From CJR, on watching Obama:

When the senator did arrive, he gave a pitch-perfect stump speech, surfing the enthusiasm of the pulsating gym. When he took the stage he said, “At some point in the evening, a light is going to shine down and you will have an epiphany and you’ll say, ‘I have to vote for Barack.’”

If that epiphany never came, you couldn’t blame Obama. I’m not sure what more he could have done to make those people see the light.

Still, when I got back to my hotel room and read the Times’s assessment of the Democratic field, I realized that the editorial board understood something the rest of us consumers of daily media have missed, but which was obvious to me after just one Obama-in-the-flesh event: what the Illinois senator excels at is packaging himself for the press (and, consequently, the public).

And on watching Hillary: Read more…