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In Final Push for Votes, Pledges From Both Sides to Change Washington    [

    A Season of Change
    By Jonathan Schell
    The Nation

    Monday 07 January 2008

    Change, change, change, change, change! With astounding unanimity, throughout the politic sphere-in the campaigns, in the media coverage, in pollsters' surveys-the word "change" is bubbling on people's lips. You'd think that a word, not a person, had won each of the primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire.

    Barack Obama, who announced in his speech after his victory in Iowa, "Our time for change has come," was, of course, the prince of change. But suddenly "change" seemed to be the key to all political futures, as every candidate, Democrat or Republican, scrambled, by uttering the magic word as many times as possible, to affix it to themselves. In his speech after the Iowa results, John Edwards announced that the winner was not exactly Barack Obama but... "change." He stated, "What won was change over the status quo." Thus, he had not been defeated by Obama; he and Obama been part of a joint victory over the status quo. Hillary Clinton agreed that the word rather than any specific person had been the winner: After thanking the other candidates, she said, "Together, we have presented the case for change." Later, in New Hampshire, she asserted that her very gender spelled change. She said, "I think I am an agent of change. I embody change. I think having the first woman President is a huge change..."

    The contagion immediately spread to the Republican Party, where Mitt Romney, that plaything of every passing political breeze, seemed almost to be engaged in a word game whose rule was to purge the English language insofar as possible of every word but this one. For instance in the Republican debate in New Hampshire, he babbled, "I can say, 'Not only can I talk change with you, I've lived it.' In the private sector for twenty-five years, I brought change to company after company. In the Olympics, it was in trouble. I brought change. In Massachusetts, I brought change. I have done it. I have changed things."

    But Clinton bested him. In the Democratic debate, she said, "I want to make change, but I've already made change. I will continue to make change. I'm not just running on a promise of change. I'm running on thirty-five years of change." (Thus Clinton managed to use the word five times in a thirty-two-word passage, for a winning percentage of 15.6 percent, whereas it had taken Romney fifty words to get in five uses, for a mere 10 percent rate.)

    Also, there now appeared here an animal called the "change voter" (who apparently had shouldered aside such previous favorites as the "security Mom" and the "values voter"). ABC news found that 51 percent of these people preferred Obama.

    Even George Bush got into the act, through his spokesman Tony Fratto, who rather cryptically said, "It's good to see change in this job."

    To state the obvious, this word, taken by itself, is an almost perfect vacuum. Its ubiquity marks a surprisingly metaphysical turn in American politics, as if Hegelians or the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers had taken charge of our political discussion. In actuality, of course, it is not philosophers but political consultants, market researchers, TV ad writers and pollsters who have created the new abstract vocabulary, distilling all the particulars of American aspirations into a few blurry, glowing phrases-or in this case, just one word.

    National healthcare would be a change, but so would a smallpox epidemic. Hurricane Katrina was a change, and so was the Iraq war. George Bush-a change from whom is presumably wanted-has indeed been the biggest "agent of change" in a generation. And what can the "change" that Mitt Romney has brought "to private enterprise" have to do with the change that Hillary Clinton represents just by being a woman? When combined with Obama's reported desire to create a "post-partisan politics" (in which there is not a red or a blue America but a "United States of America"), the void only expands. Obama wants to get American troops (or most of them) out of Iraq; John McCain says he might keep them there for a hundred years. In a "post-partisan" world, which would it be?

    Yet it would be superficial to judge the whole significance of a political moment by the inadequacy of an evasive word chosen to designate it. When Obama gave his speech after his win in Iowa, there was almost an audible click of history's gears meshing and its engines turning over and beginning to hum. At the very least, the moment crystallized a wide-scale national disgust with what has gone before. The era of two dynasties-of the Bushes and Clintons-seemed to be coming to a close.

    Where before it seemed that thick, impenetrable gloomy clouds were rolling across the landscape, a bright and shimmering but so far empty screen has been hung. Soon, something will be projected there. Then we'll know what this season of change - or at least of the word "change" - meant.

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    In Final Push for Votes, Pledges From Both Sides to Change Washington
    By Adam Nagourney
    The New York Times

    Tuesday 08 January 2008

    Lebanon, NH - Republican and Democratic presidential candidates alike called Monday for a sharp break with the way the Bush administration and Congress have been running the country, as the final hours of campaigning before the New Hampshire primary became a rush to capture the excitement surrounding Senator Barack Obama.

    On a day that crackled with historical possibility, the candidates fell over themselves with pledges to change the nation's course as the presidential contest, for the moment at least, coalesced around a dominant theme. Their words - in speeches to packed halls across the state and in television advertisements - were testimony to the extent Mr. Obama has transformed the race and capitalized on public disenchantment with Washington.

