Color-coded Hillary Alerts
If anyone has paid acutely painful attention to the political ministrations of Karl Rove over the past two and a half decades, it's me. And if there is anyone qualified to make comparisons between democracy's Darth Vader and Hillary Clinton, I stand at the head of that line, as well. And sadly, the similarities are so brutally obvious as to be disturbing.
First, there is this matter of her husband, a man I admired as president in spite of his teenage behavior. Sen. Barack Obama has run a campaign that has never mentioned race. In fact, ethnicity was not an issue until President William Jefferson Clinton made his comparisons of Obama in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson. We were on the verge of almost transcending such superficial nonsense until Mr. Clinton brought us back to 1968.
And presently, we have the first female vice presidential candidate ringing the bell on the same topic. Geraldine Ferraro is, of course, a part of the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Senator Clinton plays the innocent on most of this by refusing to denounce these pronunciations. When she had the opportunity on 60 Minutes to tell the world that it is nonsense for the fear mongers to suggest Obama is a Muslim, she demurred with a qualified, "as far as I know" he's not. But she does know. Sen. Clinton and Obama have attended numerous Capital Hill prayer breakfasts together. Does she think he was playing the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, perhaps trying to see what is going on with that whole Christianity thing? Isn't any person believable when they declare their faith until they have been vetted by the Clinton campaign?
She saved her campaign in Texas by acting like George W. Bush drunk on the ideas of Karl Rove. The 3 a.m. call ad that used fear to drive voters in her direction was nothing more than a desperate politician's attempt to tell everyone not even duct tape will save them if they vote for Obama. Created by Roy Spence of Austin, the ad was first deployed in 1984 in the Mondale campaign. (His ad agency also gave us, "You are now free to move around the country," and, "Don't mess with Texas," as memorable slogans.)
As Karl Rove has proven and as Orlando Patterson pointed out in the New York Times, campaigns and their messages are often more about image than substance. Was it an oversight or a design that the children sleeping safely in that 3 a.m. ad were white? Isn't everyone in politics astute enough to know these days that everyone who needs protecting isn't white? When Bush was running for president, Rove never let him be photographed without a rainbow coalition of children. Are we supposed to believe that Hillary's minders didn't see the racism implicit in her phone call ad?
The Clinton campaign doesn't seem to understand that the depth of Obama's appeal comes from his willingness to look forward with optimism instead of over his shoulder in fear. When he says, "We need to talk to our friends, but we also need to talk to our enemies," he is speaking for every mother and father who has a son in Iraq or one who might end up toting a gun for an amorphous cause that few can any longer explain. Who doesn't want to know why we are so despised that people will strap bombs to themselves to blow us up? Oh, I forgot, they hate our freedom. That's one Sen. Clinton hasn't tried yet.
It is also obscene in the extreme for the Clinton campaign to compare Sen. Obama to Ken Starr. Many voters from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunny shores of California want to know how much money the senator and the former president are earning, to whom he is speaking for large sums, and how he paid for his library in Little Rock. Do the Clintons really want to remind us what Ken Starr was looking for? As a friend of mine has suggested, this utter lack of judgment to bring his name back into the public discourse is "breathtaking."
Clinton is unwilling to sully her own hands with these absurd references. Like Rove, she relies on surrogates to go out and fire the gun. After the targets are wounded or dead, Rove had his clients come in and call for gun control and explain how they admired the political victim. Not Senator Clinton. She does nothing to denounce the nastiness. By pretending Obama is not prepared to lead, she proves her own desperation to acquire power and she denigrates the remaining historical reputation of her husband's administration. Historians might look beyond this dust devil she has spun, but the general public won't be able to see through the dirt flying through the air.
We are all tired of this. We all have Bush-Clinton fatigue. We need a hopeful, fresh start. Hillary might have made a fine president. But she has turned into an ugly campaigner.
This is not her time.
Follow James Moore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/moorethink
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There's a lot to be said for vaginas, just not when they're connected to machiavellian monsters who cry misogyny every time someone points out their manical methods.
Excellent article! The other Rovian thing I noticed was the classic tactic of leading with an accusation that your opponent is guilty of your most apparent weakness or strategy: IN OTHER WORDS, "Obama is using Karl Rove's playbook." OR . . . . "Obama is playing the Ken Starr role ".
And so on. Brilliant in a way, because if it is responded to, it puts the opponent on the defensive, and a certain number of people will believe it while the attacker has blatantly just done that very thing.
No one who lived through the past 15 years or so of political campaigns would deny the smoke & mirrors brilliance of some of this stuff.
Stoop to anything; stop at nothing.
Obama offers something different; mostly it's a look to the future. I am a 60+ woman, and believe me in this regard, the future looks far better. AT LEAST there is HOPE for something better.
