Carved up territories
The media networks crisscrossed the nation last evening on their large screen high tech maps gathering political results of the election and hitting state by state numbers measuring the campaigns’ impact. What we weren’t learning from any major network at the time was the other state by state toll, where the country was swept by disastrous storms, with tremendous impact.
Residents in five Southern states tried to salvage what they could Wednesday from homes reduced to piles of debris, a day after the deadliest cluster of tornadoes in nearly a decade tore through the region, snapping trees and crumpling homes. At least 50 people were dead.
Rescue crews, some with the help of the National Guard, went door-to-door looking for more victims. Dozens of twisters were reported as the storms swept through Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama.
I monitored the coverage just about all evening, and learned of the devastation when some of the presidential candidates appeared at their campaign rallies to give speeches…..and called their supporters’ attention to the disasters of the day in all those states.
It was jarring, and still is.
In many places, the storms struck as Super Tuesday primaries were ending. As the extent of the damage quickly became clear, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee paused in their victory speeches to remember the victims.
That was the first reporting I was aware of, of these dreadful storms. The films today shot from helicopters above the devastated areas show breathtaking destruction.
“Loss of life, loss of property — prayers can help and so can the government,” [President George] Bush said. “I do want the people in those states to know the American people are standing with them.”
The American people are always best in times of disaster and tragedy, always generous and swift to respond with relief.
The American political process that swept everyone’s attention away on Super Tuesday is at its best, too, when the people are as engaged as they are right now, for all their differences and disagreements.
And those are considerable…
The Democrats are pretty well split between Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama, though some analysts today are still saying with some (seemingly unwarranted) certainty that she will be the party’s nominee. Sen. Obama certainly doesn’t believe that.
Barack Obama said he emerged from Super Tuesday as the leader in the delegate count over Hillary Clinton in a Democratic presidential race that both campaigns expect will be a protracted battle.
Which is best for the democratic process in such an energized election year. It would be better if these candidates were now scrutinized more closely than they have been on their policies and principles.
The Republicans have carved up the country, too, dividing the social, fiscal, defense and judicial conservatives, and McCain’s major lead now has not coalesced them. In fact, these groups have all seemed to dig in deeper. The staunchest Reagan conservative coalition is frankly accusing fellow conservataives of caving or folding in order to ameliorate the anti-Bush political world (in Washington especially) and jockey for better positions in an eventual less conservative administration, should McCain win the election.
As for the pervasive question right now of whether the anti-McCain conservatives could possibly find their way to support him if he’s the party nominee…that’s premature. It’s too early to be asking that. In fact, the question implies capitulation to the moderate to liberal groups within the Republican party while the primaries are still going on. The presumptive scenario on a lot of minds becomes evident when people ask ‘would the conservatives prefer Hillary to McCain?’
Candidates Obama, Romney, Huckabee, and even Paul have something to say about that….and nobody is listening to Paul except his impressive support base.
Tomorrow is an important event for conservatives and McCain – the C-PAC takes place (Conservative Political Action Committee conference) and McCain is attending this year (he didn’t last year). And it’s his next big test.
CPAC is the Lollapalooza of the Republican right, and its founder, David Keene, has been an outspoken critic of McCain’s perceived anti-conservative transgressions on issues ranging from campaign finance reform (McCain’s for it) to gun control (for it, in certain instances) to global warming (against it). As a result, McCain has routinely skipped the event; last year, he was booed in absentia. “He won’t get a poor reception at CPAC; he’ll get a mixed reception,” says McCain adviser Charlie Black, who promises that McCain’s conservative endorsements will be showcased at the event.
A conservative analyst just predicted that will be the last time they’re showcased, saying McCain will ‘drift moderate’ after the conference, returning to who he ‘really is’.
It’s about time we learn who they all really are. It’s what Coach Ditka calls ‘gut check time.’
