When Will Obama Swing Back?

While Clinton and Obama flacks debate the word "monster" all weekend, we might take a moment to look at a much more offensive comment ex-Obama advisor Samantha Powers made to The Scotsman. Said Ms. Powers of Senator Clinton, "You just look at her and think, 'Ergh'. But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive."

Yeah, nothing says smart politicking like Obama's Ivy League think-tank advisors berating the working poor for their man's inability, over and over again, to connect with lower income voters. How condescending a statement is that to the working poor of America? Or maybe it's simple frustration on the part of Obama's campaign when the "magic" and "hope" just don't play when the issues are paying the rent and health care, or having to choose one over the other.

And does the "deceit" in Ohio that Ms. Powers mentions include Obama's reported backchannel talks with Canadian pols that Obama won't change NAFTA, even while telling "poor" voters he will change it? Maybe the problem isn't so much Clinton's negativity, but Obama's inability to convince people he cares about their jobs. Until he answers all the questions he's being asked, it sure looks that way. He spiked himself in Ohio with his own arrogance. Hillary's phone call ad was minor in comparison, because the issue there was jobs.

Obama's elitist, above-the-fray stance makes him look like John Kerry II, as do condescending comments like Ms. Powers'. I keep hearing people say, "Oh, Obama won't get swift boated. He'll swing back." Yeah, when? He just took two big losses that could have closed the deal for him. Why? Because Hillary Clinton's tougher than he is. Does anyone think the GOP will hesitate to hit him twice as hard? Sorry if it's unseemly to pundits and professors alike, but the Presidency is worth a fight. To quote Tina Fey, bitch is the new black. Bitching about losing isn't.

Comments

[momorune]

Wuh-huh-hoo, Ben Schwarz. Are you disappointed that you're not getting enough *aggression* out of your role model here? What's huh?

Obama isn't going to adopt jugular-vein, scorched earth, devious nasty campaign strategies. That's Clinton style. Obama's smart enough to realize that if you adopt abusive tactics, all it does is create more abused people. The whole point of his candidacy is to get people to think instead of raving along in some sort of feeding frenzy bloodlust. Obviously that has gotten past you?

[NoFactsJustTruth]

If you really believe Obama will face even half the swift-boating of 'the Clintons', you need to slow down on what you're smoking, and let yourself 'come down' a bit.

[FreedomLoverX]

You are right. Swiftboating has to do with false allegations. That's mostly what Obama will get/has gotten. Hillary will not be swiftboated. No need. She is truly a corrupt liar, easily proven with fact. No swiftboating required.

[Ides]

Benny, Benny, Benny. Get your timeline right.

First, Samantha Power's comments came in response to discovering Hillary Clinton's pushing of NAFTA-gate, not in response to her winning in Ohio. Powers' comments came before Ohio voted.

Second, NAFTA-gate originated from comments that Hillary Clinton's camp had contacted the Canadians. In fact, Canada contacted Austan Goolsbee, not the other way around. Canadian news reports have followed the story pretty closely and I think, again, the problem is that you don't really know what you're talking about at this point.

Third, Hillary Clinton is a monster. Everyone is thinking it. Even her brief bump in the polls after "the kitchen sink" has disappeared and Obama is back on top again. She played her last card and it's all downhill from there. Let's see if she can keep from being blown out completely.

[JasonEverettMiller]

Not to mention the fact that everything said behind closed doors was exactly the same as his public statements. Goolsbee was simply confirming that Barack isn't a protectionist, though he will seek to modify NAFTA as currently written and implemented.

Barack is consistent in a way that none of his critic ever are.

I sometimes wonder what planet these writers are from, because they simply can't be watching the same news as I am and continue to come to illogical and ill-informed conclusions. What's up with an inability to be objective by so-called "journalists" in new media?

[CarbonDate]

Ivy League think tank advisor? Say whatever you want about Barack Obama; it's a campaign, and anything's fair, but who the hell are you to dismiss Samantha Power like that? She's a Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist who covered the Yugoslav wars in the 90s, not some Beverly Hills wanna-be screen writer blogger like, ah, somebody else I could mention.

[MikeMidCity]

Oh no, I think CarbonDate has your number Benny.

Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize winning Harvard instructor and lecturer vs. you.

If bitch is the new black then you should get a new suit. Your roll around in the dirt preference is indicative of your own mentality. That is the sort of Rove like crap that the nation is tired of.

Hillary's behavior will drive the super delegates to Obama's camp. It is a mistake to berate another Democratic candidate. Reminds people of Bush and makes her look like she's desperate.

So you can join Ann Clouture in the Hillary camp. Good on you.

