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Sen. Clinton & the GOP Attack Machine
Just a few quick thoughts this fine Sunday afternoon.
By now everyone has heard the Clinton campaign's endless justifications for the attacks on Sen. Obama, regarding particular topics of national importance--such as flag pins and William Ayers, as necessary because that's what the GOP will do in the fall. I'm not even going to cite anything because it's such a commonly accepted paradigm of the Clinton campaign.
Does this make a lick of sense?
As I pondered this notion, it reminded me of conversations I used to
have with my mom when I was eight. They unfolded roughly as follows:
Conversation #1
ME: Mom, can I [fill in the blank]?
MOM: No
ME [whining]: Butttt . . . Timmy does [fill in the blank]
MOM: If Timmy jumped off a bridge, would you follow him?
Conversation #2
ME: Mom, can I [fill in the blank]?
MOM: No
ME [whining]: Butttt . . . Timmy's mom lets him do [fill in the blank]
MOM: Then maybe you should go live at Timmy's house
I respectfully submit that perhaps it is time for Sen. Clinton to go live at Timmy's house.
Comments (23)
er, what about the OBAMA attack machine?
He tried to distort her healthcare plan, tried to blame her
for the tough ABC questions.
This is Mr. Change? So when is he going to start?
April 20, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
(a) How did he distort her health-care plan? By referring to its mandates? Or is there something else out there that I'm unaware of?
(b) How has he tried to blame her for the "tough" ABC questions? Last I heard, the complaint was about the questions being irrelevant, not tough, and the only connection he made to Hillary was that she was "in her element". That does constitute an attack, but it's hardly blaming her for the questions themselves.
April 20, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
To an Obama supporter, saying that "Wright would not be my Pastor." was an outrageous and opportunistic attack. A Clinton supporter would say that she was trying to show how she's different or would have behaved differently in a similar context.
Obama's used the Annie Oakley reference, said she was using Rovian tactics and now has an ad attacking Clinton's healthcare plan. In every speech, going back months before Clinton ever attacked him, he attacks her vote to authorize military action in Iraq.
I know you are not an Obamabot, Ben, and we've talked about this before on other threads. Doesn't it bother you, though, that your co-supporters are so sycophantic, so deer in the headlights, so obviously reveling in the rush of the hero worship orgasmatron that they think only Clinton does the attacking?
April 20, 2008 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those are valid comparisons, although I still don't think that bonehead's were (re blaming ABC questions on Hillary and criticizing her health-care plan). I could draw distinctions of degree, but there's no doubt some bias on my part, so I won't.
Sure, I'm slightly bothered by the few here who don't seem to find any fault in Obama, although I hardly think that problem is unique to Obama or his supporters. I also don't think that describes the majority of posters here, for either candidate. I know that I'm more likely to see Clinton's faults than Obama's, and that Clinton supporters fall into the reverse trap. Realizing that helps mitigate it, but you can never really overcome it, although you can overcompensate for it which I don't think is any better.
Part of the problem is based on the assumptions we use when we read the news about our favorite candidate. If you start off assuming the worst, one can usually parse a particular statement/event in such a way that it confirms your assumption, even when that's not the case. Similarly, if you start off assuming the best, you can usually find what you consider to be a valid excuse for almost any action, no matter how vile it would seem coming from the other candidate.
Again, I want to reiterate that I don't believe the problem is any worse for Obama's supporters than for Clinton's supporters. From my perspective, it actually seems that Clinton's supporters are more likely to be delusional, but that's exactly what one would expect if, in fact, they were equal.* I hope you can admit that your perception might also be flawed due to your biases.
*Note: nothing real is ever truly equal. By equal here, I simply mean that it wouldn't be clear, even to a hypothetical neutral observer, who has claim to the greater number of delusional supporters.
April 20, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but there isn't equivalence between the two campaigns with regards to attacks. Both have attacked each other; that is absolutely true.
Some of Sen. Obama's attacks have been below the belt; that is also true.
However, to simply say that they both attack each other and it all equals out is not true. I'll go through your post point by point:
Redstateleroy: "To an Obama supporter, saying that "Wright would not be my Pastor." was an outrageous and opportunistic attack. A Clinton supporter would say that she was trying to show how she's different or would have behaved differently in a similar context."
This was a question directed towards Sen. Obama. It was a character question. Sen. Clinton chose to exploit the question for her perceived political advantage. That is her right. However, when Sen. Clinton was asked a character question, Sen. Obama could have piled on and shown how he "would have behaved differently in a similar context." He chose not to pile on.
Redstateleroy: "Obama's used the Annie Oakley reference, said she was using Rovian tactics and now has an ad attacking Clinton's healthcare plan. In every speech, going back months before Clinton ever attacked him, he attacks her vote to authorize military action in Iraq."