    "In one day's time, in less than 24 hours, you will have a chance - it will be your turn - to stand up and say to the rest of the country, 'The time for change has come,'" Mr. Obama said at a filled-to-overflowing rally at the Lebanon Opera House.

    He had arrived to find hundreds of people locked and waiting outside. They burst into shouts of "Fired Up, Ready to Go" as soon as they spotted his tall figure loping into view.

    Talk of change and disenchantment with Washington has in recent days supplanted, or at least supplemented, all the talk of experience, national security and the war in Iraq that has marked the campaign until now.

    The campaign in New Hampshire, a state with a history of being wary of government and partisanship, was turning into something more than just a nominating contest: It was offering a window on how sour Americans are feeling about their government, and the sentiment Mr. Obama seems to have tapped into.

    The shift was evident in both the Democratic and Republican contests.

    "There is a tide of change sweeping New Hampshire and America," Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, said in a two-minute advertisement broadcast Monday night. "Everywhere I go people say Washington is broken."

    Hillary Rodham Clinton took the stage for one of her last rallies here Monday night in front of a battery of signs declaring, "Ready for Change." Mr. Obama stood at a lectern that read, "Change We Can Believe In."

    John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is threatening to defeat Mr. Romney here in a state where he once thought victory was assured, climbed a stage and emphasized what has been a recurrent theme of his own campaign. "I am running for president because I want to restore trust and confidence in government," Mr. McCain said.

    Throughout the day, Democrats and Republicans found themselves talking about Mr. Obama and the extent to which he has become a catalyst for the contest here. At stop after stop, the candidates were faced with huge crowds - fire marshals were routinely shutting down halls - and longtime New Hampshire political figures said they could not recall a time when an election had provoked such passion and interest.

    Mr. Romney's advisers said his campaign might have erred in not talking about change earlier as a way of contrasting his candidacy with Mr. McCain's, and said they viewed this theme as a way to press his candidacy forward should he lose Tuesday. "Why is there so much enthusiasm about Barack?" Mr. Romney said at one rally. "It's in part because he's not one of the insiders."

    Indeed, at times on this raucous final day, it was hard to distinguish who was whom as the candidates trotted out their populist themes.

    "There's a disconnect between the people in Washington breathing that rarefied air for way too long and the people trying to put food on their tables," said Mike Huckabee, a Republican from Arkansas.

    His words were almost identical to those of John Edwards, a Democrat from North Carolina, who spoke disparagingly of Washington politicians "going to the cocktail parties, with the lobbyists, spreading the money around," a well-established theme of his campaign.

    All this came on the eve of a primary that fell just five days after the Iowa caucuses. There was evidence of emotion and fatigue among all the candidates as they contemplated the possibility that the vote could go a long way toward determining the outcome of their races.

    In Portsmouth, Mrs. Clinton welled with tears after a voter asked her how she was bearing up under the pressures of the race. Mr. Obama, his eyes red-rimmed with fatigue, made fun of himself for mangling one of signature phrases by saying "come is going to change." Mr. McCain, flubbing a line about members of Congress spending like drunken sailors, announced to the crowd, "I screwed that one up!"

    Mr. Romney, clearly worried about the outcome in a state he was once confident of winning, asserted that he could survive in the race if he lost here. Mr. Huckabee, who won the Republican caucuses in Iowa last week, suggested that he was feeling less stress: he planned to fly to New York for a taping of the David Letterman show. On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, he flew to Los Angeles to tape the Jay Leno show.

    Election officials expected a huge turnout.

    And the campaigns were going to considerable efforts to make sure that happened. At one point, Chelsea Clinton got on the telephone to call potential supporters and urge them to support her mother; it was a departure for a campaign that has tended to keep Ms. Clinton on the side of the stage.

    A series of polls going into the final hours suggested that Mr. Obama had opened a lead over Mrs. Clinton, a finding that her aides did not dispute as they began talking about her post-New Hampshire possibilities.

    Like other candidates, Mr. Obama is nursing a strained voice - another effect of the compressed primary calendar.

    "I was a little concerned about it," Mr. Obama said, "so I asked a doctor yesterday what they would prescribe. And they said, 'Shut up.' I can't do that, but I hope you'll bear with me."

    Indeed, there were many candidates on the field but it was hard for them to avoid Mr. Obama. As Mr. McCain climbed off his stage to shake hands and talk to New Hampshire voters, a woman approached him with a smile.

    "I am for Barack Obama, but I wish you the best of luck," she said.

    Mr. McCain hesitated, but just for a moment. "Thank you very much," he said. "He's a good man."

    --------

    Reporting was contributed by Michael Luo, Jeff Zeleny, Patrick Healy, Sarah Wheaton, David D. Kirkpatrick and Marc Santora.