Clintons move from spinning to plain lying: Haven't we seen this before?

For the most part, political negative campaigning usually consists of selectively presenting facts while positioning yourself and labeling your opponent. It sometimes looks dishonest, but you aren’t really sure. The latest Clinton tactics now have landed squarely in the clearly defined territory of untruths, however.

Here’s how the Washington Post summed it up in an editorial today:

The second matter is the Clinton campaign's repeated distortion of Mr. Obama's remarks. In the debate, Ms. Clinton accused Mr. Obama of saying "that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years," adding, "Now, I personally think they had ideas, but they were bad ideas. . . . They were ideas like privatizing Social Security, like moving back from a balanced budget and a surplus to deficit and debt." In fact, there is nothing in the record that suggests that Mr. Obama supports any of those positions. As Mr. Obama explained, "What I said had nothing to do with their policies . . . what I did say is that we have to be thinking in the same transformative way about our Democratic agenda."

That didn't stop the Clinton campaign, which went up with a new radio ad yesterday quoting Mr. Obama out of context. "Aren't those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we're in today? Ideas like special tax breaks for Wall Street. Running up a $9 trillion debt. Refusing to raise the minimum wage or deal with the housing crisis. Are those the ideas Barack Obama's talking about?" Ms. Clinton knows they're not. In fact, on policy grounds, the two candidates are extremely close, which makes the nomination fight in part about character and judgment. This episode does not speak well for Ms. Clinton's.

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter has a more cynical view:

These are completely ordinary comments. In fact, as Obama pointed out in the Myrtle Beach debate, Hillary is considerably more effusive about Reagan in Tom Brokaw's new book, "Boom." Bill has also made many statements over the years
that were much more complimentary toward Reagan. Nobody paying attention thinks either Obama or the Clintons likes Reagan's right-wing politics.

But instead of moving on to another line of attack with more grounding in what Bill Clinton called "indisputable facts," the Clinton campaign decided to bet that this Reagan horse could be flogged for more votes among less educated voters in South Carolina who might be inclined to believe Hillary's preposterous version.

I think it boils down to this. We are in a long and costly war because we had an administration who was willing to lie to the American people to advance their personal agenda. Do we really want to vote for a candidate who is proving she is willing to do the same?

If Hillary had been listening in South Carolina, she would have known...

If Hillary Clinton had been doing all that listening we’ve been hearing about coming out of New Hampshire, she wouldn’t be in half the mess she’s created with African American voters in South Carolina.

Riding the wave of the unexpected victory in the New Hampshire primary, Hillary said she found her voice by listening. She went on to discuss how this would be her new method of operating.

Since then, she’s been engulfed in controversy about comments she made that seemed to belittle the contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King and Sen. Barack Obama. Her response is that the whole thing was stirred up by the Obama campaign to mischaracterize her statements and inject race into the race.

If she had been listening, she would have quickly realized that Black people are sensitive to a white person who appears to be denigrating Dr. King. Whether that was your intention or not, it’s a sensitive topic. You should just apologize and stay away from it altogether. It doesn’t help to ‘stand behind your statement,’ parse your words, and play the victim.

If she had been listening, she would have noticed that Barack Obama has been deliberately avoiding race issues through his entire career, not just this race. (So much so, that he has had to answer to whispers of whether he was Black enough.) To ask us to believe that he suddenly has become a race monger after deliberately avoiding the issue for 20 years is not persuasive.

If she had been listening, she’d notice that prominent African Americans who had previously been her sympathizers are increasingly vocal with their concerns about the tone of her comments. Rep. Clyburn and Donna Brazille among others have gone public with their cautions.

If she had been listening, she would know that Bob Johnson, founder of BET, is not the most effective surrogate to lecture about what is best for Black people. There is still a widely-held sentiment that the network he founded continuously exploited and denigrated African Americans. Despite the protests of many in the community, Johnson continued to spew his vile into many homes, made himself a billionaire in the process, and has been MIA from the Black community ever since.

If she had been listening, she would know that Black people haven’t forgotten how Bill Clinton used Sister Souljah to put us in our place or how we rallied to support you during the Monica Llewinsky affair, when everyone else was turning their backs on you. We’ve earned a modicum of respect from the Clintons.

If she had been listening, she would know that the first Black man to have a real shot at the presidency is a tremendous source of pride and to attack his character is going to resonate as a personal attack on all Black people to many who hear it.

The emotional outburst and listening tour worked well for wooing women voters in New Hampshire. If the senator from New York hopes to keep her momentum, she should try affording the Black community in South Carolina the same courtesy.

Uncle Dennis demands recount

Our crazy Uncle Dennis is at it again.

Dennis Kucinich, the presidential contender who we can always count on to keep things interesting, is now demanding a recount of the New Hampshire. That's right. Kucinich, who only got 2 percent of the vote, even lost to the margin of error (which is usually 3 percent). I guess he thinks the count could be off by 37 percent, the spread between him and the winner. You never know. It could happen.

New Hampshire, of course, responded 'Sure Uncle D. Just bring your checkbook!' Uncle Dennis wasn't heard from again.

Clintons' one-two punch exploits her strength and compensates her weakness

While everyone focuses on the cry heard around the world as the reason for Hillary Clinton’s comeback in New Hampshire, I see a one two punch from Bill and Hillary that exploited Obama’s chief weakness and repaired Hillary’s.

