"Message to Obama: Fighting the Clinton machine won't be as easy as picking up favorable press clips"
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Lowry’s line is a needle disguised as advice: a “message” framed like tough love but calibrated to belittle. The sting sits in the contrast between “fighting the Clinton machine” and “picking up favorable press clips.” One is cast as hard, grimy politics; the other as weightless media confection. By making that comparison, he’s not just doubting Obama’s readiness. He’s defining Obama’s entire rise as a press-enabled phenomenon, a candidate manufactured by adoration rather than built by organization.
The phrase “Clinton machine” does heavy lifting. It cues a familiar narrative of the Clintons as ruthless, networked, and institutional - the kind of operation that turns relationships into leverage and leverage into delegates. “Machine” also flatters the speaker’s own realism: you, reader, are supposed to recognize how power actually works. In that frame, Obama becomes the naïf, the kid who mistakes headlines for votes.
The subtext is a cultural argument about legitimacy. Lowry is rehearsing a conservative critique of elite media as a kingmaker and, implicitly, of Obama as its favorite project. “Press clips” is deliberately diminutive, evoking scrapbooks and PR vanity rather than journalism or public persuasion. It suggests not only that coverage is favorable, but that Obama is collecting it, feeding on it.
Context matters: this comes from the era when Obama’s candidacy was still being tested against the Clinton brand’s dominance. Lowry’s intent is to harden skepticism early - to tell audiences that any Obama momentum is soft, that the real contest will expose him once the glow of coverage meets the grind of party warfare.
The phrase “Clinton machine” does heavy lifting. It cues a familiar narrative of the Clintons as ruthless, networked, and institutional - the kind of operation that turns relationships into leverage and leverage into delegates. “Machine” also flatters the speaker’s own realism: you, reader, are supposed to recognize how power actually works. In that frame, Obama becomes the naïf, the kid who mistakes headlines for votes.
The subtext is a cultural argument about legitimacy. Lowry is rehearsing a conservative critique of elite media as a kingmaker and, implicitly, of Obama as its favorite project. “Press clips” is deliberately diminutive, evoking scrapbooks and PR vanity rather than journalism or public persuasion. It suggests not only that coverage is favorable, but that Obama is collecting it, feeding on it.
Context matters: this comes from the era when Obama’s candidacy was still being tested against the Clinton brand’s dominance. Lowry’s intent is to harden skepticism early - to tell audiences that any Obama momentum is soft, that the real contest will expose him once the glow of coverage meets the grind of party warfare.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
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