The Daily Novel

According to the New York Times Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton met last night for an hour in the sitting room of Dianne Feinstein’s Washington house. She left them alone for an hour with two facing chairs and a jug of water. The security men stayed in the next room. The aides were outside and the media pack was miles away.

To find out whhere the media pack were I had to go The Guardian. Their report says the media pack were waiting on an aircraft bound for Chicago for Obama to join them. In fact, the plane took off without him, taking the media folk AWAY from the main story. It was not until after the jet had landed in Chicago that the media was told that the meeting had taken place.

Have not yet come across any reliable reports about what they said to each other. But Feinstein insists there was no shouting and they got along well. Feinstein has been talking up an Obama/Clinton ticket in the last few days but the fact that the meeting took place in her house has no bearing on whether this is likely. The location was chosen because she is an old friend of Hillary Clinton’s who could be trusted to keep her mouth shut. And because she has a nice house in the right part of Washington to which both candidates could go without being chased by the press.

Associated Press reports that Hillary Clinton will make her big speech tomorrow telling her campaign team and the world that she is endorsing Obama. Although AP got the Tuesday story 180 degrees away from this truth, my guess is that tonight they have got it right.

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To Bridport to buy a water butt before the storms come again. On the way back we call at the village of Eype to take in an exhibition by one of the local artists. First picture that hits me as we go into the church is something that looks remarkable like the Albert Bridge. However the other scenes were mostly of the Dorset countryside in a wide variety of styles. The one I liked most was a striking picture of silver birch trees around a lake at Little Sea in Studland.

My picture here, ‘The White Sun in Winter’ shows the Purbeck coast.

Apparently Stephen John Bishop
is one of our best contemporary landscape painters who is continuing the tradition of ‘en plein air’ painting of Monet and Van Gogh. And like Constable Bishop believes that ‘painting is another word for feeling’.

It was a very sunny day but the beach was empty bar one fisherman. Maybe the tourists are deterred by the narrow lanes they to negotiate from the A35. The next picture is of the coastal path which dips down to the beach before climbing steeply back up towards Golden Cap.

We stopped at another village on the way home. Symondsbury has only a few houses but it boasts an old thatched pub and a school built in 1868 which is still open.

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Hillary Clinton stopped short of conceding victory to Barack Obama on Tuesday night. It may prove to be her biggest mistake in her sixteen month campaign. Barack Obama won narrowly but fairly according to the rather arcane rules of the Democratic Party. There is none of the stink of corruption which beset the contested victory of George W Bush in 2003, when the decision hung on probably rigged voting in Florida. There is no suggestion that his victory has depended on the brute force of Party kingmakers. Contrast Jack Kennedy’s narrow win in 1959, which history suggests was due to the ability of bass Mayor Daly of Chicago to massage the vote. Yet some of the Clinton team are still trying to bargain publicly with the winner.

Of the thousands of words available this morning the best is the admirably succinct leader in The Financial Times of London. Here it is below in full:

An Obama-Clinton dream ticket?
The news that Barack Obama had crossed the finishing line, had secured the Democratic nomination, and was thus quite likely the next president of the United States was slow to reach Hillary Clinton. While Mr Obama was telling his ecstatic supporters that “this is the moment” – did he even promise to lower the oceans? – Mrs Clinton was thanking her troops for her own historic victory (in the popular vote, correctly measured), explaining how they had made it possible, and asking their advice on what to do next, since she had noticed confusion in some quarters about who the winner really was.
Predictably, therefore, as the Democrats chose for the first time a black man to run for the White House – a historic moment, indeed – Mrs Clinton contrived to make herself the main story. She has also become the biggest test so far of Mr Obama’s ability to lead. How he deals with his disappointed rival and her avid followers over the coming days is the most important decision he has to make between now and the general election.
Mrs Clinton, it is widely understood, wishes to share the ticket – as number two, for the moment, but who knows what might happen between now and November? Petitions are being got up to secure that slot; Mr Obama is being prevailed upon to be magnanimous. He is undoubtedly capable of it. His own victory speech was wisely generous to Mrs Clinton. To defeat John McCain, he needs her supporters in his camp. For many in the party, the arithmetic of combining her support with his points irresistibly to an electoral alliance.
One can see their point, but it would be a mistake. Mr Obama’s need is real and the voting arithmetic somewhat persuasive. More of Mrs Clinton’s supporters would come round if she were the running-mate. But his claim to represent a new kind of politics would be compromised – and nobody gets out the Republican vote like a Clinton.
The clincher, though, is that Mrs Clinton seems psychologically incapable of serving as Mr Obama’s deputy – before or after the election. Her conduct this week proves it. She could have made it difficult for Mr Obama to refuse her the VP slot by delivering a gracious, unifying concession speech. Instead she declared herself the moral victor and the stronger candidate, occluded Mr Obama’s success, and set about demanding the vice-presidential nomination as of right. Now, if Mr Obama takes her on to the ticket, he will look weak; if he does not, he will offend her supporters. The second is regrettable, but much the lesser evil.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Murdoch watchers will find ample food for conjecture in the coverage by the London Times Online of last night’s victory by Obama. The splash proclaims ‘Barack Obama seizes moment in history.’ There is a major analysis article by the chief American correspondent, Gerald Baker. It contains much praise for Obama, including this paragraph:

