Four days out from Zero Hour and as per the kitchen sink strategy, the Clinton campaign attempts a few more sad gambits to stay alive in the race…
Fearmongering: It’s 3am and your children are safe and asleep, but there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing…” Sen. Clinton has a new terror, terror, terror ad out in Texas, suggesting an Obama presidency will result in all manner of horrible things disrupting the sleep of your dear children. (It echoes this old Mondale spot, by the same ad guru twenty-four years ago.) Sen. Obama responded here: “We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes…We’ve had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer.” Update: If this seems like a McCain ad, that might be because it was one, a fan-made ad back in January. (Then again, LBJ did it too.) Update 2: The Obama campaign already has a response ad out.
Moving the Goalposts (again): Flying in the face of reality once again, the newest Clinton campaign spin gets silly: “With an eleven state winning streak coming out of February, Senator Obama is riding a surge of momentum that has enabled him to pour unprecedented resources into Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. If he cannot win all of these states with all this effort, there’s a problem.” Uh, no. Quite the contrary. The math hasn’t changed since Wisconsin. Sen. Clinton must not only win Texas and Ohio, but win them both by twenty points. Anything less, and her campaign is mathematically kaput. (The reason for this goofiness from the campaign? Rhode Island looks to be an easy Clinton pick-up.)
Shady lawyering: “It has been brought to my attention that one or both of your campaigns may already be planning or intending to pursue litigation against the Texas Democratic Party…Such action could prove to be a tragedy for a reinvigorated Democratic process.” Texas Dem sources say the Clinton campaign has — in keeping with their strategy in Nevada last month — threatened a lawsuit to disrupt the caucus process there. Camp Clinton has backed away from these threats since they leaked, but sources maintain Clinton is suggesting legal action to cast doubt on the Texas caucus results on Tuesday night, thereby possibly buying her campaign a media cycle or two before the inevitable happens.
Granted, I’m a partisan. But I really don’t see any of these working to Sen. Clinton’s advantage. In fact, they just make her and her campaign look that much more petty. (See also the newest playing of the gender card: “‘Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field,’ she said, ‘but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there.’” Aw, it’s hard out here for the wife of a popular, two-term ex-president!) Update: In the meantime, Sen. Obama has picked up four more supers.
Update 2: Let’s see…what else does the Clinton campaign have under the kitchen sink? How ’bout some misleading mailers? (Gasp! Tough mailers? Shame on you, Hillary Clinton!) In any case, one claims “Barack Obama voted against protecting American families from predatory credit card interest rates of more than 30 percent.” As Obama said in a previous debate, he opposed the bill because “thought 30 percent potentially was too high of a ceiling. So we had had no hearings on that bill. It had not gone through the Banking Committee.” (Lest we forget, Sen. Clinton actually voted for the lender-friendly bankruptcy bill in 2001.) The other basically suggests Obama is a corporate stooge on the payroll of the energy companies. Left unsaid: Sen. Clinton has taken more donations from the energy industry.
Kevin, what do you think of the idea that Clinton wants to sabotage Obama so that she can run against McCain in 2012?
Nah. She may play a limited role in the general election out of pique, but I doubt that’s what’s happening right now.
I think her campaign is just in a state of denial about their chances, or, barring that, they just want to make Obama bleed because they’re in rabid, chew-off-your-own-leg Wilentz mode and aren’t thinking straight. But this campaign didn’t even plan for a week past Super Tuesday, so I doubt there’s any concerted effort to punt until 2012 right now.
Obama has his facts wrong on foreign policy issue…
http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2008/02/obama-hasnt-done-his-foreign-affairs.html
He could differentiate his foreign policy from Republicans yet further if he did his homework.
Do people REALLY think that there will not be a crisis in the world during the next Presidential term??
I think that is very naive, maybe all this dreamy hope talk has made people delusional. There will not be instantaneous world peace, people. We cannot have a naive idealistic President who is selling false hope to people.
Also, are people REALLY as scared about this ad as Obama is? Obama, you need to try to be BRAVE, ok? It’s just a realistic ad concentrating on Hillary’s experience.
If Obama gets scared from a 30 second TV ad, how the HECK can he be President?
Hillary 08!
Hilary’s campaign managers have tried to create the illusion that she has executive experience (35 years?).
I don’t believe anyone beyond her closest supporters actually believe that. She was a lawyer in a small firm for a while, then spent most of her time as a 1st lady. The only reason she was elected as a Senator was her association with Bill. She spent about 2 years as a junior Senator before concentrating all of her efforts on running for President. How does that make her ready for the call?
In response to “Who do you want answering the phone”. I don’t want someone who is prone to crying whenever the situation gets tough.
She has alreayd made such a big mistake by supporting the war…at 3 am I am sure Obama will be the better one to answer the phone.
What a stupid ad that only makes her look “not very smart”!
Obama was not privy to top secret intelligence that was presented to members of the senate. If he was shown the same intelligence that Hillary was, He would have supported military action (option) also. Since the war he has voted the same as Hillary such as on the surge etc. He has no experience, don’t give him the keys to the country.
After viewing the new Clinton commercials about who we want answering the phone in the middle of the night….I ask who answered the phone when our naval ship was bombed while the Bill Clinton was in office and nothing was done to seek out those that took credit?
