There has been a high level of concern expressed by many Obama supporters about the tone and temperament of the Clinton campaign. Believing her win in Ohio was, at least in part, the result of a strategy that called Obama's readiness into question, the Clinton campaign has continued to press the commander in chief conversation. She has now, on several occasions, explicitly judged John McCain has more capable of being commander in chief than Barack Obama.
For plenty of worthy reasons, Obama supporters and Democratic Party loyalists are furious. At this point, Obama's pledged delegate lead is insurmountable, and his popular vote lead is nearly out of reach. The idea that Hillary Clinton, a legend in her party, would willingly jeopardize the Democratic frontrunner's chances in November is surprising enough. That she would go out of her way to compliment John McCain's experience and leadership was, at least until now, truly unthinkable. Framing an argument to suggest that Obama is less qualified for the presidency than Clinton is one thing. Suggesting that he doesn't measure up to John McCain is quite another.
But for all the commotion, there is reason to believe that the Clinton kitchen sink strategy will actually be quite beneficial for Obama.
There can be little doubt that the bulk of John McCain's campaign against Barack Obama will focus on two prongs: Obama's inexperience and his readiness. There is no other direction from which McCain can successfully attack. The American people side with Obama on foreign policy issues, whether it's withdrawing from Iraq, muting the saber rattling against Iran, or revaluating our strategy toward Pakistan. They side with him on domestic issues as well, preferring Democrats over Republicans on economic issues, and preferring a plan that strives for universal health care over McCain's plan to do nothing all. As a result, McCain will continue, as he has already begun, to hammer Obama on his only perceived weakness -- his readiness to lead.
Counter-intuitively, Clinton's aggressive strategy and questionable tactics may, therefore, be quite helpful to Obama's long term interests. For the next six weeks, and perhaps until June, Obama is playing in what has become, for better or worse, an exhibition game. Despite the Clinton campaign's denial -- and the media's enthusiastic willingness to enable it -- Clinton lacks any conceivable path to the nomination. Her attacks on him cannot, as a result, prevent him from the nomination. They can, however, allow him the opportunity to practice responding to attacks he can expect down the line. He can try a series of trial balloons -- different messages, rhetoric, and posture -- learning which defensive and offensive strategies are most effective.
We have already seen that with time, the Obama campaign learns how to diffuse opposing arguments. The experience message that became the centerpiece of the Clinton campaign has now become, at best, a punch line. With precision, Obama responded, time and again, that it is judgment and not longevity that the presidency requires. By now, the experience argument appears to be Clinton's least effective.
The readiness issue will likely achieve a similar fate. Can there be any doubt that, at the conclusion of the Democratic race, Obama will have become far more agile in responding to these kinds of attacks?
The Clinton campaign's regrettable strategy will have been ironically beneficial for Obama; he will have mastered his message and minimized his primary weakness, all while his real opponent, John McCain, struggles to get noticed at all.
Hillary = Bad Judgment, divisive, paralyzing, polarizing, vindictive, scorned, untrustworthy, MONSTER!
Do you really think that that these
little feather flicks from Hillary in
any way at all reflect what the
reichwing will do to your candidate?
Get real.
And, since you insist that he be
the candidate,
GET READY.
You've got to get out into the heartland and - scratch the surface and the racial divide is immense. The republicans will shred Obama on whether he is a muslim; his lack of experience and his readiness and finish off Obama with racial attacks.
Barack Obama:
7 years Illinois Senate
3 years US Senate
That equals 10 years.
Hillary Clinton:
7 years US Senate
10 minus 7, by the old math at least, used to equal 3. So in elected experience, Obama should stop letting her feed the Republicans lines about his "lack" of experience.
Here's the thing: Illinois is the 5th largest state in the US with 12,831,970 residents. That makes it larger than many countries, including: Hungary, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Ireland....you could go on and on here. The point being that, just because the Clinton campaign continues to spread specious half-truths, doesn't mean that experience as an Illinois Senator is irrelevant.
And here's something else: Bill Clinton became President after being governor of Arkansas, a state of less people (2.6 million) than the city of Chicago (2.8 million)! So, in other words, the mayor of Chicago, actually governed a larger electorate. But even more important, the gross state product of Arkansas is $87 billion while the gross municipal product of the city of Chicago is $589 billion -- almost 7 times as great. Yet, Bill Clinton's gubernatorial experience is somehow deemed more valuable than had he been mayor of Chicago or certainly, by the Clinton logic, a senator from the state of Illinois.
I am a 58-year-old, white woman, who is extremely proud of the accomplishments of the women's movement but falsely claiming "experience" for being "the wife of..." as Hillary is doing sets the women's movement back decades. Are we going to have to vote for Chelsea in eight years because she'll have 16 years "experience"?
(1) Is hrc really running for the Dems or the Reps?
(2) Wasn't the term - Commander-an-Chief- coined by Richard Nixon?
I never liked commander-n-chief, it always sounded like 'control freak in disguise' but I notice that since the 70's everyone has used that term to describe the office of the president. Obama never uses that term, or I have not heard him use it.........Does that tell us that he will be our President instead or our Command -n- Chief? I think President has a better ring to it.
It's probably vice versa, actually. The Clintons have been successfully campaigning for much longer than Rove has, and many of their techniques have been copied by him and others. Credit where credit is due.
My only question, why is Hillary's conduct surprising? This contest has always between Barack, who wants to lead, and Clinton, who wants to be in the lead. Only one of them is really interested in working for the country, rather than for themselves - guess which one?