A Nice Piece of Pageantry
Backstage at the Obama-Clinton Unity fest
UNITY, N.H.—When Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton finished their pageant of partnership here today, the advance team put "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)" on the sound system.
It was nice music, but a little ahead of the game: There is still signing, sealing and delivering to do. They both need to put their money where their mouths, if not their hearts, are now.
Obama can't win without Hillary's (and Bill's) help—or at least her acquiescence. And she will be forever broke unless Obama turns at least part of his cash machine over to the task of bailing her out of debt.
Still, as pageants go, this was a nice one, and a successful one. The Obama campaign bused in a good crowd to this little town, and a goodly number of hard-core Clinton types—most, but not all of them, women—were placed behind the podium so they would be in camera range.
Before the event, Clinton drew a few boos from the crowd. By the time it was over, the whole audience seemed to be cheering for both of them with equal vigor.
The former rivals had just spent about three hours of travel time together on the plane and bus. According to Linda Douglass, the traveling press secretary, the two candidates commiserated with each other about the travails of the road—the bad food and such—and their shared difficulty in dealing with computer and digital technology.
"They were friends before they ran against each other," Douglass pointed out, "and they are becoming friends again."
They are never going to be close personally, it doesn't seem to me, but they don't have to be.
Their speeches tended to concentrate on shared goals as Democrats rather than lavish or detailed personal praise. In fact, there was little of that—the bare minimum. As Obama spoke about Clinton, someone in the crowd shouted, "Hillary rocks!" "Yes," said Obama, "that's what I'm trying to say: Hillary rocks!' Everyone laughed. It was a genuine moment, but not a line Obama had thought of on his own.
Clinton made the case to voters who had supported her, some of whom, she said, were considering voting for Republican John McCain or not voting at all. She asked them to consider what she and Obama had both campaigned for: broad-based health-care coverage, tax cuts for lower- and middle-income Americans, an end to "giveaways" to oil companies, a careful but prompt withdrawal from the war in Iraq.
This wasn't about either of them, the two told the crowd. While the audience might just have been putting on a polite display for Clinton, they went along with the Stevie Wonder theme for the day.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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