Who answered the phone when the World Trade Center was bombed the first time and nothing was done to…Bill Clinton was in office.
The commercial was out of line..trying to prey on people’s fears is a sad way to run for any office. But it is ridiculous when you consider that the two largest attacks on America that occured while Clinton was in office were all answered with silence and in-action.
Clinton proved that although she has “experience” in the white house, that the Clintons did nothing when that phone rang in the middle of the night BOTH times! If that is what an “experienced” person will do, then I personally would prefer to have someone with no experience who will at east do something when our country and our military is attacked.
EvaNYC
Does Obama do anything original? His campaign is based on previous campaigns of change and hope. After Hillary is asked a question in a debate, Obama normally takes what she says and just adds a little spin. Now he is using her ad to make his own ad.
I was against the Iraq war from the beginning. Does that mean I have the judgment to be President of the U.S.?
In response to Eva in NYC: I have to agree. The more experience a person has the worse they will perform therefore it is better to have no experience at all. Barack Obama will tell no doubt tell you how detrimental the 20 debates were in terms of his performance level. While there will be many critics who will tell you that he got better over time as he gained more and more experience in the debates, dont let them persuade you one bit. He only got worse. He had to have because we all know that experience is a bad thing. I dont care what all the experts say, Barack was much better debater during his 1st debate than his last. He is now so bad at debating that I would bet heavily on someone debating Barack who has never debated at all, would’nt you? Experience tells me that having experience in dealing with issues related to national security is like having experience in debating: far better to put your money on the one with the least amount of experience possible ’cause he’s the one most likely to keep the country safe. See how far ahead of the curve we are?
Thanks for stopping by, all.
Kevin P: By her own admission, Sen. Clinton never read the NIE intelligence report on Iraq before voting. So extra information given to the Senate doesn’t really explain her vote. (If anything, her failure to read the pertinent documents before something as important as a decision to go to war once again suggests her foreign policy judgment is suspect.)
Susan: Being against the war doesn’t necessarily give you the judgment to be president. I’d have to know more about you. But it does suggest you might possess better foreign policy judgment than Sen. Clinton.
Dave: I’d put to you the same question Slate‘s John Dickerson asked the Clinton campaign, and got only uncomfortable silence, and eventually, unconnected rambling, in return. What experience does Sen. Clinton have with regard to foreign policy crises? Can you name a foreign policy crisis where she was presumably tested (other than, of course, the Iraq and Iran votes, where she failed)?
As far as I can tell, the only superior experience Sen. Clinton would seem to possess over Sen. Obama is [a] she’s dealt more with the GOP attack machine and [b] she’s already quite experienced at running health care reform into the ground.
I agree with you “Dave” and EvaNYC. I think the American people should also take into consideration what intrinsically drives each of these candidates. It is important to understand that nobody is perfect and totally forthright with their intentions in the world of politics, or in anything for that matter. So I believe that we should look at the essence of what these two candidates are running for. I am not a political expert and neither is 99% of America. My decision on who should be president, as with the majority of America, is mostly based on what I have heard on youtube, CNN, FoxNews and newspapers. It’s sad but true. I have neither the time nor patience to be researching how each candidate has voted on every piece of legislation throughout their careers, how they lived their lives, or even their personal relationships public or private. These candidates are almost twice as old as I am or more! The essence of Barack’s speeches and campaign is this idea of change. No, not just because It’s in huge letters on every banner. He represents a change in legislation and the political process, but also a social and cultural change. Politically, I truly believe he will make every effort to unite the parties and put into action legislation that I believe in. In regards to Social and cultural change, yes he is Black but he is also half, if not more, White! I do believe Hillary would be a sufficient president but in no way do I believe she would bring extraordinary change to this country. When speaking to my college friends originating from foreign countries about this presidential race, there is a genuine excitement in them for the possibility that such a diverse person, in personality and nationality, could represent America. He represents their America not just the America of the status quo.
There was alot of international discussion before the US went into Iraq. Alot of that international opinion was against the US going to war. This included the UN, Nato and US allies such as Canada. Canada said that the US needed UN approval, which it didn’t get. So there was plenty of time for Hillary to do her homework before voting for the war. I doubt that this was a phone call at 3 am. I wonder how much research she did and who her advisors were. Were her advisors the same ones that adviced the President? Are they some of the ones supporting her bid for the President now? It would have perhaps been better if she had voted absent when it came to voting on the war. Once the US was in the war it was necessary to support those doing the fighting by passing expenditure bills and by attempting the surge. Though I doubt that the surge will be the end. The terrorists will just go underground until such time that circumstances are more favorable for them or they will shift fronts to Iran and Afganistan for now. Experience and Seniority does not guarantee that you will get a great President. You may end up with mediocracy. There is a saying that we promote people until they are at a level above their level of competancy.
Also Hillary would have had as much or more money to spend in Texas and Ohio if she hadn’t mismanaged her campaign and her campaign finances. She was way ahead in the polls in these states prior to starting to campaign in them. She claimed that they were her firewall and that she had to winn both of them or else she was done. Now she claims Obama must win them both. She twists and turns things around to suit her at any point in time and ignores it when she looses. She claims that the states she lost were not important, only the next big states are and if she looses them then she will claim that they weren’t important either. She appears to be a master at twisting and turning the facts to suit herself. Is it a wonder that some people don’t trust or believe her.