Ryan Lizza writes in the last issue of The New Yorker:
Like the press, Obama’s team missed signs of Clinton’s resurgence.
Unlike earlier campaign events, which were shorter and more controlled, Clinton now endured grinding two-hour sessions where she answered questions in numbing detail.
At one stop in Manchester, she promised to create “a government blogging team” that would help keep taxpayers informed.
She had an unshakable faith that small things mattered.
She drew appreciative applause when she said that she would simplify college loan applications and when she commiserated with her audience about the price of gasoline.
Meanwhile, Obama delivered his customary inspirational speeches, full of rhetorical flight but light on detail, in which he tried to move voters by making them feel as if they were part of history.
All the intensity, all the joy, seemed to be with Obama. Spectators often fled Clinton’s events before they ended, while at Obama’s the crowds crushed in around him after the last standing ovation.
(Illustration by Richard Thompson/The New Yorker)