After New Hampshire: A Look at Hillary's Missteps

Now that New Hampshire is so yesterday (or, you know, two days ago), it's time to ask how the presidential candidates have positioned themselves for the next phase of the campaign. We've already peeked at what Obama is thinking. In Hillary's case, a look back at her last-minute moves that helped her win on Tuesday reveals some missteps that could come back to haunt her in the weeks ahead.

First, in trying to disparage Barack Obama as a man of empty rhetoric, Clinton stumbled into comparing Martin Luther King Jr. with Lyndon Johnson — unfavorably. On Monday, when Fox News' Major Garrett asked her about Obama's references to King, she replied:

"I would point to the fact that that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do. The president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in peoples' lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished."

At an event in Salem later that day, Clinton amended her words – King, she said, "led a movement … and then he worked with President Johnson to get the civil rights law passed" — but the damage had been done. Most white writers haven't dwelled on Clinton's gaffe, but black bloggers have noticed.

JackAndJillPolitics headlined a Monday post: "Hillary: You Negroes Better Thank The White Man For Your Rights." Oliver Willis asked, "How could she say this? … In my eyes, and the eyes of millions of people of all races and sexes, Rev. King is the...

Another excellent link:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/01/was-hillary-dis.html

On Fox News Channel this evening, our friend Major Garrett snagged an interview with Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., which prompted a curious response.

“I want to read to you something Senator Obama said today about your contention that he offers false hopes,” Garrett said.

Garrett then read from Obama’s remarks earlier today, which were, per ABC News’ Sunlen Miller, “How have we made progress in this country? Look, did John F. Kennedy look at the moon and say ‘Ahhhh, it’s too far. We can’t do that. We need a reality check.’ Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. ‘You know, this Dream thing,it’s a false hope. We can’t expect equality. False hopes.’

“Let me tell you something about hope,” Obama continued. “I do talk about hope quite a bit. Out of necessity. There is no odds maker who would have said that I would be standing here when I was born in 1961. My parents come from different corners of the planet. They separated when I was two, My father left my mother. Single mom raised me with my grandparents. Could only offer me love and education and hope.”

After reading to her the part of that quote that dealt with MLK, Garrett asked Clinton, “Do you have a reaction to that?”

Said Clinton, “Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.”

She continued; “That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people’s lives, because we had a president who said ‘we’re going to do it,’ and actually got it done.”

So...Obama is MLK, a good talker who never accomplished anything, and thank heaven for Clinton-slash-LBJ?

Am I reading that right?

And is this really a smart message to make just a few days before the South Carolina primary?

I see that. It has been pulled from the goole link I used and it has not been cached. Not quite sure why. Here it is:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=clinton+disparages+martin+luther+king&btnG=Search

Now that New Hampshire is so yesterday (or, you know, two days ago), it’s time to ask how the presidential candidates have positioned themselves for the next phase of the campaign. We’ve already peeked at what Obama is thinking. In Hillary’s case, a look back at her last-minute moves that helped her win on Tuesday reveals some missteps that could come back to haunt her in the weeks ahead.
First, in trying to disparage Barack Obama as a man of empty rhetoric, Clinton stumbled into comparing Martin Luther King Jr. with Lyndon Johnson — unfavorably. On Monday, when Fox News’ Major Garrett asked her about Obama’s references to King, she replied:

“I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do. The president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in peoples’ lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished.”
At an event in Salem later that day, Clinton amended her words – King, she said, “led a movement … and then he worked with President Johnson to get the civil rights law passed” — but the damage had been done. Most white writers haven’t dwelled on Clinton’s gaffe, but black bloggers have noticed.

JackAndJillPolitics headlined a Monday post: “Hillary: You Negroes Better Thank The White Man For Your Rights.” Oliver Willis asked, “How could she say this? … In my eyes, and the eyes of millions of people of all races and sexes, Rev. King is the greatest American who ever lived. He was not just a talker, which is what Sen. Clinton’s message seems to be here.”

