{"id":14346,"date":"2008-01-24T15:05:33","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T20:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14346.html"},"modified":"2008-01-24T15:05:33","modified_gmt":"2008-01-24T20:05:33","slug":"clinton-pushes-obama-into-a-catch-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/clinton-pushes-obama-into-a-catch-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton pushes Obama into a catch-22"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a couple of weeks of dubious and misleading criticisms<\/a> directed his way, Barack Obama’s campaign has decided to respond in kind, unveiling an aggressive new ad<\/a>. It argues that Hillary Clinton is “making false attacks on Barack Obama,” and she “will say anything to get elected.”<\/p>\n

“The Washington Post says Clinton isn’t telling the truth. Obama ‘did not say that he liked the ideas of Republicans.’ In fact, Obama’s led the fight to raise the minimum wage, close corporate tax loopholes and cut taxes for the middle class.<\/p>\n

“But it was Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Tom Brokaw, who quote ‘paid tribute’ to Ronald Reagan’s economic and foreign policy. She championed NAFTA — even though it has cost South Carolina thousands of jobs. And worst of all, it was Hillary Clinton who voted for George Bush’s war in Iraq.<\/p>\n

“Hillary Clinton. She’ll say anything, and change nothing. It’s time to turn the page.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As far as I can tell, there are no obvious factual errors in Obama’s ad, and in general, I think the “say anything” line is a pretty good one. The Clinton campaign has been using a “kitchen sink” strategy since the Iowa caucuses, and a blanket “she’ll say anything to win” meme takes a dismissive attitude towards all<\/i> the attacks.<\/p>\n

The Clinton campaign has issued talking points to surrogates about the commercial, though, and it highlights Obama’s catch-22.
\n
\nThe headline reads, “Sen. Obama’s Personal Attack Ad<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

* After months of telling Americans he would run a positive campaign, Senator Obama has launched the most negative, personal attack of this cycle.<\/p>\n

* In a new ad airing in South Carolina, Senator Obama outrageously asserts that Senator Clinton will “say anything to get elected.”<\/p>\n

* This from a candidate and a campaign who have promised voters a politics of hope and unity, and repeatedly denounced the “slash and burn politics of the past.”<\/p>\n

–In August, Senator Obama told the Associated Press that “I’ve been respectful of all the candidates. I would challenge anyone to find a statement I’ve made that has been personal.”<\/p>\n

–Earlier this year, Senator Obama’s Chief Strategist David Axelrod told Real Clear Politics, “Do we have a strategy to tear people down? We don’t.”<\/p>\n

–And just two weeks ago, Senator Obama told Newsweek that he would not “knee cap” his opponents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Clinton campaign isn’t disputing any of Obama’s charges; they’re arguing that Obama isn’t supposed to be making any charges at all. The Clinton campaign also isn’t taking a holier-than-thou attitude — they’ve clearly been throwing plenty of mud — but is instead arguing that Obama is using the same take-no-prisoners attitude Clinton embraced weeks ago. (That’s not hypocrisy, Team Clinton would likely say, because she never promised anyone “hope and unity.”)<\/p>\n

And therein lies the problem. Obama said he wanted to stay positive; Clinton said she wanted to win. When Clinton went on the attack, including taking a few cheap shots, it created a conundrum — if Obama returned fire, he’d be guilty of the same kind of politics he finds distasteful in Clinton. If he didn’t return fire, Clinton gets away with dishonest attacks and Obama gets hit with stories like this one<\/a>, which question whether he’s ready for the rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred national stage.<\/p>\n

We saw at the debate earlier this week that Obama is capable<\/i> of mixing it up and trading shots with Clinton, but it automatically leaves him in a jam — he’s playing by Clinton’s rules.<\/p>\n

As I noted<\/a> the other day, Clinton doesn’t mind getting into a good ol’ fashioned brawl; she’s quick, smart, and quite adept in these scuffles. The problem for Obama is getting dragged into the mud when he wants to aim higher.<\/p>\n

If he returns fire, it’s politics as usual, with politicians bickering and getting personal. If he doesn’t return fire, and aims for a “new kind of politics,” the attacks from Clinton start to stick, and questions about general election “toughness” emerge.<\/p>\n

Clinton knows all of this, of course, and will use it as much as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a couple of weeks of dubious and misleading criticisms directed his way, Barack Obama’s campaign has decided to respond in kind, unveiling an aggressive new ad. It argues that Hillary Clinton is “making false attacks on Barack Obama,” and she “will say anything to get elected.” “The Washington Post says Clinton isn’t telling the […]<\/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-14346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14346","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=14346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}