The Financial Times, the world's largest financial newspaper, has endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, acknowledging the similarities in policy proposals, and basing their recommendation mostly on his character and the evidence he has displayed in running a better campaign.
Excerpt:
Mr Obama has fought a brilliant campaign, out-organising his opponent, raising more money, and convincing undecided Democrats as well as the country at large that he was more likeable, more straightforward and more worthy of trust.
On form, he is a spell-binding orator and holds arena-sized audiences in thrall. He is given to airy exhortations, it is true, but genuinely seeks consensus and has cross-party appeal.
Mrs Clinton’s campaign, in contrast, has been a shambles. She and her team expected to have it all sewn up long ago; they made no plans for a long struggle, ran short of money and had to reorganise on the run.
Her speaking style is pedestrian, when it is not actually grating. Those who dislike her tend to do so with a passion: her disapproval ratings started high and after months of campaigning are climbing still. It is a tribute to her tenacity and to the loyalty she commands in the party that her fate was not sealed weeks ago.
How much the way that a campaign is run tells you about a candidate’s fitness to be president is debatable – but it does tell you something, especially if the candidate with the misfiring strategy is running on a claim of management expertise.
On a related note, Hillary Clinton released an ad today that features Osama bin Laden. Desperate and despicable, I'd call it.
(h/t: astral66/TPM)
2 comments:
Any word on who the FT endorses in the general? I don't know about the WSJ, but as I have documented on my blog it appears that the people at The Economist favor McCain, although they have not given him a formal endorsement as far as I know.
I didn't see any hint of their leanings in the general, which is why I was careful to note that their endorsement was for the nomination.
I'm not familiar enough with FT to make a reasonable guess about whether they'd prefer McCain. I don't know why anyone who knows about economics would prefer him, since it seems to me that he doesn't have plans to do much besides emulating Bush's policies, which have clearly been a disaster.
I grant that if one thinks free trade is a more important consideration than the deficit and the disparity of wealth, there's something of a case to be made.
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