Voting to go to war and health care are POLICY ISSUES. It is criticizing someone for their POLITICAL RECORD. Also, pointing out someone's offensive tactics is slightly less offensive than actually employing the offensive tactics. Sen. Clinton seems to be the inverse of Ronald Reagan's 11th Amendment.
Redstateleroy: "I know you are not an Obamabot, Ben, and we've talked about this before on other threads. Doesn't it bother you, though, that your co-supporters are so sycophantic, so deer in the headlights, so obviously reveling in the rush of the hero worship orgasmatron that they think only Clinton does the attacking?"
"Obamabot?" "Sycophantic?" "Hero worship orgasmatron?"
I thought Sen. Obama was the candidate of the educated elitist trust-fund babies. Which is it?
If you're going to criticize, certainly you can do a bit better than that. Sen. Obama is not a perfect candidate; there is no such thing. However, I do believe that he is easily the best of the three that remain.
April 20, 2008 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
My reply was in response to Ben, someone who I respect and with whom I have debated here quite often.
He is aware of more specific issues of what Clinton supporters see as the Obama attack machine. Axelrod, today, made what we see as a very specious, underhanded and mendacious attacks on Clinton. He said point blank in response to a rare unambiguous question from Russert that if elected, Clinton cannot make the necessary changes to move the country forward in a positive way.
My point here is that you, like so many posters here your title and original post only see one side. By any realistic measure, anyone who thinks that only Clinton does the attacking or only Clinton is playing politics is delusional. Both sides do it.
In Susan Wolcott's model, you would be a Biased Jumper, someone to leaps to a conclusion, looks only for evidence that supports your claim and ignores any evidence that runs counter to your claim. According to Wolcott, as academicians we have to help students move up to the higher rungs of the ladder (Biased Jumpers are on the 2nd of five levels).
And this is more than an academic exercise. As a longtime progressive who was seduced by candidates like McGovern and Dukasis, I suspect that Biased Jumpers comprise an overwhelming majority of the 28% of Clinton supporters who won't vote for Obama and vice versa.
I will throw you a bone and admit that the Clinton campaign does slightly more attacking than Obama. In my opinion she has hurt herself in many occasions by attacking him. Even in the debate the other night she would have been better served by shutting up and letting the moderators do the damage.
April 20, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
For those, like myself, who have never heard of Susan Wolcott or "Biased Jumpers", here is a link to a PDF in which she and Charlene Gray discuss it.
In defense of jthomascronin, I suggest you re-read what he wrote. He specifically acknowledges that not only has Obama made attacks, but that they've even been "below the belt" on occasion. Like you, he merely asserts that they are less frequent. Naturally, our respective biases will skew how much less frequent they are. I don't want you to feel like you're being double-teamed here, especially since—other than degree—we're all three pretty much in agreement.
April 20, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Regardless of of who you intended to respond to, you used about five derisive terms in describing Obama supporters. I support Sen. Obama. It's not much of a leap.
Next, you seem to stick to our model of only seeing "one side" after I have repeatedly stated that BOTH candidates attack. My point is that I see a distinction in both the nature and the timing of the attacks.
Also, "you would be a Biased Jumper" is an incredibly condescending comment. You don't know anything about me other what you can glean from these posts, which is not much. You keep trying to sweep away the specifics of my points with these broad irrelevant strokes. If you'd like to debate the specific points, do so without the crass generalizations.
Last, Axelrod was responding to a question on MTP. The question was whether Sen. Clinton would be able to make the kind of systemic changes that the Obama campaign believes is needed in order to make Washington more responsive to the voters. He said no & gave a reason why he believed that she couldn't [the amount of $ that she accepts from federal lobbyists]. Nevertheless, he stated that if she secured the nomination, he would work to ensure her election. I took the sum of that to mean that he didn't believe she could deliver the type of change that is needed, but was certainly preferable to John McCain.
Quite different from Sen. Clinton stating [not a surrogate] that both herself and John McCain had passed certain thresholds, while Sen. Obama had not. Again, Sen. Obama is far from perfect. He has screwed up in the past and will again during this campaign. However, there is a distinction between how these two campaigns are being conducted.
April 20, 2008 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was a bit too strident for my liking in the previous post.
I understand your broader point. There's an excellent book called "The Psychology of Influence". One aspect of what the author considers the psychology of evaluating information is something he terms "perspective bias". Perspective bias is simply seeking information to validate your conclusion while ignoring contradictory information. I am just as susceptible to it as anyone else.
However, I do think there are legitimate differences in the tone of the two campaigns. Notwithstanding that, I would have preferred to not be so over-bearing in making my point.
Sorry.
April 20, 2008 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean the Obama RESPONSE machine, don't you?
