I suppose there are two main narratives coming out of Tuesday’s primaries.
One is that by increasing her negative attacks on Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton has turned the race around and seized the momentum.
The other is that the media, preferring a close race to a lengthy string of Obama routes, took every opportunity to highlight stories that would bring him back to earth, giving Clinton a chance to eke out a couple of token wins and slow his march to the nomination.
Although I tend to think it’s the latter, I’m fully with the Obama campaign in their determination to act as if it’s the former.
In response to the expectation (and explicit threat from her campaign strategist, Mark Penn) that Clinton will accelerate her negative attacks, after having learned that it seemed to work in Ohio and Texas, the Obama camp indicated that they intend to return the fire with a more targeted focus on Clinton’s experience, honesty, and past ethical lapses.
Although I’ve urged Obama to stay above the fray in the past, I think the timing is much better now to throw a few leading jabs as a supplement to his recent willingness to counterpunch.
By now, he’s already proven that he can inspire voters and win support with a positive message of hope and transformative change, something Clinton has been unable to match.
She can shown she only compete by tearing Obama down, by pounding him with a relentless string of exaggerated, misleading, and sometimes completely fabricated slurs, offered in the name of “vetting,” but mostly intended to appeal to latent racism or fearfulness in her targeted low education, low income, voters.
With a significant lead in a Democratic Party that clearly doesn’t want to field a bloodied and wounded candidate in the general election, the time is right for Obama to signal to the party elders that he isn’t going to let Clinton slime him into submission.
If they don’t want a bloody battle reminiscent of Leonard vs. Duran, they had better get Obama’s back by coalescing around his campaign and pressuring Clinton to stop the party destroying tactics that are her only path to a tarnished nomination.
Or everybody gets hurt!
I hope you are correct that the people who bought into her fearful campaign messages, are capable of thinking beyond just what is set before them. Obviously a reason for Obama to set other ideas about Hillary before them so that they have to see more of who she is at her core. These voters apparently are reacting out of fear. Saying that - She and McCain are the two who are capable of being Commander-In-Chief because of their life experience, and Obama has a 2002 speech to his credit, is the last straw about her for me. Putting McCain above Obama shows that she is another Joe Leiberman. If she doesn't win she will probably be cross over and be vice for McCain.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see her cross over and run with McCain. It would be a signal to her "traditional democratic" base that they really mean nothing to her beyond votes and campaign donations!
ReplyDeleteShe may take a few completely brainwashed loyalists with her from the Democratic side, but I think Obama could still win by simply pointing out that he's running against a traitor to the ideals she's been talking about, and someone who would take a traitor on his ticket.