Will Clinton's Obama Attacks Backfire?

Time ^ | December 4, 2007 | Jay Newton-Small

[Zakeet]

It started in earnest a couple of weeks ago when Hillary Clinton questioned how much Barack Obama's time spent living in Indonesia as a child could actually help him make foreign policy decisions as a commander-in-chief. "Voters will judge whether living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next President will face," Clinton said November 20 in Shenandoah, Iowa. "I think we need a President with more experience than that."

Then Clinton announced in an interview with CBS that she was sick of being a punching bag for Obama and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards and that she intended to fight back. "After you have been attacked as often as I have from several of my opponents, you cannot just absorb it. You have to respond," she said.

Since that declaration Clinton has done just that, attacking Obama's plans for health care, Social Security reform and diplomacy with Iran. She even went so far as to dig up a kindergarten essay of Obama's entitled "I Want to Be President" to accuse him of lying about not having a lifelong lust for the Oval Office."

[Snip]

The attack will backfire in two ways: it will reinforce the negative stereotype of Mrs. Clinton as a cold and calculating person who will do whatever it takes to win," said Stephen J. Wayne, a government professor at Georgetown University and author of The Road to the White House. "And two, it will make Mr. Obama seem to be the less shrill and more emotionally mature candidate."

John Norris, who ran Senator John Kerry's Iowa campaign in 2004 and now serves as an adviser to Obama's campaign, said that's what they were banking on.

[Zakeet]

"[Hillary] underlines the case that Edwards and Obama have been
making that she's practicing politics as usual." And for Clinton, that
kind of an association could be the costliest negative of all.

Time Magazine is firing a DNC warning shot across the bow of the SS Thighness -- she must
avoid a Rat Spat at all costs. It is not proper to challenge her fellow Rats' position substantive
issues until after the nominating process has run its course. Then, the MSM will tell the stupid
public what they need to know and how to vote.

[advertising guy]

someone someday will be telling us what Hillary called Oprah
in a moment when polls show Osloppymama at 39% and the bitch at 22%.........

[bmwcyle]

Hillary looks like crap saying the things she is spouting.

[advance_copy]

Will Clinton's Obama Attacks Backfire?

There's a big backfire going on now. I'm a little surprised Clinton's campaign is being this stupid.

[sierrahome]

Personally I think she has an abusive personality and she’s a manipulative control freak. She appears bitter and angry and not only does this stuff backfire on her it doesn't’t even “front fire”.

She appears more and more to be America’s Ex-Wife.

[ConorMacNessa]

"She appears more and more to be America’s Ex-Wife."

And a punishing bitch she is!

[ClearCase_guy]

I'm a little surprised Clinton's campaign is being this stupid.

She had always had a tin ear for politics. Her staff often saves her from herself, but I think she's calling the shots here, and it's going to cost her.

[new cruelty]

She even went so far as to dig up a kindergarten essay of Obama's entitled "I Want to Be President" to accuse him of lying about not having a lifelong lust for the Oval Office."

BWHAHAHAHAAHA! I heard john edwards also fessed up his part in the kindergate scandal, "I want to confess to all of you right now," Edwards said. "In third grade I wanted to be two things: I wanted to be a cowboy and I wanted to be Superman."

I thought hillary's tactics were ugly before. Now she's ugly and pathetic.

[advance_copy]

Probably right, it’s her and not the staff being this stupid. Impossible to know. The one thing her campaign staff surely understands, Presidential campaigns at this stage are just like a chocolate soufflé. Once it falls, it does not rise again.

[advertising guy]

just remember one Pallidino sittin in a jail somewhere

[Reaganesque]

So, Time now thinks that holding a kindergarten essay against a candidate is wrong? This from the magazine that went back 150 years into Mitt Romney’s family tree looking for dirt on him. Well, at the very least they are holding a Clinton responsible for something he or she said, for once. I suppose that counts for something.

[johnny7]

I think she has an abusive personality and she’s a manipulative control freak.

...and she doesn't have a spontaneous bone in her squat, little body. Everything she does is tightly scripted to avoid exposing her lack of adaptability.

[sr4402]

He was not nice on the playground and now he's hitting me. Obama was not nice then and he is not a good man now. That means you have to vote for me, doesn't it?

/Sarcasm OFF

[Reo]

"She appears more and more to be America’s Ex-Wife."

ding-ding-ding....we have a winner! The best line of the entire campaign to date!

[Red Badger]

Hillary looks like crap saying the things she is spouting.

Hillary looks like crap..................there, fixed it......

[Centaur]

That’s for sure. If you watch her delivery of her supposed “fight back” speech, she has a hard time taking her eyes off her speech. Very distracting (above and beyond her general distracting attitude).

[monocle]

Hillary is sounding more and more paranoid. Her rationalization for going negative is classic paranoidal.

[knarf]

It’s a Republican Presidency to lose.

[bmwcyle]

I love the times when God takes over and I don’t have to do any thing to change an event. I pray Hillary destroys herself.

[pgyanke]

It’s a Republican Presidency to lose.

I see that too. That's why is so depressing to see so many conservatives compromising their votes so early in the process. We have a man in the race who wouldn't make us hold our noses on election day. I pray we elevate him appropriately.