Sen. Obama has attacked Sen. Clinton, both in the past and, I imagine, in the future [at least as long as the primary continues]. However, Sen. Obama's attacks on Sen. Clinton are:
[1] On her health care plan [as you state in your post]--i.e., on POLICY grounds, such as whether a mandate is a good idea, something on which reasonable people can disagree.
[2] In RESPONSE to the relentless attacks from Sen. Clinton, which is what Sen. Clinton wants. He looks weak if he doesn't respond; or they say he's a "typical politician" if he does.
Note that during the debate it was Sen. Clinton that was throwing out Karl Rove--stream of consciousness--ad hominem attacks: "Hamas," "William Ayers," "Louis Farrakhan," & "9-11;" amongst others.
My point is that if you want to be a Republican you should just actually be a Republican and not couch your Republican attacks in the ridiculous notion that "well, they're going to do it."
April 20, 2008 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, man.. I laughed hard at Obama Response Machine. Nice one.
April 20, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have an 2002 Attack Machine with 49,000 miles on it. It makes a funny noise now when I run over MoveOn caucus gate crashers. It never did that when during the 2004 democratic primaries but those were mostly Kerrytrons. Should I chage the weight in the smasatron transaxle? or just upgrade?
April 20, 2008 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Trade it in for an '08 Response Machine. Financing available to qualified buyers. (Void where Prohibitive).
April 20, 2008 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too Late!! She moved to Timmy's house the day she said that she and McCain had passed the CinC threshold and Obama had only given a speech in 2002. She just hasn't sent out her change of address notices yet.
April 20, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It should be obvious (and I will concede) that Clinton has personal motivations for attacking Obama in GOP-esque ways. It should be similarly obvious that Clinton's attacks are beneficial as they test Obama in advance. If he can withstand her attacks, he will be far better prepared in November. If he can't, then we had all better think twice before we hand him the nomination.
Like it or not, Clinton's attacks are harmless compared to the intensity with which the GOP machine will use them in a general. If they're not brought up now by Obama's opponent, we would be seeing debate performances like that in Philly but against John McCain! Withstanding Hillary Clinton, Obama will be far better prepared against the Republicans in the fall. If he can't even beat her, expect a thrashin in the general.
April 20, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Respectfully, I just couldn't disagree more with your post.
Is there some benefit to Sen. Obama in being tested in this fashion by Sen. Clinton? Yes, there is.
However, the damage is that she is taking what should be a tricky road for the GOP to navigate and paving it for them. She is undercutting Sen. Obama's ability to take the moral high ground when needed against Sen. McCain, providing a test-run for the attacks from the GOP, and lending moral legitimacy to the most scurrilous of the attacks.
For the small benefit, she has basically made it incredibly difficult for Sen. Obama to pivot away from these issues. Would he have had a difficult time countering the attacks anyway? Sure. Is the benefit of having to respond to these attacks now worth the damage that they do later? I don't think so.
April 20, 2008 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a joke, brand!! You say:
"If he can't, then we had all better think twice before we hand him the nomination."
No one is handing him the nomination: He is winning it!!!
April 20, 2008 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll concede that point. "Hand" was a wrong word choice. But in the end, he can win the nomination only by gaining superdelegates, and so I mean that the superdelegates should think twice before securing the nomination for him if he is not going to be a presentable candidate.
April 20, 2008 10:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is an understandable point, but I must appreciate most of the attacks Clinton has used. It should also be noted that much of these issues have been dug up by the MSM and then latched onto by Clinton. But regardless, for myself and many others, Obama remains a possibly great man and politician that I still retain doubts about. It is precisely because of things like Wright, Obama's past associations, and now how he is responding to attacks, that I am uncertain of just WHO Obama is. Until I feel comfortable with him, I (and likely many others) will not vote for him.
What would be the alternative? If Clinton merely sat back and accepted defeat, not pushing on Obama's weak points, we would go into the general election with a candidate that would then be assaulted on all sides by the GOP. At least in this fashion, most issues raised by the GOP will be "old news." I can understand the frustration people have in that Clinton is "paving the way" and "testing the waters" for the GOP, but this is all a necessary byproduct of true inspection of a candidate. Clinton underwent it; Obama should too. If she wants to stay in this thing and try to win it with the issues that have largely been created by Obama himself, she has every right. This is why you will see many superdelegates and party leaders expressing satisfaction with the process as it is something that is necessary, but at the same time they are dissatisfied for the reasons you have pointed out. I don't think there is a moral high ground on this issue.
April 20, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
brand,
You say soem strange things, now this:
"If Clinton merely sat back and accepted defeat"
It is called conceding the race. That is what candidates do when it is obvious that they have lost. She has lost (please refer to the math,) but she keeps running.
