What is the Clinton Strategy?
Josh Marshall has an interesting take on the Clinton campaign strategy. The Clinton campaign, he says, is using attack ads, Bill's emotional negativity, and the absurd comments about Martin Luther King both purposefully and skillfully with the goal of discouraging new voters, who are coming out in droves for Obama. The Clinton camp wishes to keep these new voters out of politics. The hope is that these disenfranchised voters will stay disenfranchised, alienated, and absent just because they will stay so disgusted...the very reason they became apathetic and AWOL from the local voting booth in the first place.
This makes sense to me. But I wonder if the strategy will backfire. I sense that many voters(count me in) are now in a "mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore" kinda mood. These new voters are voting in this election precisely because they are sick of it all - the negative politics, a perceived dysfunctional political system, and the politics-induced policy paralysis in Washington. Perhaps the Clintons will strengthen their resolve.
Obama offers us hope. He offers us a solution. A large part of his campaign is based on the maybe real, but at least perceived chance for authentic change. What kind of change? Not just policy change. But politics itself. Indeed, this is the central message of his campaign.
The Clintons are trying to kill this hope. A smart campaign move - in my opinion - as Obama has garnered the momentum of a raging bull, and thus the power.
The surest way to zap the powerful is to negate everything about them. With Obama, the strongest thing about him is his hope.
This makes sense to me. But I wonder if the strategy will backfire. I sense that many voters(count me in) are now in a "mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore" kinda mood. These new voters are voting in this election precisely because they are sick of it all - the negative politics, a perceived dysfunctional political system, and the politics-induced policy paralysis in Washington. Perhaps the Clintons will strengthen their resolve.
Obama offers us hope. He offers us a solution. A large part of his campaign is based on the maybe real, but at least perceived chance for authentic change. What kind of change? Not just policy change. But politics itself. Indeed, this is the central message of his campaign.
The Clintons are trying to kill this hope. A smart campaign move - in my opinion - as Obama has garnered the momentum of a raging bull, and thus the power.
The surest way to zap the powerful is to negate everything about them. With Obama, the strongest thing about him is his hope.
posted by John Liberty at 1:10 AM
4 Comments:
Excuse me, when you write that Mr. Obama has solutions, I expect details, very concrete explanations of what he will do, not empty rhetoric about "authentic change" or pseudo-Nietzschean palaver about "transforming politics". These are buzzwords that only potheads would spend hours upon hours pondering and chanting. Obama supporters remind me of the Manson Clan, quite frankly, and like the Manson Clan they scare me.
We once had a candidate who, like Mr. Obama, ran on the promise of transcending political divisions. In fact, he said emphatically that he was a uniter and not a divider. His name is George W. Bush, who is now our Dear Leader.
Barack Obama may be much more articulate than our Dear Leader, true, but so is Sean Hannity. And, yes, Mr. Obama was against the war from the gitgo, so, yes, he has a brain, but when he entered the Senate, he got it lobotomized. He has voted time after time, as has Mrs. Clinton, to fund this illegal, unjust war. Are these the votes of a man who really stands for "authentic change"? Only a pothead or some brainwashed cultmember would think so. We must kidnap all Obamaniacs and take them to sheds in Montana for de-programming before it's too late.
The most interesting debate thus far in the Democratic Primaries has been between Obama and Edwards about how each would deal with the Robber Barons of this New Gilded Age. Edwards would fight them tooth and nail, or so he says. Obama, on the other hand, wants to talk to them in the hope of reaching some kind of understanding. The Robber Barons hear, "I'll have my sententious gabfests, and you can continue to rob." Does it surprise you at all that the neo-con likes of David Brooks have recently sung the praises of Mr. Obama? Does not surprise me at all.
Oh, and the Edwards-Obama debate is interesting only because the Writers' Strike has deprived me of my episodes of "24" (which was not all that well written to begin with. I don't know why the producers do not just give Kiefer Sutherland an Oozie and a Screwdriver and have him improvise--would work just as well.)
On a side note, it's good to see you, Mr. Liberty, posting in such mass quantities to this weblog of late. The more you write here, the less time you have to devote to activities far less wholesome and ethical.
Hold on. It appears that you have turned my article on the Clinton strategy into a personal attack. I believe this is because you have interpreted my article to be "pro-obama."
My article was not written as a pro-Obama piece. Nor was it supposed to be an explanation about why one should vote for Obama. It does not say anything about a candidate being better than another candidate.
What it does say is that Mr. Obama offers authentic change and the transformation of politics. Mr. Obama may or may not be able to do this. He may or may not be telling us the truth.
That is not something we can know at this point in time. What is something we can know are the perceptions each candidate is giving to the voters and the strategy of the campaigns.
The perception he gives off to voters is that he can provide authentic change. I point to his campaign slogan - "Change We Can Believe In."
This message has been repeated. As has the message that Obama will transform politics. Obama has made this message a central message in his campaign implicitly(like how he handles attacks during the debate), or how he urges his campaign members to not say anything bad about anyone, and also explicitly when he literally talks about transforming politics.
I am not the first to say this.
Go Fuk Yourself, Paul.
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We are up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics; this is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.
-Barack Obama, after winning S.C.
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