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Obama On Why He Doesn't 'Hit Back' Against Clinton
(CNN) – Sen. Barack Obama used a question during a campaign event Saturday to explain his unusual approach to politics.
“How do we get rid of that huge divisiveness in this country?,” a voter asked Obama in Anderson, Indiana.
“The president sets the tone,” the Illinois senator said before explaining the bipartisan approach he’d take if elected to the White House.
“But, I’m also going to try to show this during the course of the campaign,” he added. “Sometimes you take some hits. Even during this campaign, I’ve been taking some hits.”
“One of the things that I learned in the school yard was: the folks that are talking tough all the time, they’re not always that tough. If you’re really tough, you’re not always looking to try to start a fight. If you’re really tough, sometimes you just walk away. If you’re really tough, you just save it for when you really need it,” Obama said.
“I’m not interested in fighting people just for the sake of scoring political points.” “If I’m going to fight somebody it’s going to be fighting over the American people and what they need.”
Obama’s effort to explain his sometimes non-confrontational approach came on the same day that his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton proposed a Lincoln-Douglas style debate. Prior to Clinton’s challenge, Obama said in a television interview set to air Sunday that he would not agree to any more debates with Clinton before the May 6 primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. After learning of Clinton's proposal, the Obama campaign maintained that the Illinois senator would not participate in any more debates until after May 6.
Comments (27)
Here is the real reason Obama can't hit back against Hillary -- and I believe its the giant elephant in the room: Mixing the words "fighting" and "black man" just doesn't result in a favorable reaction in this country. Thats why he has to be all smiles and talking rainbows and kittens all the time. Because the minute he gets perceived as "angry" or a "fighter" it brings up images of race riots or that mean-looking "brotha" you once saw on the street with the dewrag and the well-muscled biceps who you thought might probably mug you or beat you up. So its better to be perceived as an idealistic, high-minded, wimpy, black "elitist" -- which, lets face it, should ring so many cognitive dissonance bells that most people would never truly believe it no matter how much he is accused of it.
Clinton is like a little noisy chihuahua, that is constantly yapping and snarling at people. When people see hey they just point and say "Awww, she thinks she's a big vicious guard dog, how cute!" But Obama is like the big, dark Rottweiler. As long as he is wagging his tail, whimpering and licking people's faces, he is perceived as friendly and harmless. But the minute he starts barking, people will start getting frightened, kids will start crying for their mommies, and there will be calls to the dog-catcher to have this vicious man-killer caged.
Prejudice is literally built into his campaign, and it is like campaigning with one hand and one leg tied behind his back. Obama is at all times treading an extremely fine line in terms of hitting back against Clinton's low-ball attacks. The fact that he is where is now, on the cusp of getting into the White House, is a huge testament to his political prowess and a sign of the shifting of prevailing winds within our society.
April 27, 2008 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
HITTING BACK REQUIRES A WILLING WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
Shooting hoops and scarfing waffles may pass for an excuse to bow out of substantive debates but it is not an apology for failing to bowl Gomers IQ.
VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE
NOT YOUR GUILTY CONSCIENCE
April 27, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, after Hillary talked smack about a "bowl-off" with Obama, I guess you believed she could actually bowl, huh Stimpy? Guess Again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjNxBQzHoM8
And scarfing waffles is better than chugging Jack Daniels, anyday.
April 27, 2008 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a new troll -- when did it get here? I notice it was very busy last night.
April 27, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
WHAT YOU SHOULD ADMIRE MOST
When you watch Obama's poll rising and rising, higher and higher, does it remind you of the shame of penetration?
Bubba (your former bunk mate)
April 27, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jed has a terrific video clip of Obama in Indiana on this
http://www.jedreport.com/2008/04/what-it-really.html?disqus_reply=386521#comment-386521
April 27, 2008 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kinkistyle,
Brilliant. I fully agree with your insightful, frank explanation as to (the unstated) reason why Obama doesn't have full freedom to take on Hillary forcefully.
April 27, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
=> America is ready for a black President.
=> America is not ready to see an angry black man.
You're either giving America too much or too little credit.
And it's "do rag."
April 27, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lest you've forgotten, Barack is "half-black". So it is not so "black and white" (pun intended) as you make it out to be. And thanks for the "do rag" correction. Never actually ever typed that word before this particular comment.
April 27, 2008 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nail on the head...
April 27, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kinki: "Here is the real reason Obama can't hit back against Hillary ..."
I think the real reason is the reason he gave.
April 27, 2008 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama stands for some pretty good stuff. His policies are not perfect, but they're good. I would like it if he supported his policies with the enthusiasm they deserve. And I think a lot of people would agree.
Part of being enthusiastic about your ideals is 'hitting back' at people with shitty ideals. That potentially means being mean, yelling, belittling people and/or ideas, etc.
April 27, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, it does not.