‘So it is a testament to his extraordinary political skills, his stirring oratory and, above all, the change represented by his eloquent calls for an end to partisanship, his relative youth and, yes, his skin colour. He brilliantly channelled opposition to the war in Iraq — having been one of the few Democrats courageous enough to oppose it in the first place — and ended up winning not only almost the entire black Democratic vote, but breaking the colour bar and gaining enough — just — of the white vote to win the nomination.’

But Baker also emphasises the difficulties Obama faces. He begins by saying that the American dream that anyone can become President is balderdash. Reminding readers that the 42 white Presidents have all been white males. And that the first serious female contender, Hillary Clinton, has just been defeated despite her vast experience and huge party support.

He goes on to note how many contenders from minority groups have failed:

‘A word of caution is in order on this historic day. Mr Obama will be well aware that the pioneers of ethnic, religious or gender presidential equality rarely make it all the way to the White House. The first Roman Catholic to win a party’s nomination was Al Smith in 1928. But no Catholic was elected president until John F. Kennedy 32 years later. The first woman to appear on a presidential ticket was Geraldine Ferraro for vice-president in 1984. But 24 years later, as Hillary Clinton would acidly note, no woman has been elected president. The first Jewish candidate was vice-presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman in 2000. But he lost, too.’

The leading article manages to face both ways as well. It has an enthusiastic start, signalled by the sub-head:

‘The senator has reawakened admiration for the land of opportunity’

And then this paragraph:

‘Such questions have been answered by Barack Obama in a way that has already rekindled America’s faith in its prodigious powers of reinvention - and the world’s admiration for America. He could still lose the White House to John McCain. It has been a bruising journey from the Iowa caucuses to Minneapolis, where he staked his claim last night to the Democratic nomination. But today at least the tide of history seems to be with him. Win or lose in November, he will have gone farther than anyone in history to bury the toxic enmity that fuelled America’s civil war and has haunted it ever since.’

But the concluding paragraph has the unmistakeable sound of the boot being put in, albeit tentatively:

‘For a generation, the politics of America has been commodified by pollsters and analysts. Its political landscape has been minutely mapped; its new online constituencies targeted by “dog whistles” and YouTube narrowcasts. Mr Obama has torn up much of these analysts’ conventional wisdom with what he calls the audacity of hope. For what? His promises of unity and change are vague. His critics say that the ranting of his former pastor shows them also to be empty. But he has survived such claims, and may be tougher for it. His Republican opponent, “too tough to die”, embodies many strengths that Mr Obama can only applaud. But he has his own. The epic continues. Act II starts now.’

Now much of these two articles I might have written myself for The Times when it was owned by Lord Thomson. But unlike Thomson Murdoch expects his editors to toe the line and advocate the policies he wants. Two weeks ago Murdoch’s daughter hosted a fund-raising party in her Nottng Hill house for 200 of Obama’s London supporters. Last week Murdoch himself heaped lavish praise on Obama in a speech in New York.

But he stopped short of endorsing his canditure.

There is no doubt that Murdoch is signalling his willingness to be courted by Obama, and on his past record Murdoch is entirely capable of supporting a left-of-centre leader, if that leader responds to some of Murdoch’s right-of-centre wishes.

And make no mistake he is in a very strong position to influence this vital election, which is still wide open. Had I been writing The Times leader today I would have also emphasised that Jack Kennedy despite his eloquence and all his powerful media connections and the fact that the US was ready then for a change from the Republican administration of the ageing Eisenhower and his Vice President Richard Nixon, Kennedy only won by the narrowest of margins.

Murdoch owns one of the three leading American television news networks, which usually follows the Republican line, as does the Wall St Journal, which Murdoch has just bought. Murdoch also owns the New York Post, a popular paper which for most of its history has supported the Democrats. The combined efforts of these three media are very powerful artillery for the battles ahead.

The recent election for the mayor of London has demonstrated how a sustained campaign by just one influential newspaper, the London Evening Standard, can swing a campaign. Arguably it was the Standard (owned by Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail group) which won it for Boris Johnson. The Standard had several stories a day attacking Ken Livingstone, and some of them unearthed possible corruption which led to the resignation shortly before the election of Ken Livingstone’s number two and long-established friend.

