We’ve all been hearing talk since this morning that, given yesterday’s primary results, Barack Obama will have no choice but to start going negative (or, in the vernacular, “drawing sharper contrasts”) against Hillary Clinton. But what, exactly, does that mean? There’s a qualitative difference between going negative (hardball) and going hard-negative (dirtyball).
What’s Obama prepared to do? So far, it sounds pretty mild.
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday blamed his primary defeats in Ohio and Texas on rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s criticism and news coverage that he argued benefited her at his expense.
The presidential candidate said he planned to do more in the days ahead to raise doubts about his opponent’s claims to foreign policy and other Washington experience. In a television ad that her campaign credits with helping her win, she portrayed herself as most prepared to handle an international crisis.
“What exactly is this foreign policy experience?” Obama asked mockingly. “Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no.”
On the style, that seems fairly above-board and substance-oriented. It’s hard to argue this isn’t a legitimate area of inquiry.
On the substance, the AP noted that Clinton responded by pointing to a series events in which she played a role, including peace talks in Northern Ireland, the Kosovo refugee crisis, and standing up for women’s rights in China. (And, one assumes the Obama campaign will respond by noting that Clinton arrived in Macedonia after progress had been negotiated, George Mitchell said she was “not involved directly” in Northern Ireland negotiations, and her speech in China was just a speech, which isn’t supposed to count.)
So far, these aren’t the kinds of “contrasts” that are going to tear the party apart.
The other area, apparently, is Clinton’s reluctance to release her tax returns.
Obama campaign advisers are already making good on promises to confront Hillary much more aggressively on new fronts, hammering her on a conference call over her failure to release her tax returns.
And in the process, Obama senior adviser David Axelrod got off a pretty good line mocking Hillary’s recent “change you can xerox” howler:
“There is no reason she cannot realease her 2006 returns. Talk about change you can Xerox. You can Xerox your tax returns.”
Obama advisers, clearly signaling to supporters that they will take aggressive steps to contain whatever momentum Hillary has coming out of yesterday’s wins, charged that her refusal to release the returns suggested that she would be less than forthcoming as president.
It strikes me as a fair subject to bring up. For months, Clinton has said she’d release her tax returns, but only if she wins the nomination. Pressed for an explanation for the delay, neither Clinton nor her campaign have come up with anything. It hasn’t been much of an issue because, well, Obama hasn’t made any effort to make it an issue.
I have to admit, all of this seems rather mild as campaign attacks go. In fact, I’d argue that these “contrasts” aren’t nearly as harsh as Clinton’s “kitchen-sink” strategy used so effectively over the last week or so.
If this is as far as Obama is prepared to go, he’ll be able to argue with a straight face that he’s keeping a classy campaign, but there are a couple of angles to consider: a) if voters yesterday responded to real negative campaigning, is Obama being aggressive enough? and b) is this only the first stage in a series of ever-escalating criticisms that will grow more intense in the coming weeks?
I guess we’ll find out soon enough.