(Photo: GK)
Last week on Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol had some advice for the Clinton campaign:
“The way you puncture euphoria is with reality, or to be a little more blunt…fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear”
The most “newsworthy” storyline to come out of that debate on Tuesday had nothing to do with the things Hillary Clinton says she will “fight” for as president. It had nothing to do with education, the economy, or the environment, not even health care. No, the most important question of the night turned out to be one about Luis Farrakhan.
In an effort to create “buyers remorse” the storyline was the “safety of the American people”. It was a war that was waged on two fronts.
For her part, Hillary continued her strategy of portraying Obama as untrustworthy on national security issues and unrealistic about the harsh world of politics. Implying that Democrats should fear him as Commander in Chief, but should also fear what types of Skeletons the GOP might pull out of his closet.
Say what you want about the Clintons style of politics but they have successfully changed the way this campaign has been covered on TV.
Here is her last minute ad in Texas, where she takes direct hits on Obama’s national security credentials.
It was on the other front that a much more interesting battle was being waged, a blitzkrieg of sorts.
The Party of Lincoln decided that it could no longer wait till the end of the primaries to unveil its Obama strategy and decided to give us all a sneak peak. How Obama handles it will determine the fate of his candidacy.
As expected, McCain and Bush stayed above the fray attacking Obama on Iraq policy and his “plans” to meet with Ahmadinejad.
The battle I am talking about started when, a guy I have never heard of, shock-jocker Bill Cunnigham repeatedly used Obama’s middle name Hussein each time he dissed the Candidate. I still wouldn’t know who this asshole was, if the clip didn’t dominate the political debate on our airwaves for the next 48 hours.
Then there was the “leak” of Obama in his Somalia garb on the Drudge Report which was all over the TV and on newspapers covers.
It was in this atmosphere that Tim Russert dropped his Farrakhan/Anti-Semitism question in Cleveland on Tuesday. Clinton only added fuel to the fire when she implied that Obama was not taking a strong enough stance.
Next John McCain had to distance himself from the Tennessee GOP:
The presumptive GOP nominee said he disapproves of a Tennessee Republican Party press release that used an infamous photo of Obama in traditional Somali dress, called the Democrat “Barack Hussein Obama,” and alleged that he consulted with anti-Semitic advisers.
Last night on FNC Sean Hannity had an entire segment in which he painted Obama as a black separatist in hiding. The crown jewel of the segment was a thesis that Michelle Obama wrote while attending Princeton. The lines that are being focused on can be found in a piece by Jeffrey Ressner.
“My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‘blackness’ than ever before,” the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. “I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second…Obama writes that the path she chose by attending Princeton would likely lead to her “further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.”
It is ironic that if Hillary ends up winning this thing it will be with an assist from the “vast right wing conspiracy” that her husband spoke of.
At the debate she complained that the media was treating her unfairly. In the end she gets it both ways, the people that feel the media is easy on Obama as well as the people wondering if he is a Black Muslim Separatist who can’t wait to befriend Ahmadinejad and destroy Israel.
On the eve of Texas/Ohio the Clinton camp is focusing on a Canadian Memo about NAFTA and Tony Rezko.
So far negative politics have not worked against Obama this primary season, but he has never had a two week period like this. All signs are pointing to things getting ratcheted up even more if this stays close, with Obama already calling for Clinton to step down and Clinton calling for Fla. and Mich. delegates to be counted.
Obama had a good showing at the debate on Tuesday and offered a stark contrast to Clinton.
But was the debate too early in the week for Obama?
What happened on stage that night, has now been gobbled up and crapped back out by the media.
Have the past couple of weeks “punctured the euphoria” of the Obama campaign? We find out tomorrow.
TAGS: attack, debate, economy, Fox News, GOP, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, leak, mccain, Muslim, NATO, obama, Ohio, political, Politics, Texas, Tim Russert, war, waves, youtube
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March 4th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Kenyon, well done. All day I watched Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN—not to mention reading all the web’s fruits. The Obama Hate Machine has arrived and it is a Clintonian-Rovian spawn: Fuck this black Huessein and the corrupt Kelzo (sp?) he rode in on! Who says he can answer red phones and not send questionable NAFTA memos to Canadian officials—oops he did?
March 4th, 2008 at 4:34 am
No doubt that the GOP will use fear-mongering and the “Obama is an anti-semitic Muslim” attack. I think that this line is only going to work IF Obama pulls a John Kerry and ignores it, thereby allowing it to take hold in the public consciousness, until it’s too late. I just can’t see him making that mistake. I know he’s never faced the GOP attack machine, but he saw firsthand what it did to Kerry and what it will try to do to him. His campaign has always been quick to counter these baseless accusations, and I think they’ll be prepared in the general election. It’s true that these attacks are getting some play in the media right now, but I think that is more a function of the fact that we’ve had two weeks of dead airtime between primaries. If Obama wins either TX or OH, or both, then you know all we’ll read will be Clinton’s obituaries. McCain and the GOP can go the fear-mongering route if they wish, but I don’t see those attacks taking hold because I don’t see Obama being a shrinking violet. That, plus looking at the record Democratic turnout this year, I’m becoming more and more convinced that there will be more Dems voting this year than Republicans. Plus, it also won’t be hard to label McCain as George W. Bush II.