The Obama campaign is getting hit hard for a new direct-mail piece it’s sent out, and in this case, the criticism is entirely justified. The mailing, criticizing Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan, is really awful. Indeed, after a couple of weeks of relative silence about the “conservative frame” discussion, this Obama mailing brings it all back to the fore.
But there are limits on how bad the piece is.
Greg Sargent posted images of the direct-mail piece — it’s a little big to reproduce here — but the mailing’s front and back hammer home the message: “Hillary’s health care plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can’t afford it. Is that the best we can do for families struggling with high health care costs?” The image includes a couple at a kitchen table, presumably to connect the mailing to the “Harry and Louise” ads that helped bring down the Clinton healthcare plan in the 1990s.
Paul Krugman, who’s been less than shy in his concerns about Obama, wrote:
The Obama campaign sends out an ugly mailer. Sorry, but this is just destructive — like the Obama plan, the Clinton plan offers subsidies to lower-income families. And BO himself has conceded that he might have to penalize people who don’t buy insurance until they need care. So this is just poisoning the well for health care reform. The politics of hope, indeed.
Ezra added that Obama’s plan is “pretty good,” but the senator runs into trouble by deciding to “respond to the inadequacies of his own policy by fear-mongering against not only better policy, but the type of policy he’s probably going to have to eventually adopt.”
All of this strikes me as completely fair; Obama’s ad is just a mess. It’s the kind of thing I really wish his campaign wouldn’t do.
And all of this might have even hurt Obama a bit, if the Clinton campaign hadn’t gone too far in its response.
First, the Clinton campaign, understandably angry about the healthcare mailing, would have more authority to complain if it hadn’t sent out an anti-tax mailing in New Hampshire and Nevada that looked like it had been written by the Republican National Committee. Those who revel in conservative frames lose the high ground when faced with criticism through conservative frames.
Second, while the Obama ad is extremely unhelpful when it comes to the progressive message on healthcare, it’s not dishonest. It’s using a conservative frame, and it’s hard-ball politics, but it’s not factually wrong. Regrettably, Clinton’s anti-tax mailing was factually wrong.
And third, the Clinton campaign hosted a conference call with reporters this morning that went wildly off-message.
The Clinton campaign convened a conference call with health policy experts to denounce Obama’s new mailer, which attacks Clinton’s plan for “forcing” Americans to sign up for insurance, and which features a couple at a kitchen table that recalls, for some, the famous insurance-industry-financed “Harry and Louise” ads against the original Clinton plan.
“I am personally outraged at the picture used in this mailing,” said Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, a leading supporter of mandatory insurance, who called it a “Harry and Louise evocation.”
“It is as outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Ill.,” Nichols said. “I just find it disgusting that this kind of imagery is being used to attack the only way to get to universal coverage.”
Goodness gracious. I agree with the concerns about the Obama mailing; it’s the kind of thing the campaign shouldn’t have done. No doubt about it — I denounce the direct-mail piece without reservation.
But comparing the mailing to Nazis marching through Skokie not only takes the outrage several steps too far, it changes the nature of the story. Now, instead of the headline reading, “Awful Obama mailing wrong about healthcare,” the new headline is, “Clinton campaign compares Obama mailing to Nazis.”
Later in the Clinton conference call, campaign spokesperson Howard Wolfson disavowed the Nazi reference. I’m glad, but it’s sometimes tough to get the toothpaste back in the tube.
Last night’s debate was quite pleasant. It was nice while it lasted.