On Wisconsin (and Hawaii too)

It's election day again, and we await the returns with baited breath. A win by Obama today in Wisconsin keeps that old momentum ball rolling. A win by Clinton puts up a road block of sorts. In terms of delegates its likely not to matter much. With proportional distribution, whoever wins will pick up a few more than the other. Its more symbolic than anything.

I'm finding Hillary's campaign efforts more and more desparate. The accusations that he's ducking debates -- he's got 2 scheduled with her -- is ludicrous. They've debated already -- a debate is simply free advertising for a good debater. Then this thing about plagiarism. Now that's really specious. Borrowing lines from a friend isn't plagiarism. And if he's plagiarizing Deval Patrick, then as Obama points out, what about her use of "fired up, ready to go." Some how I think Obama has being using that for some time. If that's as good as it gets, then Hillary needs to go home.

Then there's this "solution" express. Hillary has solutions to all the world's problems. I may be alone in this type of thinking -- but too often politicians campaign on ready made solutions to problems that either they don't have sufficient information about or that won't be issues a year from now. I'm more interested in knowing how a candidate will bring people to the table to find solutions.

To give you a personal example of what I mean. I'm currently looking at churches for a possible move. Now I can give committees a 10 point plan of action as to how I'll solve their problems, but until I'm in place, seeing what's happening, know what recources are available, my one-size fits all plans are pretty useless. The same is true of the candidate promises. What I appreciate about Obama isn't his "plans" but his willingness to seek out advisors from various perspectives and his more bottom up rather than top down process. The key to a successful Obama presidency won't be all the plans he's drawn up now to be implemented later, but the quality of staff and cabinet he puts together. If, as I believe, he will bring in the best people possible to staff key positions, good things can happen.

So, today we wait for Wisconsin and Hawaii to offer their votes. But as we do, let's let go of all these specious arguments about substance versus style.