This cannot be a good campaign strategy for Hillary Clinton. Bill Clinton yesterday per AFP:
“I never heard a word of public complaint when Mr. Obama said Hillary was not truthful, no character, was poll-driven,” he told startled reporters.
“When he put out a hit job on me at the same time he called her the senator from Punjab, I never said a word,” he said, referring to an Obama campaign memo last year that attacked the Clintons’ links to the Indian-American community.
The good cop/bad cop routine is completely transparent and just feeds into the widespread idea — fueled in equal parts so far as I can tell by President Clinton’s lies about Monica Lewinsky (a valid argument) and the paranoid ravings of right-wing talk radio (an invalid argument) — that the Clintons are political opportunists who will do anything for power.
Senator Clinton should stay on the high road — and make sure everyone associated with her campaign does as well — or those sky-high negatives she carries are going to rear up out of the darkness and cripple her campaign, if not now then, should she win the nomination, in November, I think.
What do you think?
Joan Vennochi…
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p>http://www.boston.com/bostongl…
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p>Dan Payne….
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p>http://www.boston.com/bostongl…
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p>Those pesky “Sound Bites of Hope” are just Ice burgs in the path of the good ship Obama waiting to be crashed into.
Thanks for posting these 2 articles…they are both food for thought…hope Dan Rea (the Jay Severin-wannabee) at WBZ gets to read them…even his show promos are anti-Hillary mini-ads…David Brudnoy, Peter Meade and Paul Sullivan were classier acts.
the Obama campaign’s “Punjab” memo was a pretty sleazy move — and one for which they had to apologize. But Bill really does need to tone it down. He is becoming Hillary’s biggest liability when that is not what she (or anyone else) needs. He should be saving the attack dog stuff for the general election.
Are you stating that the Clintons are not “political opportunists who will do anything for power”?
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p>Given their history of thuggery against opponents, their continual mooning of the truth, and their repeated backing of abhorrent legislation for political or cash gain (NAFTA, permanent almost-free trade status for China, the Iraq War, …) I think they truly do qualify as “political opportunists who will do anything for power”.
Obama. It’s called politics. The only ones getting upset about it are pundits, or partisans, and by the time the general public catches on, the tactic will have been switched.
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p>With the political acuity of both the Clintons, it’s hard to believe they haven’t given Bill’s participation a lot of thought and haven’t considered it in terms of a longer term strategy.
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p>Mark
It makes me less inclined to vote for Clinton in the primary, and I am sure I am not the only one turned off by this.
increase more than Hillary’s, then the strategy probably works. Hillary’s poll numbers have risen, and Obama’s have declined. These changes needn’t be permanent.
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p>I don’t know you, but I’m guessing you’re one of the very informed. Most Americans are less informed and subject to the whim of the MSM.
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p>Mark
Bob you are guilty as well here, and it’s coming from the Obama surrogates as well. Ed Schutlz from MyDD:
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p>Bottom line, the Reagan stuff is BS, but apparently it working. Barack needs to respond to it in a manner that is clear to the voters. He hasn’t. But Bill’s discussion on his Iraq positions are fact. It’s not made up, and that’s what probably hits him the hardest. His message is Hillary voted wrong on the war and he was on the right side. Bill’s discussion nails him on his non-action and deleting his speech from his web site when it was not good for him politically. All this has been discussed before. Does that make Hillary’s position right? No. But it does put a kink in how Obama portrays himself on Iraq. In my opinion that are very similar in Iraq and they both have the same kind of solution. The question being who can better accomplish. I don’t think we are losing much if either become the candidate, but maybe you and the Obama folks are doing the Clinton’s a favor by bringing up Lewinski this early. Does it help Hillary? It might.
Lost in the debate about where Obama stands on Iraq is the fact that his statement that he was reluctant to criticize Democrats who voted for the Iraq war was made during John Kerry’s presidential campaign. Kerry was perceived to be vulnerable on this issue. Obama can be criticized for being overly loyal to his party’s candidate, but no one should doubt that his vote would have been different from Kerry’s and Clinton’s. You would have to be pretty cynical to believe otherwise.
The other criticism of Obama in this regard is of his failure, just like Clinton, to go against the overwhelming majority in Congress to limit funding for the war. This is a big problem for Democrats including those who have been reliably anti-war. I don’t agree with the continued funding for the war, but the general perception seems to be that defunding the war is the same as abandoning the troops, the current third rail in this political atmosphere.
