The Clinton campaign is playing the Obama campaign like a fiddle. What makes this all the more amazing is the fact that they are driving the debate from the passenger seat. Obama's handlers should have told him not to take the bait and answer her VP offer. Just ignore it. Change the subject. She is acting like the frontrunner when she's not but he or she who acts like the frontrunner becomes one.
And today Obama's camp is all wrong in producing a long memo
stating Hillary overstated her foreign policy experience. And your point is...? That she's not qualified to be Commander-in-Chief either? Why not donate all your millions raised to McCain then?
What Obama should do now is lead positively, with a concrete example of how he will be a bold and visionary leader on foreign policy. He can knock her padding her resume later.
He could, for example, say what everyone knows, that there will be no peace in the greater Middle East until Israel and the Palestinians feel it is in their best interest to make peace. Peace there will make us markedly more safe here at home. The closest we have come to them reaching a settlement in years was Bill Clinton's initiative back in 2001.
If I were him I'd say once elected I'd deputize Bill Clinton as my Special Envoy to the Middle East and tell him not come back until he'd hammered out a deal they all could agree on. (Then I'd joke that I didn't just want to send him there to get him out of my hair.)
If Obama would float provocative, bold ideas like that then the Clintons would be on the defensive and he'd be acting like the frontrunner that he is.
This isn't rocket science. It's just the politics of perception.
Trey Ellis is the author of "Bedtime Stories: Adventures in the Land of Single-Fatherhood"
The Clinton campaign has been incredibly successful at bombarding the news with anti-Obama spin just before key contests. Obama's camp needs to expect that and release an equal barrage of messages to counter it.
Without the aura of purity and kindness, what does he offer? If he just acts like everyone else, why does he offer better hope? I think that is why so many of the posters here are attacking Hillary. They have come to realize deep down, that their idol is just a guy, maybe a really good guy, but not really the saint or the sage they had thought. So now they don't peddle his goodness. Instead they urge him to attack and hit back and then they vilify a perfectly good candidate with MSM and neocon prose.
If we don't get both of these people together (politically and policy wise, they are twins) then we might as well give up. Either McCain will win or Obama will be an unsuccesful one-termer who won't be able to move congress enough to handle the mess the elephants left.
Hilary and her campaign has raised fundamental issue that makes Obama’s response inevitable. Obama has to answer to the satisfaction of the super-delegates that he is qualified to be the commander-in-chief as viewed from the lenses of the citizenry. Super-delegates have to support a candidate that will win in November. Furthermore, there is a general concern if Obama has the capacity to withstand Republican attacks. The only way super-delegates will know that answer depends on how Obama responds to Hilary attacks. Therefore, Obama’s joining issues with Hilary is inevitable.
If Obama were to avoid responding to Hilary’s attacks but rather elect only to stay above the fray, then, Hilary has no other option than to raise the volume to the level of crippling Obama’s political capital. Hilary’s campaign is based on her 35-years of experience. Once that 35-years experience is put under critical scrutiny, Hilary would have no option than to defend it. Obama must first get the nomination before thinking how to defeat John McCain.
That is exactly why you are not a Senator and will never be a presidential nominee. Obama should only take advice from people qualified to give it.
If he doesn't respod, she will keep throwing nastier mud. It will keep getting worse. This way, she's being held accountable and struggling to contain her many mixed messages from her many rogue campaigners.
As for his message, I think he's getting it out there the best he can despite the media only concentrating on any new roe started by Clinton.