Murdoch will not scream as loudly as the Standard, but you can bet your bottom dollar that his aides are already talking to aides of Obama and McCain. And that Murdoch will also be speaking with his silvery tongue to both men. But one of these men is going to get a blast from one of Murdoch’s big guns in the very near future.

My inner clock woke me just in time to catch the 5.30 AM ITV News. Not surprising since this is the most important and fascinating US election in my lifetime. And almost as interesting is how the media on both sides of the Atlantic is reporting it. The sun was streaming in through the windows and from my vantage point on the sofa in front of the television I can look west where I can see in my mind’s eye the twelfth floor office of Forbes Magazine on the Hudson River, where I used to sit in the early 1960s, staring in the opposite direction.

This morning Barack Obama’s rhetoric once again echoed that of Jack Kennedy as he claimed the Democratic nomination after the primaries in South Dakota and Montana. He won both states and those victories, combined with the super delegates (including ex-President Jimmy Carter) who have switched their votes to him over the last few weeks, takes his delegate tally to 2,157 comfortably over the 2,118 votes he needed to secure victory.

Most of the words he used we have heard many times before: ‘marks the end of one era and the beginning on another’, ‘This is our time’, ‘new ideas for the country we love’. And even though he has said them many times before he manages to say them as if they are coming straight from his heart. And like Kennedy, he has been able to convince much of America’s youth, that he shares their idealism and hopes of a better world.

The result and the content of Obama’s speech were exactly as predicted by the media yesterday. By contrast, all those who said emphatically yesterday that Hillary Clinton was going to use her New York speech last night to concede have egg on their faces this morning. Including the flagship ITV News at Ten last night, which highlighted speculation that Hillary Clinton would be running for Vice President at Obama’s side.

Today’s Daily Novel wooden spoon awards go to the Daily Mail for its headline:

‘Hillary Clinton to bow out TONIGHT as she finally concedes to Obama in race for White House,

Second prize goes to Associated Press, the leading US news agency, which ran reports that Hillary was about to concede throughout yesterday. They got it seriously wrong but it does not follow that they invented the story. They were quoting an un-named high level member of the Clinton campaign and one who presumably has given them good information in the past. And, as the Financial Times reported yesterday, it might well be that she had been considering pulling out last night, but decided against it at the eleventh hour.

Last night, she had a rapturous reception from her supporters in New York, and they screamed and cheered when she congratulated Obama in winning the majority of the delegates but said that the important thing was, ‘Where do we go from here’. Her answer was a firm commitment to fight on. This is not as daft as it might seem. Because, as Sky News pointed out this morning, the Clinton campaign claims that she has a majority of the popular vote, with 18 million people having voted for her, slightly more than the number who have voted for Obama.

Individual newspapers get it wrong, but collectively they provide valuable guidance to what is actually happening. And, as I write here now on the Dorset coast, I can see I might be in a better position to assess the total picture, than I would be if I had been on the campaign trail, either with Obama in Minnesota or Hillary Clinton in New York.

So my analysis (and I am posting this before I read the media web pages this morning) here is my view., based on what I have read yesterday and over the last few weeks.

Obama will be the candidate. Hillary Clinton will bow out within weeks rather than months. Watching her this morning, I saw no tears running down her face, but it seemed to me that her brave smile, concealed her awareness that this speech is almost certainly her last in the bid for the Presidency. Obama spoke warmly and generously about her last night, but many of his senior advisers are not convinced she is the right person for Vice President. They point out that Obama’s support comes from that part of the electorate that wants a change, not only from George W Bush, but from the ruling regime in Washington, including the two term Presidency of Bill Clinton.

But from today most of the advisers to both sides will be working to find a way of healing the splits in the Democratic Party as soon as possible to give their party a better chance of beating John McCain next November.

STOP PRESS

Just visited the Washington Post website. Hillary actually won South Dakota. Just shows how you cannot rely on television news to tell you all the important things that happen. The Post’s Sketch, from their man with Clinton in New York, has other interesting things to report both from her full speech and private comments:

‘Clinton congratulated Obama — not for winning the nomination, but for running an “extraordinary race.” She recognized Obama and his supporters “for all they accomplished.”

It was an extraordinary performance by a woman who had been counted out of the race even when she still had a legitimate chance. Now she had been mathematically eliminated — and she spoke as if she had won.’

But what she was saying in private, apparently, was different:

‘Though some might think her remarks self-delusional, Clinton wasn’t kidding herself; earlier in the day, Clinton had told lawmakers privately that the race was over and she would consider being Obama’s vice president.’

While Britain sleeps American voters are going to the polls today for the last two primaries. The press on both sides of the Atlantic are united in forecasting that Barack Obama is going to claim that he has secured the Democratic nomination in a major speech at St Paul’s Minnesota, where the Democratic Party convention will be held in the autumn. But there is no such unanimity about what Hillary Clinton is going to say in her planned speech in New York tonight. The Washington Post reports that Hillary’s aides are giving mixed signals to their reporters. Associated Press, however, has throughout the day been reporting that Hillary will concede defeat tonight.

