On Monday, Hillary Clinton strode into the Pittsburg Post-Gazette’s downtown offices for an hour-and-fifteen-minute meeting with the paper’s editorial board. She sat next to John Robinson Block, the paper’s co-publisher and editor in chief, on well-worn, tasseled couch. On Tuesday, Barack Obama did the same.
Immediately after Obama left, the six-member board met to hash out its decision. “It was easy to come to a consensus,” says Tom Waseleski, the paper’s editorial-page editor.
It wasn’t the interviews alone, of course, that led them to their choice. They’d followed the candidates’ campaigns, styles, and positions long before the Pennsylvania primary landed in the nation’s spotlight. But the final decision to endorse Obama took less than thirty minutes. (In so doing, the paper joined The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Allentown Morning Call, and the Scranton Times-Tribune. Clinton has yet to garner a major Pennsylvania paper’s endorsement.)
After the week’s early marathon “it already feels like Friday,” says Waseleski. “We’re just decompressing.”
The editorial, written by deputy editorial-page editor Reg Henry, strongly amplifies Obama’s change message in a concluding paragraph:
Sen. Obama has captured much of the nation’s imagination for a reason. He offers real change, a vision of an America that can move past not only racial tensions but also the political partisanship that has so bedeviled it.
The piece recognizes that there are few policy differences between the two candidates by enumerating their many areas of agreement. According to Waseleski, this similarity was something of a challenge for the board, since it made difficult a case reasoned purely on positions—which left other considerations, like perceived candor and ability to inspire, high on the board’s ledger.
And Obama’s personality and style clearly impressed the group. Board member Susan Mannella asked the senator whether or not, if elected, he planned to enroll his daughters in a public or private school. Rather than respond with some cant about the importance of public schools, Obama simply said that he and Michelle would talk it over and do what he thought was best for the family. That frankness and directness was a major selling point.
“He is very relaxed and confident in almost a disarming way. He was a self-deprecating sense of humor, even if you ask him a tough question,” says Waseleski, who emphasizes that he was also satisfied with Obama answers on policy questions.
What about Clinton? Waseleski had less to say: “She was a more serious, focused type in our interview.” Her responses, more than Obama’s, seemed to find their way back to well-honed talking points.
The difference in style is crystal clear in two Web videos produced by the P-G to document the visits. Obama tells engaging personal anecdote after anecdote. After mentioning that he only recently stopped pumping his own gas, he gets the board laughing by suggesting that someone ask Clinton about her filling-station habits. After the meeting wraps up, Obama’s shown shaking hands and yukking it up in the newsroom. In her meeting Clinton, on the other hand, dryly talks about “trading regimens,” “comparative advantage,” and “private-sector efforts.”
Admittedly, the videos, just a couple of minutes each, were spliced together from the full visits. But, whether by accident or design, they show two very different tones.
One carried the day.
Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.