...avete mai visto questa donna? l'avete mai sentita parlare? E' Michelle Obama. Io l'ho sentita oggi, ad un incontro per il "grande martedì" delle primarie. Se gli USA avranno per la prima volta un Presidente di colore, gran parte del merito andrà a questa donna: una donna con un paio di palle che non finiscono più. Bella, determinata, appassionata, colta, intelligente. La frase più bella, quando si è accorta di aver conquistato anche una larga fetta di bianchi colti e benestanti? "Io non sono il frutto dell'America dei privilegi, ma dell'America della scuola pubblica, che è la sola che mi sono potuta permettere. E' questa l'America che Barak vuole. Poi il litemotiv del discorso: tutto contro un paese che è costretto ad avere paura, sempre: della guerra, della malattia, delle opportunità riservate a chi già ne ha tante, dei mutui... Grande carisma. Peccato non avere la traduzione o i sottotitoli, ma per quel poco di inglese che capisco, è stato un grandissimo intervento...
Super Tuesday: Super for whom? Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?
NOTHING like it has been seen before in American electoral history. In 22 states across America, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will duke it out on Tuesday February 5th on what has variously been called Super Tuesday, Super-Duper Tuesday and Tsunami Tuesday. By the end of the day, more than half the delegates to August’s party convention in Denver will have been awarded. The day carries around twice the weight of past Super Tuesdays, as well as coming far earlier in the nomination cycle. What is still unclear, however, is what will constitute victory, and what defeat.
For Mrs Clinton, the stakes are highest: as the assumed front-runner since the start of the contest, she has nowhere to go but down. As little as two months ago, she was riding high, leading Mr Obama by more than 20 percentage points in national opinion polls, out-raising him in the cash stakes and holding commanding leads in almost all the biggest prize states. How things have changed: she has seen her national poll lead shrink to as little as five or six points, and she is being run close in Super Tuesday states where she expected to triumph. California, the richest prize of all, now looks like a tie. In December, Mrs Clinton was regularly polled at 25 percentage points ahead or more.
She remains the front-runner, just: but the momentum has been with Mr Obama, who has been gaining steadily on her since November. His endorsement by Edward Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy last week has hit Mrs Clinton very hard, by eating away at the core constituencies on which her support has rested. Mrs Kennedy (not to mention Oprah Winfrey, who is campaigning for Mr Obama) may damage her pre-eminence among women. Mr Kennedy’s voice may prove persuasive with the white working class, and with Hispanics, previously thought to be Mrs Clinton's most reliable vote-bank.
With Mr Obama closing in on her steadily, it is essential for Mrs Clinton to defeat him decisively on Super Tuesday. Anything less than a crushing victory will allow the race to continue throughout February and well into March, and that will almost certainly prove fatal. After Super Tuesday, the race will shift back towards the sort of state-by-state retail politics that characterised the early primaries, allowing Mr Obama to play to his ability to fire up the crowds at huge rallies that resemble rock-concerts more than conventional politics. The buzz that surrounds him will grow, neutralising Mrs Clinton's greatest advantage, which is the fact that people feel they know a lot more about her [...]
California, with 441 delegates, is the ultimate prize: even a narrow victory there will count, in news terms, for a huge amount. Likewise, a loss for Mrs Clinton in her home state of New York would be devastating, though that looks unlikely. Then there are bellwether states like Missouri, which Mrs Clinton was originally supposed to be certain to win; these middle-America states are considered to be accurate predictors of national trends, and will be watched carefully [...]
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