Many of we 60+ women feel this way... where is Hillary finding all these "older women" voting for her? I only know one and I know a lot of female Democrats!
One more thing: did any of you who are waxing so indignant actually see the interview? If so, did you actually pay attention? If so, what's wrong with your comprehension skills?
The one fact that everyone seems to conveniently forget (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) is that in that 60 minutes interview, the first time the question was put to Hillary, she replied, in about 1/2 second, "no, of course not". It was only after the maniacally obsessed interviewer repeated the question over and over, ad nauseum, that the "as far as I know" answer came out. Come on, people; the interviewer obviously had an agenda. the conversation was supposed to be about subjects entirely unrelated to the religion question. Now, since he badgered her repeatedly, not satisfied with her answer, until she said what he obviously wanted her to say (Score!) and got his evening news and blogosphere sound bite fame, everyone acts indignant toward her, and no one holds him to account.
One word: Feh.
And I'm voting for Obama. I just don't like political hitmen who pretend to be journalists.
It would be so easy for her to clean this up by just coming out and saying what you pointed out. Go on the air and say "What I said was misconstrued and I know tha Mr. Obama is and has always been a Christian" Not that there is anything wrong with that.
But it is her "too clever by half" calculations that leave me with nothing but disdain for this feckless windbag. You can't believe a word she says, it may or may not be true it may or may not be politically motivated.
How can you tell if Hillary Clinton is lying? - - You can't!
So if I can't tell I must assume it all to be untrue.
Hillary need not have said " as far as I know". She knew. If she is so experienced with people badgering her wrongly, she would have said, " absolutely not. We attend prayer breakfasts together", etc. Some one is giving lousy advice to her and she is so tired that she doesn't see it. At least I hope that is the case. Actually I think she is sort of in a bubble on a number of questions and realities. I want the real Hillary back. I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt if she is the nominee, though I caucused for Obama. I just pray the real Hillary comes out and the two Dems don't destroy our chances at the White House. A McCain presidency has the potential to be a worse disaster than what we have and that's not something this country can afford-on any level. I beg: stop pointing fingers at anybody but Bush/Cheney and John McCain.
Sorry, but Hillary has long crossed the "benefit of the doubt" threshold with myself, and many of my family and friends. I wouldn't vote for a bush republican calling himself as much, so why would I vote for one pretending to be a "Democrat"? If Hillary gets the nod, I believe many of us will be staying home, myself included. If I wanted someone like her to be President, I would have voted for them in the republican primary. - Sincerely, A 3rd Generation US Veteran, Progressive Patriot
Then that would make Hillary the new Ralph Nader
Hillary answer the question "do you think he is a muslin?" No, No. she said
What part of no do you and Mr. Moore not understand?
Don't we all recognize the pattern?
This is standard Rove, sling the mud just before the election, without enough time to respond.
Yet all the claims that Rovians and Hillary use are eventually proven false.
We have to Learn!
If Some anti Obama thing comes out just before an election,
don't believe it!
If I were an American I'd vote for Obama - if for no other reason than that he's been trying to encourage the American people NOT scare the shit out of them. The 'bogey man' technique is always used - worldwide - by those attempting to exceed their power or simply gain more power.
After the last 7+ years, what the Americans and the world needs about as much as it needs a hole in its head, is another power crazy leader.
If you aren't yet convinced try asking yourself 2 simple (and obvious) questions
1. After all the current bunch have done - do you really feel safer than you did (ie before the war and
all the restrictions caused by security measures) ?
2. How do you feel about the expenditure of trillions of YOUR dollars - with many more trillions to
come - on an illegal and pointless (not to mention evil) war. Just think what those trillions could
have done for the citizens of the USA !
I have been asking myself: Whatever happened to the John Wayne spirit of our country? It seem to have turned into the Woody Allen spirit.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
A "HILLBILLARIE" is a two-headed political creature that is part bubba, part liar & part deceiver combined with grafter with parts of phony charm. It lurks in the hustings of the unaware and those too preoccupied with trivia who have become bottom feeders of garbage that passes for information.
Left to it's own ends, it will suck up all the oxygen and devour any semblance of fairness, balance and good sortsmanship. While gobbling mouthfuls of cash for its own nefarious purposes and having allegiance to only itself, it has a life - in publec - too long and needs to return to its lair.
Thomas Paine 730 aka Jake R.
Sarasota, FL
"HI Karl, this is Hill. What would you suggest that my next move should be? Oh, that Obama is giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. Thanks and talk to ya later, Karl".
Well said. I've also forwarded this article around the globe.
