{"id":14140,"date":"2008-01-05T11:40:08","date_gmt":"2008-01-05T16:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14140.html"},"modified":"2008-01-05T11:40:08","modified_gmt":"2008-01-05T16:40:08","slug":"clinton-edwards-eye-avenues-of-attack-against-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/clinton-edwards-eye-avenues-of-attack-against-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton, Edwards eye avenues of attack against Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because of the compressed calendar, there are just five short days between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, which poses a challenge for Hillary Clinton’s and John Edwards’ campaigns: how to blunt Barack Obama’s post-Iowa momentum quickly. Tom Edsall offers a look<\/a> at the chosen avenues of attack.<\/p>\n

Upon her arrival in New Hampshire this morning, Hillary Clinton signaled that she intends to play on Obama’s as yet unexploited political weaknesses: “Who will be able to stand up to the Republican attack machine?” she asked at an appearance in Nashua.<\/p>\n

Hillary’s aides point to Obama’s extremely progressive record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with “left-wing” intellectuals in Chicago’s Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants’ rights as subjects for examination.<\/p>\n

Along the same lines, ABC reported that Clinton aides gave the network various examples, of Obama’s controversial stands. The aides cited Obama’s past assertion that he would support ending mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes, pointing to a 2004 statement at an NAACP-sponsored debate: “Mandatory minimums take too much discretion away from judges.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just as I go to the trouble of defending the Clinton campaign<\/a> from charges of “triangulation,” it turns around and starts blasting “liberal voting records.”<\/p>\n

Worse, according to Time’s Karen Tumulty<\/a>, a Clinton media advisor said voters would soon see “some very sharp” ads from the senator’s campaign, which may include criticizing Obama for being liberal on gun control.<\/p>\n

There’s been quite a bit of discussion in recent weeks about whether Obama has been relying on “conservative frames<\/a>” to get ahead. If Clinton is going to take on Obama from the right, that discussion is going to shift in a hurry.
\n
\nI have to admit, it’s Edsall’s report that raises the most red flags. Obama has a “progressive record”? It’s a Democratic primary; it’s hard to see where Clinton hopes to go with this. He’s aligned with “left-wing’ intellectuals in Chicago’s Hyde Park community”? I seriously hope this isn’t as red-baiting as it sounds. Obama has embraced a progressive approach to defendants’ rights as subjects for examination? Given what we know<\/a>, this sounds like something for Obama to brag<\/i> about, not something for Clinton to use as a cudgel. And Obama thinks mandatory minimum are a mistake? They are<\/i> a mistake. This makes me like Obama more<\/i>, not less.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, we then have Edwards’ new tack<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Edwards’ staff also immediately began to take shots at Obama: Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Edwards’ manager David Bonior described Obama as a sellout to corporate America: “Barack Obama’s kind of change is where you sit down and you cut a deal with the corporate world.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hmm, Clinton is poised to hammer Obama for being a liberal. Edwards is already hammering Obama for not being liberal enough.<\/p>\n

Somehow, I have a hunch the Obama campaign finds all of this pretty helpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because of the compressed calendar, there are just five short days between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, which poses a challenge for Hillary Clinton’s and John Edwards’ campaigns: how to blunt Barack Obama’s post-Iowa momentum quickly. Tom Edsall offers a look at the chosen avenues of attack. Upon her arrival in New […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}