Blogging on Meds

Political campaigns, as they say, are all about narrative and image. And when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared together Friday for the first time—in a NH town called Unity no less—more of the world’s top young photojournalists were on-hand than for any other single event of the campaign (at least to my knowledge).

Tama

The fact that Getty Images sent two New York staffers, Mario Tama and Spencer Platt, both extremely talented and well-known breaking news photographers, to a tiny town in NH says it all. The Obama campaign scored an essential coup by getting these Unity photos into the public sphere.

Platt

And the NYT sent Tyler Hicks, who’s also of world renown for his news reportage. The last time all three (Tama, Platt, Hicks) shot an out-of-NY story together was probably Katrina. This underlines how powerful Hillary-Obama images are, illustrating how the two are still the biggest show in American politics.

Hicks

After Unity, Nymag’s John Heilemen (who with Mark Helperin recently sold a mid-six figure book on the 2008 campaign) states the obvious about Obama’s best choice for VP:

It it’s hard to think of anyone who would fit the change-AND-experience bill that Obama is trying to fill — except, that is, for a certain lady in a pantsuit. Hillary Clinton, of course, has plenty of baggage. And she is nobody’s idea of an outsider. But given her gender, it wouldn’t take much doing message-wise to frame her as an emblem of change. And even her critics acknowledge that her cojones are more than capacious enough to qualify her as commander-in-chief. (There is no Democrat more admired by the top military brass.) The smart set tells us that Clinton is ruled out by her husband; in particular, by his unwillingness to divulge certain details about his business dealings and to reveal the list of donors to his presidential library. And in general by the bitterness he apparently continues to nurse toward Obama (cf the remark of Clinton’s reported over the weekend that Obama can “kiss my ass” in return for his support.)

Yet if WJC were to stop behaving like a petulant adolescent and muster up a change of heart — an enormous “if,” I’m well aware, but doesn’t he owe HRC that much? — the case for Hillary would be nearly watertight. Unity. Brand equity. A fighter’s mettle. An ass-kicking ability as a debater. What more could you ask for in a veep? It’s a question that, I bet, will be plaguing Obama in the days and weeks to come.

RELATED POSTS:

• Hassan Chop, South Asian-American, Socio-Economic Analyst
• Today’s Reads
• Geoff Kenyon: The Clintonization of 2008
• Political Tourists: Live at Chili’s Nashua, NH, January 2008
• Iowa Caucus Results