Gee, "TheCSNews": Did you also forward around the globe Jim's previous article from HuffPo: "Why Mike Huckabee Will Win the Republican Nomination"? Yeah Jim, you've got a LOT of credibility as a so-called "political expert." It was amusing and helpful when you were heaping your vitriol on Karl Rove with "Bush's Brain," but let's face facts. Despite your Emmy, you are in no way any kind of objective journalist. Now that you've aimed your hate at Hillary, you've merely exposed the fact that you're an extreme left wing biased shill. The fact that HuffPo publishes this kind of crap exposes them as well, as simply being the PR arm of the Obama campaign. A serious journalist would recognize the danger in any so-called journalistic endeavor being co-opted as the propaganda division of a looming presidential administration. HuffPo is simply following in the footsteps of Fox News. Shame on you all.
Funny, I can't think of anything I've ever heard from the worst left-wing biased shill that in anyway compares to what I hear Geraldine Ferraro saying. I don't quite see how holding Hillary's campaign to the standard that she expects of Obama's is Hillary hating.
Hillary Clinton grows increasingly tedious in her desparate grasping for power. I liked her somewhat a few months ago. Now, I scarcely can stand to see her face on the TV.
AMEN. EXACTLY. I SCREAM AND I WANT TO THROW THINGS WHENEVER HILLARY APPEARS NOW ON TV, JUST AS I SCREAM AND WANT TO THROW THINGS WHENEVER BUSH, CHENEY, GATES, BERNACKE, RICE, OR ROVE APPEAR ON TV. HILLARY IS, IN MY OPINION, AN ABSOLUTELY DISPICABLE PERSONALITY, POSITIVELY CLOSE TO BEING OVER THE EDGE MENTALLY ILL.. THE "THIRD SHOE" HAS ALREADY DROPPED- HILLARY IS (IN MY ESTIMATION) A MONSTER OF THE FIRST ORDER.
I ALREADY EXPRESSED MY DISGUST WITH HILLARY AND HER DEGRADING TO BEING A CHEAP POLITICIAN. IT'S TOO BAD THAT SHE HAS RESORTED TO THE TACTICS SHE HAS REGARDING OBAMA AND HER CAMPAIGN AGAINST HIM. BILL CLINTON TRULY HAS DISAPPOINTED ME IN PROPOSING THE VICE PRESIDENCY FOR OBAMA. HOW INSULTING! I THOUGHT HE WAS AN INTELLIGENT, CHARISMATIC AND SENSITIVE POLITICIAN. NOT ANYMORE. AND NOW HILLARY PREFERS MC CAIN TO OBAMA? WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON, AS LOU DOBBS WOULD SAY? I'LL GIVE MY VOTE TO OBAMA FIRST, HILLARY SECOND BUT NEVER, EVER TO A REPUBLICAN,.
Unfortunately, all of the nasty Clinton campaining is having a really negative effect on people's attitudes about the Dem party in general. I have talked to a number of Dems in my (mostly Republican) suburb who have said they simply won't vote for Clinton if she is the nominee. That means that thanks to Hillary and Bill, we may very likely have 4 more years of the same hawkish politics with McCain! As for those who say that Americans aren't ready to vote for a black president, I say, those people will probably vote for McCain anyway, so why should we cater to their racist beliefs?
Like others on this blog, I don't fit my "designated demographic." I'm a 50+ white female who voted for Obama (it must be those lattes)!
Slithery Clinton's handlers lower the bar and she stoops, rationalizing that this makes her a "fighter." What an unappealing snake. I honestly don't understand what motivates her supporters, because she never seems to inspire much besides animosity. The reason for this animosity may be partly that she is a woman, but that's certainly not true in my case. I am coming to resent her because she is sabotaging the most positive force that I have experienced in the American political system in my lifetime. She is using divisive tactics to promulgate her ego, rather than supporting what our country needs, which is the potential for positive trasnformation offered by Barack and Michelle Obama.
I hope that Obama will continue on the high road, and remind Americans that we are too strong and digified a nation to continue living in fear. We do not need to behave like a nation of ninnies. We do not need to be AFRAID of Muslims, minorities, globalism, or change so long as we trust in our own ability to adapt to them. Clinton, McCain and other fear-mongers deplete our strength and degrade our national dignity for their selfish ends.
Well said.
ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON. BRILLIANT. AMEN. THANK YOU...
These large $250 Million national campaigns are the biggest enterprises that any of the candidates have been responsible for. If experience is any indicator Clinton/McCain fail the leadership test on must counts (Not ready on day one). Obama has demonstrated, through action not rhetoric that he will hold ALL accountable for their actions and performance. Clinton continues with blind loyalty to her cronies despite the fact that they become liabilities to her campaign. She would no doubt continue that pattern in her administration to the determent of our country. That’s what change is all about. No more Brownies, Gonzalez’, Rumsfelds, et al.
I love this article. I've sent it to everyone I know.
Go away Clintons. Go far, far away.
Absolutely on the money, Mr. Moore. You are not the only one who is seeing this. Hopefully, voters will start to notice the tactics.
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