[editrix66]

CarbonDate is right. Samantha Powers should not have vented her frustration to a reporter, but Obama is not an elitist. He just tries to find the best minds out there. And Samantha Powers deserves our respect. Obama didn't grow up rich, and he has worked with the poor most of his adult life. I find Clinton to be very patronizing. She "knows" the "lunch bucket" constituency--meaning she knows how to manipulate them, to make people afraid. Obama is swinging back. And he is going to get this nomination. I suspect the superdelegates re not as impressed with Clinton's scorched-earth campaign. She needs Obama's supporters, and she is alienating them with her campaign.

[FreedomLoverX]

More delusion. Yes, I want a candidate who can crawl in the gutter and the dirt like a pig. Frankly, I am so damn sick of the low road. I suggest, for those who want a president who is irrational and willing to climb in the trough, you should run out and vote for Hillary. On the otherhand, if you would like a president who has enough character not to behave like a pig and has enough principals to know that it is not always best to abandon them out of powerlust, there are other choices. He took 2 big losses? He just had another 3 wins and will have another one tomorrow. Or perhaps I should phrase it as you would - Hillary had 12 huge losses, then 2 minor wins, and now another 4 huge losses. He is ahead. The only reason this deal is not closed, is because Hillary will still be beating on the door of the Whitehouse, even after he is sworn in!

[WebForce1]

Well, you've convinced me. I'm going Hillary all the way!! Good luck with Jimmy Carter part 2.

[FreedomLoverX]

Dear Shill,

I notice you keep pretending Hillary won in Texas. What makes you want to be a liar?

Yes- you should stay with Hillary. You belong together.

[WAdem]

Great post, Ben. I say if HRC ends up with the most popular votes after 50 states, she should be our nominee and if Obama chooses not to run alongside of her, so be it. It will be his loss. He could tag along and learn some inside information from Hillary and, then, become her successor. That's where I see this going.

[TerenceHartnett]

The popular vote is not counted in caucuses. So, it would be inaccurate to say the person with popular vote actually had more people vote for him or her.

So, if you only look at the popular vote, then your are excluding from the process Iowa, Nevada, Alaska, American Samoa, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Hawaii, Texas (1/3), Wyoming, and Guam. These are all caucuses.

Essentially all these voters from these states would be disenfranchised.

The person with the most delegates is the nominee. I mean, seriously, Iowa doesn't count???? Come on.

Considering all this talk about not disenfranchising Michigan and Florida this position seems odd.

And it seems to that all these "ideas" center around the effort to make HRC the nominee even if more people voted for Obama.

[Herrington]

Lets have re-votes in Iowa, Nevada, Alaska, American Samoa, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Hawaii, Texas (1/3), Wyoming, and Guam too. Lets get really democratic and let Republicans vote in all of them.

And then if that's not enough to convince Hillary to quit savaging the party then we should change name of the party to Fedupocrats and leave her the head of the Democratic party of Bill and Hillary.

Seriously, execellent comment TerenceHartnett.

[jstock]

Yeah, that's right. Working men don't want to hear any of that sissy inspirational stuff. Instead, they want to hear painfully dull specifics until they doze off in their seats.

Unfortunately, Obama can't "hit back" with the two-by-four I'd like him to use w/o her pulling the sympathy card, and having every woman over 50 take umbrage. What he needs are brutal and shameless stealth surrogates to go after HRC on her corruption and her lies, while he takes the high road.

Wake up, my blue collar buddies. The Clintons don't care about anybody but themselves.

[Doncaster]

Uh, hello? Obama won Texas.

[hhkeller]

Obama has only made a few important votes in the Senate.
His words don't match his votes. If they did he would be a clear favorite.

Obama matches Bush in his votes more often than not.
His talk on NAFTA doesnt match his talk to Canadians.
His talk on Iraq doesnt match his talk to the Brits.
Talk is cheap if it's not backed up with substance.

Experienced democrats watch the votes while students don't bother.

[Herrington]

And that, somehow, discredits Obama's winning of Texas?

Obama matches Clinton on his votes more often than not.

His talk on NAFTA perfectly matches hie talk with Canada.

His talk on Iraq matches his statement that we should be as careful getting out as we were foolish getting in to Iraq.

Clinton has now abandoned the substance complaint in faovr of smear and innuendo. Did you not get the memo?

[tommyill]

I guess if you can't find any good arguments in favor of a candidate, you can just make up lies about their opponent, huh?

[RussnCA]

Samantha Power also told a BBC3 interviewer Obama is not a messiah...

A lot of people are projecting onto him their fantasies for what America can be, should be... part of becoming President will actually be recalibrating expectations. He is going to be handed the messes that have been created.