Going into the New Hampshire primary contest, you could generalize that Sen. Obama’s strength was his perceived authenticity and his perceived weakness was his lack of experience. You could also say the reverse was true for Sen. Clinton -- her strength was experience and weakness was authenticity.

Two clips received heavy rotation on news channels prior to the election. In one Pres. Clinton railed against Obama’s experience as a fairy tale. In the other, Sen. Clinton broke down in a tearful moment.

It’s hard to draw a clear cause effect relationship from those two events, but it would seem that Pres. Clinton raised doubts about Sen. Obama’s record and experience and Sen. Clinton erased doubts about her authenticity. In a one-two punch, they eliminated her negative and exploited their opponents’.

Going forward, Sen. Obama will need to deal with the experience issue head on if he has any hopes of being elected. Now that the Clinton’s have seen that their argument against his perceived inexperience can move the needle, expect them to hammer him mercilessly on that point. He will become the caricature of the impetuous youth impassionately arguing to get the keys to the car before he has the age or maturity and Sen. Clinton will be the responsible adult who thoughtfully restrains him.

If Sen. Obama is able to survive the Clinton beating, the Republicans will surely take up the cause to good effect. If Hillary Clinton is no longer seen as cold and unfeeling, that shifts the spotlight to Barack Obama in a way he surely doesn’t need.

Sen. Obama can do a couple of things: First, directly address his experience and why he thinks it is relevant for the office he seeks. He will never win the Washington experience argument, so he has to make his outside the beltway experience his strength. He has tried to do this in his stump speech, but now he needs a major event or speech where he deals specifically and only with the experience issue. Get it off the table once and for all. (Say what you want about Romney but nobody is bothering him about being a Mormon anymore.)

Second, he needs to make Hillary Clinton defend her 35 years of experience claim. Again, he’s dealt with it tepidly, but he needs to force her to defend exactly what Sen. Clinton did for 35 years. Put her on the defensive for not releasing her White House records. Ask her specifically which policies she helped to influence and exactly what was her contribution. Then we need Clinton’s cabinet member to corroborate it. Raise the standard on what we will allow as the threshold of her experience.

Tell us why his experience matters. Make us doubt why hers does. Sen. Obama needs to do those things quickly because soon the narrative will shift, and he’ll be answering questions about a different kind of change -- one from the voters.

Obama takes his eye off the ball in NH

It even happens to seasoned football players. A streaking receiver sees the ball aloft and sailing his way. The promise of the end zone beckons ahead with no obstruction in sight. And moments before the ball reaches, the player instinctively turns away and starts for the end zone -- without the ball.

It spurned the adage -- keep your eye on the ball.

That struck me as the same phenomenon for Barack Obama in New Hampshire. Fresh with the sheen of victory from Iowa, he began believing the headlines of his inevitable victory, and before he actually had the ball in hand, he looked like he started doing the victory dance.

The good news for him is there is still time on the clock. Go back to the huddle, call a new play, and keep your eye on the ball

Time for a cool change

My online dictionary says that change means to make or become different, which is just vague enough to fit the wide range of uses I see attributed to the now overused word on the campaign trail.

I was drowning in a sea of “change” when CNN's Jeanie Moss said what I’m sure we were all thinking. Every candidate (everyone except Bill Richardson) is now jockeying to be the agents of “change.”

I first heard it when Barack Obama talked about bringing “Change We Can Believe In” and when he told us “The time for change has come.” Back then it was cool; today it is cliche. Everyone rushed to use the same phrase as the cool kid and in the process, made it uncool. How can we ever get them to change?

In their honor, I leave you with John Farnham and the Little River Band. Now change already.

He's crying now: Bill's tantrum follows Hillary's sniffles

Yesterday was Hillary Clinton’s day to cry. Today her husband followed suit.

It’s not like this is a first for either of them. The Clinton’s have been crying about how the media has covered the phenomenon of Barak Obama for a while. Today brought one of the more forceful bits of whining from the former president.

"It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war," Clinton said at a campaign stop in Hanover, New Hampshire.
"And you took that speech you're now running on off your Web site in 2004. And there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since."
He added, "Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

Waaa! Obama is being mean and the media isn’t covering it. Of course, every media outlet covered is temper tantrum, so in an indirect way, he got his message out. Now blow your nose and buck up.

Crybaby Clinton

The buzz today was a boohoo from former front runner Hillary Clinton.

In a Boston Globe article Clinton is quoted as saying:

"It's not easy. It's not easy," she said. "This is very personal for me. It is not just political. It is not just public. I see what's happening. We have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game; think like who is up who is down. It's about our country.

"Some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not. Some us know what we will do on day one and some of us haven't thought it through enough," she said.

Even through her tears, she is on message.

So what do we make of it? The staff was quick to put the spin on the sob. 'It’s because she’s so passionate. This is the Hillary we know. She cares so deeply, she’s emotional.'

Right. She’s human behind closed doors. It reminds me of when President GW Bush's staff tries to convince us that he is really intelligent and articulate behind closed doors. It’s the cameras that make him sound like a doofus.

I don’t buy either one of them. They are who we see they are. They have all been too calculating and consistent through too many different situations to convince me otherwise.

For Clinton’s good fortune, she seems to be getting sympathy for her outburst of emotion. It’s a time honored tradition from every playground in the world: If the girl cries, she can usually get the boys to stop picking on her.