Obama Underwhelms (Novakula - Front page of Washington Post)

[onehandle]

"I would say he was pretty underwhelming," a longtime Democratic activist said several days after he and some 200 other big-money supporters of Hillary Clinton's failed presidential campaign met with the victor, Barack Obama, in Washington on June 26. Gus will support and contribute to Obama as the party's nominee, but he is not enthusiastic about it.

He is not alone. After the closed-door session in the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel's ballroom, Gus was among 20 participants who gathered for drinks to talk it over. They agreed that it was not an "exciting performance" by the candidate who has entranced monster rallies across the country. Obama was "low-key" in a perfunctory appeal to them.

The Clintonites do not feel alienated, as supporters of Edward M. Kennedy did in 1980, when they never resigned themselves to Jimmy Carter's renomination. None of these loyal Democrats talked about sitting out the general election campaign against John McCain or locking up their bank accounts. Since a donation does not indicate the benefactor's degree of enthusiasm, what difference does it make if they're not enthusiastic? It signals a lack of confidence by important Democrats in a candidate whose charisma is supposed to cancel out his inexperience.

Only one member of the Mayflower group whom I contacted (the one least critical of Obama) was willing to let his name be used. Gus is a multimillionaire trial lawyer whose name would be widely recognized as a Democratic money man. He is no "Friend of Bill" who automatically signed on with the former president's wife. With his support sought by several of the presidential candidates, Gus at one point considered backing Obama but ended up with Clinton because she seemed the best qualified, most electable Democrat. Contrary to the media consensus, Gus found the Clinton campaign to be one of the best-managed in his wide experience.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/09/AR2008070901933.html

[babylonsister]

1. Big surprise here; Novak, a rethug, writing a negative story about

Obama? Go figure.

[NYCGirl]

2. Translation: He was underwhelming. He didn't kiss my big donor ass

good enough.

[blogslut]

3. The devious spreading BS, spoken by the delusional

Crawl back in your coffin, Bob. No blood for you today.

[H2O Man]

4. Novak? Gross.

[barack the house]

5. "poltics is like dancing you may not get your dance partner but it's better to dance than not at all

"

[karynnj]

6. There is nothing here that hasn't already been said and it is biased

If I am reading it right - "theonly perticipant let him name be used" - so Novak called him "Gus" is later identifies as Lanny Davis! Why call him Gus? Now, Davis was as angry a Clinton person in his many times on TV as there ever was and he's a long time Clinton defender, making Novack's firstdescription misleading,

Novak stumbles on some honesty when he mentions that many here were likely to get the plum ambassadorsips. But, ignoring that, by definition these were people who have likely dreamed of either HRC as President or a Clinton redo for 8 years - of course it will take a long time for them to get over that. He also says that, unlike 1980, they are not speaking of not voting or contributing - that might be the best that can be expected at this point. I would bet the money men and strongest backers of Bradley or Dean would - a month after their choice was out and before the convention would have said the same things. More pertaintly, I still hear on RW radio in the brief bursts I can tolerate, a lot of regret that McCain is the candidate - and it gets no front page WP coverage.

The other question is why does any paper give Novak employment, much less front page exposure. This is nothing but an attempt to generate buyer regret - before Obama even gets the nomination - ignoring that he is polling ahead of McCain.