To this you can add Bill Clinton calling Obama’s campaign a “fairy tale” and saying he would choose Hillary over Nelson Mandela if he “had to pick one person whom I knew who would never blink, who would never turn back, who would make great decisions under pressure.” The Clintons didn’t have to worry about how these kinds of statements would play in New Hampshire, but half of South Carolina’s Democrats are black.

Second, the Clinton campaign went out of its way to incur the wrath of John Edwards, who has never much liked the Clintons and is now expressing something close to open hatred for them. Over the weekend, the Politico.com reported that Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said, “In order to be President, you need to do more than read articles about people who need help and talk about them,” (a jab at Edwards using stories of poor people in speeches that he read about in the newspaper)) and called Clinton “somebody who’s actually going to help people and not use them as talking points.”

On Sunday, a livid Edwards, who was actually campaigning that day with three families victimized by health insurance companies, replied that the Clinton campaign “doesn’t seem to have a conscience … The more I thought about it, the idea that somehow everything is about them.” His comments captured headlines only momentarily — Edwards isn’t getting much press these days. Moreover, the way Edwards piled on Clinton during last Saturday’s debate (and after he was asked about her crying on Monday) almost certainly backfired to Clinton’s advantage in New Hampshire.

But Edwards retains the allegiance of about 20% of Democrats nationwide, and is particularly popular among southern whites and blogosphere liberals. And shrewd observers are now thinking he will stay in the campaign long enough to win the votes of the former, then release his support among the latter to Obama, thereby inflicting maximum damage on Clinton. Edwards can still hurt Clinton in South Carolina (where he was at 29% among white voters in a Rasmussen poll released Monday) and Florida even as the “change” vote coalesces around Obama in northern industrial states.

Finally, Clinton spent the 72 hours leading up to Tuesday slamming Obama and Edwards for alleged hypocrisy. She got the last attacks in before the New Hampshire vote, but her “that is not change” mantra may not survive sustained scrutiny.

In some cases, Clinton has mocked Obama for (allegedly) taking positions she holds herself. She derided him for vowing to fight the influence of lobbyists while having a lobbyist as co-chair of his New Hampshire campaign — but at a debate last August, she famously defended taking money from lobbyists herself. Clinton also attacked Obama for saying he was against the Patriot Act, then voting for it. But she voted in 2001 to authorize the Patriot Act, and in 2006 to reauthorize it.

In other cases, Clinton has attacked her opponents for not making enough change. Talking about Obama’s congressional ethics bill, she told a Dover audience, “When you ask what legislative accomplishments you look to, and you say preventing members of Congress from having lunch with lobbyists, except they can still do [it] standing up, that is not change.” And she blasted Edwards’ habit of claiming credit for getting a patients’ bill of rights through the Senate even though it never became law. Okay, but that may only remind voters that Clinton has been in the Senate longer than Obama or Edwards and hasn’t gotten ethics or health-insurance reform passed, either.

In still other cases, Clinton has been flat wrong, or at least misleading. Referring to Obama’s votes on the Iraq war, Clinton said, “When you give a speech and say you will not vote to fund the war in Iraq, and then you vote for $300-billion of funding, that is not change.” But in May, Obama and Clinton were both among just 14 senators who voted against another $120 billion for the war, because the funding contained no timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq.

Forget the crying; after Iowa, Clinton waged a powerfully negative campaign that initially looked bumbling, but turned out to be effective. But her attacks on “false hopes” won’t have staying power if they lead back to her own unpopular positions, or ineffectiveness in her own record, or inaccuracy. Clinton’s triumph in New Hampshire was impressive, even unprecedented. But between the black vote, the Edwards vote and her own negativity, Clinton’s ongoing campaign is most certainly more wobbly than it looks. —Peter Keating

Earlier: HIllary Clinton: Minority Candidate

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.