The Wall St Journal is equally convinced that she will not be bowing out. Their headline, Campaign says Clinton won’t concede tonight says it all. The New York Times was not making a forecast but it highlights a speech made by her spouse, Bill Clinton in Milbank, South Dakota. It includes this revealing paragraph:

I want to say also that this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind,” Mr. Clinton said. “I thought I was out of politics until Hillary decided to run, but it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to be able to go around and campaign for her for president.

On this side of the Atlantic, The Guardian, highlighted the Clinton campaign’s denial that she was about to concede. Clearly they were talking to different aides than those speaking to the Wall St Journal. Those aides were probably also talking to the London Times, which was splashing just now with the headline, Clinton campaign hints at end to Presidential bid.

The Daily Mail had no doubt as to what was happening and they screamed the news to readers as below:

TOP STORY
Hillary Clinton to bow out TONIGHT as she finally concedes to Obama in race for White House
The Financial Times agrees, but in more measured tones. Their Washington reporter Andrew Ward reports that Clinton had been preparing an exit speech for tonight, but that she had been upstaged by the Associated Press story earlier in the day. Her aides were denying the AP story, but were not denying that she would acknowledge that Obama had now reached the 2,118 Democratic delegate votes he needs to secure the newspaper.

This is all before the votes have been counted. And although Obama is expected to win both states, I found one newspaper arguing that it was by no means certain he would win South Dakota. And the vote tally depends on reports of the alleged intentions of the super delegates, who have been shifting from Clinton to Obama in a steady trickle. Super delegates, of course, can keep on changing their minds.

So it looks highly likely to me that Hillary Clinton will concede defeat tonight. But by no means certain. I shall not be stopping up all night, but I do look forward to discovering tomorrow whether the long Obama/Clinton battle is over. And whether they are going to co-operate from now on in taking on John McCain.

Since I have temporarily claimed the title of the world’s worst blog I thought I ought to do some reality testing. So here are the statistics available to me.

Technorati publishes a sort of Championship League of the world’s bloggers. Today they are ranking me at 334,267 in the World League. Which surprised me because the last time I looked at it, The Daily Novel was about 470,000, and in May I did fewer blogs than usual because of technical problems. (For comparison in my first few weeks of blogging my rank was about 1.9 million.)

The SlimStat figures from WordPress tell me that yesterday I had 2,278 hits and 221 visits. The figures provided by my hosting service, www.1and1.co.uk report that I had 1,367 page views and 732 visits yesterday.

I have found this huge discrepancy between WordPress and 1and1 when I have checked the figures in the past, and decided that I should not waste my time on damn statistics.

This morning I was more persistent and looked at the monthly figures for the last twelve months. I found that 1and1 consistently shows me with four or five times as many visits per month as does WordPress. But that, with the exception of one month, the figures for WordPress hits are almost the same as the figures for 1and1 page impressions. In May I scored 60,000 hits with WordPress and 57,000 page views on 1and1. Last June both 1and1 and WordPress scored me at 30,000 hits.
This helped to ease my depression because it means both companies think I have twice as many readers as a year ago. And it compares with my 1and1 scores of 4,000 for the first month of my blog in August 2006 and 22,000 in January 2007. Still very bad compared with the Daily Telegraph and The Guardian, but at least the gradient is upward.

As for the huge gap in the figures for visits I wonder if it is something to do with the way the two companies deal with spam. The WordPress spam filter, Akismet, tells me that it has stopped 65,000 spam comments.

Anyone out there who knows whether this conjecture has truth?

Woke up this morning realising that I have not written a blog since a week yesterday. Partly due to the fact that the grandchildren have been visiting, and as my headline indicates I have been spending some time talking to them. As well as knocking down an ugly veranda at my house which none of the family liked.

But I have also been making a serious effort to learn more about computing and particularly the program I use to deliver this blog, WordPress. Amongst other things I have been reading the works of Lorelle vanFossen, who seems to be the Madonna of the WordPress world. She tells me in her latest
blog

that ‘A clear purpose will make or break your blog’. She has convinced me that I am doing everything wrong and that I should order her book from Amazon without delay. Here is this blogger who has been writing recently about anorexia, about which he knows little; the Lyme Regis landslip with pics; why Gordon Brown should be replaced by a leader in waiting; what Cherie Blair revealed in her book; the Obama/Clinton contest; and, some rather technical stuff about computer problems, WordPress and its attempt to mount the first

UK WordCamp
in Birmingham.

No clear purpose in that lot.
So I have decided to use this headline as the sub-head of The Daily Novel blog until I feel less depressed.