There can be little doubt that the results of the Primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont demonstrated something. Unfortunately there remains scant consensus on just what that something is. Still there are a few points going forward that bear pointing out. First there is the fact that, contrary to the constant whining from Terry McAuliffe and the rest of the Clinton camp, Hillary still enjoys a relatively easy ride from the mainstream press. After narrowly edging out a victory in Texas and scoring her first clear victory in weeks in Ohio Clinton has been treated in the press as if she had completed a stunning comeback. As if she had suddenly become a long shot underdog. Yet far from scoring an amazing come from behind victory Clinton nearly manage to blow a TWENTY POINT lead in Texas in a matter of two weeks and turned a massive victory into Ohio into merely a solid one.
The end result of this is that the Clinton camp picked up a maximum of fifteen and most likely closer to half that many delegates. Let’s, for the sake of fairness, run a little intellectual exercise here. Imagine if Barrack Obama had been leading by twenty points two weeks ago in Texas and ended up winning by a meager two points. Rest assured the press would be loudly sounding the death knell and not too subtly edging him out the back door. Now imagine if this scenario had played out in one of the states that Obama had been leading by large margins from day one, as Senator Clinton had in both Ohio and Texas.
Whether a result of familiarity, nervousness about Obama or simply as a result of the well deserved guilt most of the press should be feeling about their respective handlings of the Clinton presidency and the presidency of George Walker Bush, the simple fact remains that from day one the press has treated Hillary exactly as she wanted to be treated, as the presumptive nominee. When things started falling apart they allowed her to recreate her image as a fighter, as the comeback kid (which is laughable considering the immense advantages Hillary enjoyed in funding, organization, party support and press coverage).
They have allowed Ms. Clinton to take credit for everything good in Bill Clinton’s administration while distancing her from everything that went wrong. The Clinton camp is trying, with a straight face, to say that she has a better chance of surviving the negative ads that undoubtedly will be a part of this election cycle. It is reasonable to assume that there is plenty left in the Bill Clinton file sitting, dusty, on a young conservative researcher’s shelf for the past 8 years gleefully awaiting this moment. You can expect ads that try to portray her as a nakedly ambitious woman willing to stay with a constant philander to forward her political aims, ads harping about her closed door health care debacle, about whitewater, about the Lincoln bedroom, etc. etc. etc. That’s only the stuff in the public record. Is this fair? No. Is it inevitably going to happen? Of course.
Still there is no use in Obama whining about coverage. The Clinton camp has become extremely effective at getting the press to describe Obama as a fad, or a cult of personality. As someone tragically misleading millions of otherwise intelligent voters like a Svengali or some cheap vaudeville hypnotist. I’m sure the next step is a commercial featuring a pensive Obama superimposed above Jim Jones and the Kool Aid man. Cut to shots of Obama supporters caucusing, a young child, lips all red, sipping juice from a Styrofoam cup, “What do you REALLY know about Barrack Hussein Obama?”
The question before Senator Obama is no longer whether to fight back but rather how and how hard. There is no doubt that the Obama campaign has been much more reticent to engage in the kind of hardball politics that earned Senator Clinton the win in Texas that has been dutifully described as a momentum turning moment in this race (although, again, we are at the same spot now as we were before Tuesday). While there is ample juicy and devastating material for Senator Obama to attack with, this is a very delicate moment for him.
By trumpeting (and in fact RUNNING) a different kind of campaign, free from smear tactics, Obama has managed to win over massive amounts of people of all political stripes who are fed up with the current caustic political climate. By going on the offensive he runs the risk of looking hypocritical while playing into the Clinton campaign’s attempt to draw him into a slime fest where they can be expected, from years of practice, to be more effective. The Clinton campaign is filled with old school political operatives who thrive in this setting. Just this afternoon Terry McAuliffe, responding to the Obama campaign’s insistence that Senator Clinton release her last tax return, compared him to Kenneth Star. “I don’t think emulating Kenneth Star is the way to win the nomination.”
Still there seems to be very little choice for Obama now. The opposition seems determined to paint him as a man not ready to lead, never-mind the tragically unmentioned fact that he has spent more time as an elected official than she. In order to disprove this negative Mr. Obama is going to have to show some spunk and come out swinging this week. One can only hope it doesn’t go nuclear as there is enough on the Clinton’s to back Hillary against a wall and bring on precisely the kind of mud slinging election cycle nightmare that inevitably drives down turnout and favors the establishment candidate. But the fact remains that there are two ways to respond to negative attacks. One can take the higher road, which risks letting the opposition define them as they see fit (this didn’t work so well for John Kerry) or they can prove to the American people that they won’t be pushed around, that they can give as well as take. If Mr. Obama wants to bring about his new movement he may just have to engage in some old time political tricks.
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