Because of that, Obama can't concentrate on defeating McCain. That focus (now!) is what is needed to defeat McCain in November.
April 20, 2008 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lookingin -
I don't think Clinton has lost this race. Given Obama's numerous slip ups in the past month, and the fact that many new issues seem to be on the horizon, I think Clinton will win PA by 8-12 pts (undecideds break for her), followed by a ~5 pt win in IN and a ~10 pt loss in NC. I think, given this slight momentum, she will continue to battle it out with Obama until Puerto Rico.
Not a lot has been said about PR. I read a very interesting article about just how politically active Puerto Ricans are. I think a lot of us are betting on Clinton closing the gap 200k votes in the states leading to to PR, and then winning 55-45 there, It is likely that turnout there will be huge, with 80%+ of the coming out for the vote (going off of previous voter turnout in far less important elections). If we assume that around 2.5 million voters will turn out in PR, with this margin Clinton would net another 250k votes and be 300k behind Obama.
THEN, I think we will have a real battle on our hands because the calls to count FL (not MI, which even I do not think was fair nor should be counted) will be central. With FL, Clinton will be able to overtake Obama in total vote count.
Now, before everyone tries to do all of their own calculations, this is just a hypothetical, but it is based on the numerous articles I've been reading from pundits who obviously don't think it's an unimaginable scenario.
Now it shouldn't be too difficult to see why so many Clinton supporters are urging her onwards. There is far too much that has yet to be determined in this race for her to drop out.
Spade -
One of my friends is reading that and loves it. I will definitely give it a look at some point.
April 20, 2008 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Brand, Try reading "Dreams from my Father," it was written before he was running for public office and it lays the man out for you. After reading it, you won't have questions about his character and integrity.
April 20, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
“By now everyone has heard the Clinton campaign's endless justifications for the attacks on Sen. Obama, regarding particular topics of national importance--such as flag pins…”
I must be out of the loop. Where and when did Clinton attack Obama for not wearing a flag pin? You see, I ask because when you accuse someone of doing something underhanded and they’re not guilty of it, that is an underhanded attack. HuffPo, an avid Obama site, published two articles recently. One exposed Obama’s SF fundraiser remarks, which when made public became fair game. I do think it was low politics by a desperate campaign but the reason they are desperate is that they have been crippled by characterizations as unscrupulous and now they can’t be heard unless they are attacking.
Today HuffPo ran an article about the emails of this Buffenbarger guy, which caused more damage to Obama by their broadcasting it. No one would have heard about it otherwise. He’s a Clinton supporter but her campaign has nothing to do with him (unless one wants to press guilt by association to ridiculous degrees). People, even union leaders, have a right to talk about absolutely any concerns they have. It’s called free speech. There are a hell of a lot of smears going around by many different people and groups just through the innertubes. So what? The idea is that in keeping with the long-running Axelrod gambit, Hillary is a do anything devious derelict smearing High-road Obama. This article in Slate only describes one day in that strategy:
http://www.slate.com/id/2189485/
Obama lied during the debate about his camp pushing the sniper gaffe and other stuff. They have been accusing her of smears since she won in NH. By painting Clinton as scheming and his campaign as new politics, he has opened himself up to counterattacks through associations that disprove that, just as it is fair for Obama to challenge Clinton on who is really elitist. Clinton has originated attacks on things like NAFTA, his war statements, experience and has hit hard on some of those (within standard political warfare). The NAFTA gate thing is a perfect example of how it gets turned back onto Clinton. She has joined the squawking on some of the personal attacks, especially lately, after others had raised them and did snap at Rezco earlier, but it was in the headlines by then anyway.
Still, does anyone think the Clinton camp has not known for over a year the intimate details about Reverend Wright or Bill Ayers or Rezco or the Daley machine or past activist associations (like the Palestinian from ElectronicIntifada) or even his African connections; any number of associations that could have been used to really smear Obama if that was their strategy? People can believe they were race-baiting and pushing Obama is a Muslim but it is prima facie absurd. If they were intentionally organizing smears like that, they would have to be the worst campaign in recent history intent on self-destruction. They are not.
Obama has not helped his case by neglecting to take these things head on, early on. He tries to deny things (didn’t know Rezco, Ayers, Wright’s views, support handgun ban, etc.) and makes the matter worse. The thing is Obama deflects these various questions as just personal attacks by HRC (even Wright was only his Ferraro), and I think he has been able for the most part to brush them off that way. But that won’t hold true for long. And when McCain, outside groups and the press (ABC?) start gearing up, he won’t be able to pass them off as partisan smears again. If Clinton is weakening Obama for McCain, what's he doing to her? It’s the low state of politics but gets worse. Unfortunately, at sites like TPM, we have become part of the political tit for tat games, instead of discussion sites.
April 20, 2008 11:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
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