Morning Coffee: What might have been and what might be
Morning Edition spent five minutes this morning with John Weaver, the former Chief Strategist for the McCain until July of last year; he left over differences with the direction of the campaign. Weaver says McCain gets the credit for relentlessly pushing forward to win the nomination, but then the campaign went on autopilot for several months, during which time, Obama was able to define himself. The McCain campaign struggled until the end to overcome that. On the McCain negative ads, Weaver says they didn’t work because the campaign didn’t focus on what voters cared about: “The country was speaking economic English and the campaign was speaking angry Greek.” Listen
Also on Morning Edition, David Schaper profiles Rahm Emanuel, the presumptive White Chief of Staff. The piece continues the general line about Emanuel – he’s efficient but also brutal and partisan. Emanuel: “I’m aggressive about fighting for what I believe in.” Listen
Over at The Takeaway, David Mark, the Senior Editor of Politico, says the Emanuel choice is about getting things done on the Hill. He also expresses surprise at the leak of Emanuel’s name. Listen
And check out this interview with Patrick O’Connell of the BBC, who gives some perspective on the Gordon Brown/Barack Obama relationship. Speaking of relationships, New York Times magazine contributor Jonathan Mahler discusses the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches. Mahler says one of the reasons the Bush administration was able to expand the power of the executive branch was because the Republican Senators were more loyal to their party than to the institution. So the question is, what will Obama do? Listen