April 27, 2008 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
You forget one aspect. If he attacks Clinton it comes off looking like a big mean man victimizing a helpless woman and she gets sympathy votes.
It may be lame, because anyone who can't see Clinton as anything but helpless is blind, but it is a common mindset.
It's what happened after the debate when Obama and Edwards seemed to be on the attack against her. She got a serious bump in polls.
April 27, 2008 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, Kinkistyle and Jsmith. The Ferraro, Steinem etc. second-wave feminists are already using plenty of violence-against-women rhetoric to describe anything Obama does to criticize Clinton ("he's trying to really sock her", etc.). Unfortunately for them, this criticism doesn't really take -- it's thwarted by the Clinton campaign's "he's not tough enough" line.
But if he really were to act angry, as, say, Bill Clinton or John McCain is allowed to do without criticism in the mainstream media, Obama would look like a "big mean black man victimizing a helpless white woman." Not a winning image with national appeal.
April 27, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and here is another thing John McCain and Hillary Clinton are allowed to have, that Barack isn't:
They are allowed to have "senior moments" and Obama isn't.
Yes, she's starting to go senile according to Bill, so give her a break. Obama, on the other hand, is in the prime of his life so if he "misspeaks" its actually just a lie. Of course, that whole line of reasoning kind of destroys the "3 A.M. Phone Call" strategy, but thats just part and parcel of the "fly by the seat of your pants" campaign the Clintons have been running.
April 27, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Substantive debate? I like your funnies.
April 27, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. He's been excoriated every time he has fought back. The Annie Oakley thing was fucking hilarious, but the Corporatist media of course ran back inside, boarded up their dwellings and armed themselves because the angry black man spoke out and made people laugh.
April 27, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's something deeper here.
A Democratic black candidate will inspire sympathy in a loyal Dem base when an old white Republican man and his loony 527s go to work.
To maintain the identification, it's vital that Obama not go hard at Hillary unless she's at her psychotic worst (e.g., South Carolina debate). Because her base will be incapable of offense on his behalf if he does to her what she's doing to him.
Put another way, I think he's spending his frontrunner capital by running a bit weaker to keep her folks remotely sympathetic for the fall.
April 27, 2008 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another excellent catch, Mr. Soy. Thanks again.
April 27, 2008 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
"You wouldn't hit a girl, would you, Charlie Brown?"
:)
April 27, 2008 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
April 27, 2008 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
from Indy Star - reader comment to the Bitter thing - still ongoing today ---(with McCain reference thrown in for good measure)
"Grumpy? hmmmmmmm Bitter, you might say. Gee, I guess Barack Obama is more in tune with typical American voter and not such an "elitist" as Clinton says while trying to bring him down. Who'dathunk it: a child raised by a single mother, who lived on food stamps for a while, who persevered and achieved scholarships to some of America's best schools, and who returned to the Midwest to work in a lower-paying civil rights law firm instead of the huge corporate firms to which he was recruited. Wow! how could he possibly have a better pulse on the average American than, say, a corporate lawyer and WalMart Board member, whose household brought in $20million last year; or a guy whose wife is worth $100million and who flies him around on a corporate jet. Hmmmm"
April 27, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
He doesn't hit back because it would be a black man attacking a white woman. What happens to black men who attack white women in this country? Clinton has been baiting him to attack her since the results of super Tuesday, and especially now with Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia coming up.
April 27, 2008 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
“The president sets the tone,” the Illinois senator said before explaining the bipartisan approach he’d take if elected to the White House.
Why didn't he hang out in DC long enough to show us how he's going to get that 'rubber to meet the road' in the Senate? He could have used the first part of his term to show us all how he was going to use that reaching-out bipartisan approach to break that fire hose stream of republican fillibuster threats.
But he didn't because he knows he's just talking shit. Barry's going to set the tone for 535 independently elected reps?
Yeah. Right. Will he send us more Harry&Louise fliers?
April 28, 2008 2:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I genuinely think that many are looking to hard at this in racial terms. He didn't have any problem speaking of her as Annie Oakly, it was joking and funny and he as done some elbowing back. It would be counter to his message to go to negative and that is the big reason. He wants to change that type of politics. He has to play it some because it is effective and she's pushing hard and playing ugly, but keep in mind her negatives go up when she does it. I also think there would be more of a sense of a man putting down a woman whether white, black or brown. That might set off some bells in women who feel they've been discriminated against by men. I really don't think there's a big "OJ factor".
April 28, 2008 3:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
There may not be an "OJ Factor" per se, but I bet my underwear that if Hillary Clinton could position herself to be the Nicole Brown in the case (a 'la the poor, innocent victim) in the public sphere, to gain sympathy -- a la her fake tears in the diner prior to the NH primary -- she would do it in a heartbeat!
She is devious enough to try just about anything. And has.
April 28, 2008 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
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