calling after the PA primary, and I do recall a bunch of comments by him where he singled out his competitors for sidelining the issues in favor of various vote-winning dramas, things which I don't recall Clinton or McCain doing. Maybe I'm bias--I certainly want Obama to win--but maybe there's a reason why the demographics with lower education favor Clinton and those with higher education favor Obama: the latter argues intelligently, the former emotionally and, I'd say, deceptively. Which is what Bush did in 2000 and 2004, right? Does anybody else remember the campaign ad in 2000 that subtly labeled Democrats as "rats" and the 2004 one that suggested "the wolves will get you" if you vote for Kerry? Like...like, those ads worked. The guy that used those things won. And I'm getting a strong sense of thatness from the Clinton campaign.