Worst … p.r. strategy … ever

February 1, 2007

The political world made Sen. Joe Biden’s (D-Del.) life a little miserable yesterday. On the day he kicked off his presidential campaign, Biden referred to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as, among other qualities, “clean.” His choice of words could have been better, and I don’t want to pile on.

But in the extensive media coverage of Biden’s comments, there was one piece of analysis that stood out. From Fox News’ “Special Report with Brit Hume” last night:

MORT KONDRACKE: Biden’s problem, as everybody knows, is that he talks too much and he couldn’t stop and he got himself into this mock . . . with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and then has to apologize for it. If your opening day announcement is — has to be corrected with an apology, you didn’t begin well.

BILL KRISTOL: I think it’s a very clever move by Senator Biden…. [I]f he had just announced his candidacy, he’d be like the ninth Democrat in the race, who would care? He’d be on page A-7 in the papers, we would not be discussing him here. (emphasis added)

I didn’t see Kristol’s comments on TV, and the transcript doesn’t reflect whether he was laughing while saying this, but it appears that he was earnest. Kristol appears to genuinely believe that Joe Biden did a good thing by causing an uproar, as if this was a calculated, “clever” strategy.

I can picture Biden now … “I’ll tell a reporter that Obama is ‘clean,’ be accused of racism, spark all kinds of intense media scrutiny, get booed on The Daily Show, and become the butt of jokes. It’ll be great!”

Note to Kristol: there is such a thing as bad publicity.

“What I know about anything” By Bill Kristol:

(Crickets Chirping)

  • I have a brother who’s a politician and a close family friend who writes books. They agree that there is no such thing as BAD publicity if you didn’t get indicted . . .

  • Bill Kristol (overheard): Also, very clever of Aqua Teen Hunger Force to shut down Boston. Clever , clever…

  • Why does Aqua Teen Hunger Force hate America anyway? They made all the neocons piss their pants for a cartoon advertisement? How evil is that?

  • I noticed that Bush called Obama “articulate” yesterday.

    I think Boston was mostly shut down by hysteria, indirectly caused by Bush’s constant fear mongering. But you’d think Aqua Teen would be smart enough to let authorities know if they were hiding boxes on bridges and stuff. I hope Aqua Teen gets a hefty bill.

    I guess this explains why Kristol is a Bush supporter. Dimwit.

  • Yeah, Bill Kristol is stupid.

    I haven’t read anything about this actually. To me it sounds like it could be racism on the one hand, or on the other, it could just be that (as everyone knows, and especially as we know since we read about it all the time) politicians are mucky, and when you can say that one of them isn’t mucky at all, it’s a compliment, and everyone knows that clean is a colloquialism for that- but sometimes when you’re a white person talking about a black person, you have to be careful about even sounding racist. It’s not always that you say something insensitive or unconsciously racist, just something that could be misconstrued.

  • Comments like Biden’s wouldn’t be such a big deal today if Strom Thurmond had been elected president.

  • i don’t know how we got on aqua teen hunger force, but it is my opinion that boston over-reacted, but that’s only because the bush administration has created (intentionally i believe) such an atmosphere of histeria that people in this country go crazy at just about anything. on that note, i was chuckling through the entire newscast as i watched everything unfold. on the other hand, i read today that the company responsible knew what was going on and intentionally chose to keep quiet and let it play out. that, i believe, was wrong. when they found somebody had “misunderstood” their advertising campaign they should have called a stop to it.

  • The whole Biden flap makes as much sense as the Kerry joke flap. Just as with Kerry, if you read the old statement of Biden’s it is clear what is meaning was and it is also clear it wasn’t insulting anyone. If you insert the word “-cut” after “clean” in Biden’s remarks, you get that he was calling Obama “clean-cut”, a perfectly reasonable and noninsulting term. Also clearly Biden was saying that Obama is the first mainstream black candidate with a serious chance of getting a major party nomination. No matter how fond you are of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Carol Mosely Braun, etc., none of them were mainstream, serious candidates the way Obama is. They were as mainstream, and had as much serious chance of getting niminated as Pat Buchanan did on the Republican side.

    The Biden flap is the usual MSM crap of jumping all over a Democratic candidate for flubbing some remarks. Since before 2000, Bush and most Republican candidates are give free passes on this sort of thing. I think it is disgusting that progressive media like Air America has followed the Republican lead in jumping on Biden. Biden never had much chance at the Democratic nomination anyway, but we shouldn’t be helping the Republicans tear down Democrats.

  • I mean you yourself have written a few times about Obama being so hard for the Republicans to smear because there’s nothing bad to say about him, CB.

    Then you have George W. Bush, a man so racist he barely will set foot off the plane when he lands in a nation populated by brown people. Fear of contagion, perhaps. The one exception is Saudi Arabia, where he holds hands with men. The catch with that we know is that Bush and his family and his friends come from the oil industry, and Saudi Arabia controls a lot of the world’s oil

    But Bush is probably personable with other non-white people besides the Saudis- on TV making a public relations appearance, he seems to get along well enough with someone sitting next to them, if they’re black. So when people are watching he’s not racist, I guess.

  • Remember Kristol thinks the Iraq debacle has been an amazing success.

    He really seems to believe this stuff.

    He, Kristol, also made the comment on what The Corner refers to as
    “Fox News All Stars” Is this an oxymoron, or does Fox News Allstars means these guys are especially crazy not just batsh*** nuts like the ordinary fox guys.

    Anyway Kristol does not reside in the reality based world.

  • Note to Kristol: there is such a thing as bad publicity.

    Seriously, there’s not. I think Biden was just being Biden, spouting off a poorly-worded remark. But the fact that he’s been in the public’s conscience for this long can only be good for him.

    Remember when Bush failed that pop geography quiz? That thing stuck forever in everyone’s minds, but look where he is now. It didn’t raise anyone’s opinions of the man, but everyone talked about it. Imagine what would’ve happened if he was just that much more irrelevant during the campaign.

  • Like if you’re running against someone from your own party, you might want to give them measured praise. You don’t want to not praise them at all, because they’re from you’re own party, but you don’t want to say anything that great about them, because you’re running against them. So if Biden just wanted to give Obama measured praise, he might say he was “clean.”

  • Don’t be too hard on Krissie. Bush won 2004 in part by promising to write discrimination into the Constitution AND the man has trouble getting through a complete sentence.

    Is it any wonder he thinks being a bumbling buffoon will get you in the OO?

  • I don’t support Joe Biden for president, but he is getting a bad rap on this. Everyone knows that he has a good heart and did not mean to diss any prior African- American candidates.

    Also the quote can be read 2 ways:
    “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s storybook, man.”

    A comma or a pause before “who” can let the quote be read to mean that Obama is the first mainstream black to run for president (which is arguably correct) and that also Obama is articulate..etc.

    One blogger pointed out that there actually was such a pause, with the interviewer saying “yeah”

    Of course, “clean” was not exactly a good word choice. Also, Senator Biden talks so much that he always bound to say something offensive or goofy.

    Homer http://www.altara.blogspot.com

  • The fact is that it was a thoughtless, INARTICULATE comment that sounded incredibly patronizing. Even Biden seems to recognize this, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone on an “apology tour” over the past few days.

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