According to Power, she'd sooner have somebody who has literally lived in America's failing states - its failing cities - you understand why people take up guns instead of going to school - it at least gives you a visceral connection with the rest of the world.

[Herrington]

The NAFTA smear has been discredited in its entirety, by none other than the Canadian government. How anyone could not know this who has an active interest in this contest is baffling.

In any case, at the risk of being accused of belittling the ‘poor’, I’d have to say that the reason that Obama has not connected with them is that they are not paying attention. They are busy working their asses off for the same people that inhabit the DLC.

Clinton has run on the name recognition of a past President, and lost all but the last gasp of what was once a massive lead in the polls to Obama. Does the poster suppose that all those Obama supporters are all young people, elitists and intellectuals. Sorry, but those demographics are not large enough constitute the slim majority that has come out for Obama. Some ’poor’ people must be listening.

As regards toughness. A subject with which I have some experience. It used to be said of me, ‘if you say the word fight in front of Herrington, you better be able to say where and how many’. I have mellowed. I know the subject well enough to know that a black man growing up with a funny name and making his way to Harvard Law and ultimately running for the Presidency of the United States is no pussy, by any tortured logic you can dream up. Let that sink in.

If Obama choses not to throw punches against Clinton right now, it is his decision to make. Consider the consequences. A street fight with Clinton will drag them both down in the polls versus McCain, something that Clinton no longer cares about. Not to put too fine a point on it, she wins if Obama loses the general. She can run again in four years, with a not too subtle ‘I told you so’. Second, Obama can’t risk alienating Clinton’s loyal base by appearing to be unfair, or even discourteous to a woman in any way. If he does fight back, you will hear ‘woman roar’.

[Seral]

"The NAFTA smear has been discredited in its entirety, by none other than the Canadian government."

Unfortunately for you, it was not discredited in its entirety. And that is why the discussion still continues. A representative of Obama went and talked about NAFTA. What in the world was he thinking sending men to other countries' representatives to talk on issues behind the closed doors, when he was expected to be honest about this issue to his own countrymen by considering the best of his people. Where are the dreams he was selling, at Canada, Mexico, Iraq, Pakistan, or USA?

Anyway, the comedy part of that is, his side was criticizing Hillary about secrecy, when he was doing something even worse. At least, Clinton was doing the secrecy thing with his countrymen, not with other countries' people!!!

[jstock]

The Canadians asked to speak with Goolsbee, not the other way around. And Canada has said that Obama's rep did NOT contradict Obama's publicly stated position. I love it though, that the woman whose husband championed NAFTA and who herself has publicly lauded it, is now the champion of the little guy and Obama, who was born poor and had to work his way to where he is today, without riding his president spouse's coattails, is the elitist. And here's something you should have learned in the 1990's: simply affixing "gate" to a word does not a scandal make.

[Herrington]

Obama did not send Goolsbee to talk to the Canadians. They asked to meet with him weeks before the Ohio cmapaign came into national focus. NAFTA was not the prupose of the meeting.

Even the claim that Clinton had a meeting as well as Obama has been discredited, so in fact, everything, up to and including the waving memo has been discredited.

[idontthinkthisishelping]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought every fact reported supporting the NAFTA scandal was denied by everyone mentioned in the story, and the only "true" accusation, was this scandal replacing the Obama rep with a Clinton rep (as of this weekend, the Canadians say that the original, real Clinton accusation wasn't really an accusation but a "slip of the tongue" during a press conference.)

I also understand that Clinton's camp took the original story, replaced Clinton with Obama, and floated it to the press.

If I have my facts right, does this qualify as "deceit?"

There is a significant portion of the population who do not want their leaders to participate in sociopathic behavior, campaigning without offering one fact, campaigning for the nominee of the opposing party, making a claim of experience and never, ever giving one example to support that contention (she made a speech in China attempting to empower women, and her website is now claiming she made a speech in Northern Ireland attempting to empower women; not sure how effective that speech in China was, but apparently the speech in Northern Ireland ended the 30 years of Troubles.

You prefer the tough sociopath because you believe the ultimate enemy, the Republicans, are tough sociopaths, and the only way for the Democratic party to win is to nominate a tough sociopath.

Some of us reject this "logic," and believe that if this entire campaign makes it clear that both the Democrats and the Republicans pride themselves first and foremost to be the party with the most ruthless sociopaths money can buy, it won't be a tough decision to leave the party.

But now just the prospect of winning by throwing bombs isn't enough: now you demand that Obama thow bombs as well. I'm not quite sure why. Clinton is certain of winning the nomination and the general, especially against a still target like Obama, so why does she care? Why are her supporters and surrogates posting to blogs calling Obama out, demanding that he lose his conscience like the rest of them?