But what happened in 2005? The election was over, what did he do then? Did he criticize the war? He didn’t and his speech was still missing from his web site. He did nothing concerning Iraq, did not speak out against to war, all he did was to vote to continue funding it. He was right in 2002 then he disappeared until it was good for him politically to bring it up again some four years later. If you are looking for leadership qualities in his position in Iraq look elsewhere. But again all candidates are for redeploying troops, the Republicans on the other side want to stay for the next 100 years. All Dem candidates are on the correct side of this issue and i don’t much of a difference between them. Let’s be thankful that we have a good crop, hopefully they don’t beat up on each other too much. Maybe Super Tuesday will be the last of this stuff and we can focus on hammering the Republicans.
I hadn’t seen that. Thanks.
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p>Bill Clinton did disgrace himself with the Lewinsky matter. A real pity, considering that it made it impossible for his administration to get anything of substance accomplished, except perhaps for all those pardons on his final days in office, for the remainder of his term.
The Clinton administration could have done so much more. But he did a lot more than you give it credit for, The Democratic Caucus has a nice post on how Clinton left the country and what Bush has done since. Everything in the world is not Clinton’s fault, Democrats screwed us 2004 all by themselves, maybe if Gore did use Clinton more (or at all) there might have been a different outcome. But think he did a little more then give a few pardons while leaving office.
Lol … I missed that one.
Glad to see that someone in the public sphere is observing the illustrious Senator Clinton’s role as head of the India caucus.
While she may have connections with Indian-Americans (as the OP suggests) it is her lobbying effort on behalf of Indian-Indians at the expense of American workers that riles me …
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p>SENATOR FROM PUNJAB …. I like it . đŸ™‚
…is kind of cute, but only if the audience understands the reference. The reference is a bit obscure.
You are correct. Why it remains obscure I have no idea.
No matter how hard people try to get that information into the public arena it always gets muted out.
On the political front, I am greatful for the efforts of Illinois’ other senator (Durbin) who unlike virtualy every sitting Senator actualy appears to have the interests of Americans on his mind. Hopefully some of that has rubbed off on Obama.
From a strictly political campaign perspective, I think it has clearly thrown Obama off and it kind of forces him to get muddied up, something Hillary has been for quite some time.
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p>Bill Clinton is in SC hammering away with Obama while Hillary is up in NJ and Pennsylvania staying out .
suggests that eventually it could start to backfire and intensify people’s already negative views of the Clintons. They might think that they cannot be disliked anymore than they are so they have nothing to lose. I think that is wrong and could bite them soon.
I’ll vote for Edwards.
I don’t think this attack is planned by the Hillary camp, despite their supposed “calculating minds”. I think Bill is acting as spouse first, ex-President second, and going on the warpath. And he’s good at it.
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p>I also think it is taking Obama off message, which he cannot afford right now. Even if it is costing Hillary as well, that is a win for her because Obama must gain, while she can afford to stalemate.
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p>As for Obama … he is on track to becoming the smartest candidate ever to lose the nomination. But that may be a pattern in his life.
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p>Was he right on Iraq? Yes. Did he do much about it? Not really.
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p>Did he recognize — and publicly announce — the correct moment to go on the attack against Hillary? Yes. Did he actually go on the attack? Not really.
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p>Did he say it was time to start confronting Bill for his over-the-top criticisms? Yes. Did he actually knock Bill off his tracks? Not really.
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p>Obama is like a guy behind a glass wall, who sees events with great clarity but has difficulty wielding his power for change. On the campaign trail he asks voters to reward him for his clarity. But ultimately the question is not “How smart are you,” but “What will you do?” This question is answered not by rhetoric, but by “What have you done so far?”
colleague and reliable Democratic voter who said he’s with Obama and if HRC wins the primary, he is seriously considering McCain. I have been wondering with the blatant lies coming out of the Clinton campaign if I can hold my nose enough to vote for her myself if she wins.
…but I wish it were not he making negative comments about another candidate. It seems beneath the dignity of a President to slap around other candidates of his party like that. Interestingly, whenever I attended a rally with him in NH he went out of his way to praise the other Democrats, calling Biden and Dodd two of his closest allies and pointing out that he had campaigned for Edwards and Obama in their respective Senate races.