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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, February 25, 2008

Clinton takes one more swing at experience versus "fairy tale"

Clinton goes with a new, very dismissive stump attack mocking Obama. (Video/NYTimes has text)
"Let's just get everybody together. Let's get unified. The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect. Maybe I've just lived a little long, but I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear."

And, She echoes it with different words on a conference call with donors,
"In Houston last night, it was, 'We Want Experience, Not An Experiment,' and 'The White House Is No Place for Training Wheels,'" she said.

As she said herself at a fundraiser,
"We're going to emphasize more and more the experience gap," ..... "You'll hear a lot about it the next eight days."

This is a tricky game because she can't help feed John McCain. Remember at the last debate she was asked whether she thought Obama wasn't ready on day one, and she smartly declined to answer. She needs to be careful in this or all we'll be hearing for eight months is "Even Hillary Clinton doesn't think he's ready."

So, is open derision her answer? Or is she trying to bait Obama into a mistake?

And, do I believe Drudge that the Clinton campaign is pushing this photo around?

I need polling to make sense of all this, damnit!

8 Comments:

  • Admittedly, I'm partial to Obama. But I have to point out that while Obama may have convinced me to give him a closer look, lately, everything coming out of Hillary and her campaign has simply offended me; has kept me squarely in Obama's camp. Her rants, ridicules and attacks only serve to demonstrate Obama's points, as far as I'm concerned.

    One has to wonder, however, if Obama is the nominee, how does Hillary unify the party? Because as opposed to criticizing Obama's legislative record or public works, she's now ridiculing him personally (the uppity black man?). She's not saying she's more qualified to be president, she's saying Obama is unqualified to be president.

    Fairly or not, Obama is talking about Hillary's public record on NAFTA and plans for mandated self insurance. Hillary is saying "Be affraid of this man. Who knows what kind of lunatic we'll get? Just take a look at W!"

    Yup, vote for the other guy and Americans will die... Now where have I heard that before?

    But I'm not the average voter. So who know's how this is being received in TX, OH and beyond.

    By Blogger -epm, at 8:10 AM  

  • Really? I, too, am pro-Obama, but I see these attacks, thus far, as likely effective. However, it feels like they're getting close to the line of crossing over to where they see blowback.

    That distinction you make, "She's not saying she's more qualified to be president, she's saying Obama is unqualified to be president" is where I think the line is.

    But, as I said in the post above, all of this may not be targeted at Dem voters, it may simply be an effort to sour the independents and GOP crossover.

    And, from the Democratic side, whoever is the nominee, the party will unify come November (assuming there's no nasty convention thing.) The question is how far outside the party will the nominee then be able to reach.

    (And I'm not a real good Texas barometer. I live in the center of Houston which is Obama. The people I hang out with are largely GOP or Obama. There are very Clinton people in my demographic/circle.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:24 AM  

  • I agree the current negative attacks from the Clinton camp may be effective with independent voters. Not that these independents no go for Hillary, but that they stay home on voting day. (That was your point, I think?)

    However, they are divisive and insulting to Obama supporters. As Obama brought up in the last debate, Hillary is questioning the competence of Obama voters, asserting they are delusional. She is, I think, making the GOPs job much easier if Obama is the nominee.... "Even Hillary Clinton thinks Barack Hussein Obama isn't fit to be president," says the voice over, dripping with indignity.

    Elections are won an lost on the fickle motivations of independents. It won't matter if the Dems rally around their candidate come November if Hillay has poisoned the independent well in March.

    It's all very unsettling to me, this divisive personal attack. Ironically, in her quest to prove Obama is just full of "empty words," her actions prove his argument.

    I'll probably vote for Hillary if she's the nominee. I'll do it as an act of resignation, not hope.

    By Blogger -epm, at 9:35 AM  

  • That was my point. One key for her to win Texas especially is to have a few independents voting as possible.

    And, I don't see these attacks a that bad SO LONG AS she keeps it careful and doesn't provide any video clips for the Republicans in the fall.

    (She may have already done that, but I don't think what we've seen is that bad. It's not like we've got a video of her saying "No, he's not qualified to be president." She's pretty carefully attacking his campaign which I think is okay, although the naivete argument isn't.)

    I think it would be different if she was really close rather than the longer shot scenarios her campaign is pitching.

    AND, I would definitely vote for Clinton in the fall, and by the time we get there, I'll probably be passionate about it. That's a long way away.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:55 AM  

  • I'm in Dayton OH and the sense I get is HRC doesn't have all that much more experience than OB. Most indies don't consider sitting as a First Lady to be relevant experience. And to those of us that are curious, neither is her post college experience as a member of Walmart's corporate board or her support of big Pharma and Insurance in the Rose Law Firm...

    Big OB rally here late this afternoon...Arena holds 12000+ and they expect SRO...OB hard NAFTA talk is getting traction/play here but I still expect a 5 point HRC win.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:36 PM  

  • I got really angry about all the Clinton veiled Muslim crap earlier. I'll have to wait to see if I'm still carrying it tomorrow, but my sense is she may have pushed it all too far.

    And those rallies are amazing. He's held two big ones in Houston, but in a city of 4.5 million it's not that suprising he could draw numbers. I'm still blown away at the Boise rally a couple of weeks ago where he pulled the equivalent of 10% of the town.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:32 PM  

  • By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:38 AM  

  • By Blogger raybanoutlet001, at 8:33 PM  

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