Could it be that, win or lose, the juxtaposition of Clinton's willingness to do anything to anyone to get what she wants, and to make sure that if she doesn't her party cannot get what they want, against an opponent who has walked away from that self-serving and otherwise completely irrelevant knifefight, to propose his platform, might do more to highlight her sense of morality, ethical standards, veracity, gravitas, electability, leadership style and skills than she might alone?

[vanessa04]

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought every fact reported supporting the NAFTA scandal was denied by everyone mentioned in the story..."

You stand corrected.

On Friday, the Canadian PM stated that the Clinton camp never contacted them, but Obama's camp did. There is a memo of that meeting. NAFTA was discussed. No one is denying those essential facts.

I understand your willingness to say anything about anyone to get what you want, but the latest information is 3 days old. I would question your sense of morality and ethics, but as a Clinton supporter, I have higher ethical standards than those you've demonstrated here. Try to keep up.

[Herrington]

Neither side contacted the Canadians, the Canadians contacted Goolsbee on another issue and in that meeting NAFTA came up briefly. There was no wink and nod, by strength of comments by people in attendance.

Besides, why would the Canadian government sources want to discredit the one candidate that ostensibly gave him a wink and nod? It could never pass the smell test to begin with.

[JasonEverettMiller]

Yet, somehow, your "higher ethical standards" cause you to abuse the truth or at a minimum not search too hard to figure it out.

The information is not "3 days old" and the Canadian government confirmed that Hillary's camp did in fact tell them to take the NAFTA rhetoric with a grain of salt, while Obama's camp confirmed his public stance. Obama's camp didn't seek anyone out and NAFTA was a short aside during a previously scheduled meeting. He is consistent behind closed doors and in front of a microphone.

Your candidate is flawed. Now you can stand corrected as well.

[zendem1]

Whoever thinks politics is honorable is a moron. Politics is a knife fight in a ditch, and if you aren't prepared to get down and dirty now and then, you aren't going to win. Some people just don't have the stomach for it, not mentioning any names Mario Cuomo.
Obama better have some folks outside the campaign take a few shots at Hillary. Meanwhile he needs to keep tying her with Bush. And for God's sake, make him stop bringing up that stupid phone ad in his stump speeches.
Democrats tend to be scared to go negative because they're afraid of the slime backlash. That type of thinking loses elections, because there's going to be slime anyway. Democratic strategists delude themselves into thinking that republicans play by some Marquis of Queensbury rules, and "if we don't go neg, they won't".That is BS. Take the bark off them before they do it to you.

[Herrington]

If Obama chooses not to play, will there be knife fight? I ask because Clinton's flailing at the air with sharp nasty comments will do nothing but cut up the party. If Clinton wants to show how tough she is, why is she not demonstrating that vaunted meanness against the common adversary? It would show the same toughness in contrast to Obama and would not damage the party. It exhibits to me a complete lack of ability to think strategically as well as a reckless stupidity that will be exploited by the common adversary.

Let me rephrase, on the off chance anyone with influence is listening. If Clinton raises her profile against McCain, raises her polling against McCain by effectively attacking McCain, it will do more for her than slinging insults at Obama and the Democratic party in terms of the nomination.

[spiritualized]

"Because Hillary Clinton's tougher than he is."

based on what? more willing to compromise her values for political advantage, maybe... but we just had 8 years with a president who played that game... and the American people are the losers.

[marthlois]

Why would anyone run for this office. More importantly, why would anyone want to run against Hillary? He has been trying to run a campaign that is not nasty. She knows NOTHING of this concept!
When I read the comments that Hillary supporters make about how he whined today about the VP spot, etc., I am reminded of how ignorant, shut down and naive people can be when under the spell of the Clinton Machine. All you have to do it to google both Clintons and you'll get the FACTS. But speaking of facts, I've listed four articles below for you all to read - perhaps enlighten yourself a bit.
OBAMA SUPPORTERS: Important that you read all four and get them out there since they tend to sleep sleep sleep while Hillary Clintons distracts all voters with her crap! Pass them on.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4421457&page=1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-grahamesmith/the-monster-a-loyal-clin_b_90632.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/us/politics/10clinton.html?ex=1362801600&en=2a1b71a783834171&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/10/11748/6707

[mmerose]

Mr. Schwartz, you have not been keeping up with the news on the Canadian/NAFTA thing.

It was actually the Clinton campaign that had sought conference with the Canadians previously. The Obama rep,, after Cn's has initiated conversation, didn't say anything like what was reported.

Obama told the truth, and Clinton slurped up a time-critical windfall.

Please catch up and get back to us. I'm not the journalist here.

[meileen]

Guess you haven't been reading the HuffPo. Even here they shot down that story line.