Oh-eight (D): Hillary's various personas
Posted: Thursday, January 17, 2008 9:18 AM by Mark Murray
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Democrats
CLINTON: The New York Times’ Healy writes about the various campaign personas Clinton has taken on. “There has been Commander in Chief Hillary Rodham Clinton, the steely leader who, voters were assured, would ‘destroy’ terrorists and be Thatcher-like tough. There has been Strong-and-Experienced Hillary Clinton, but that proved to be so uninspiring that Change-Agent Hillary and Likable-Since-I-Was-a-Kid Hillary were rolled out. And Teary-Eyed Hillary, of course, won the New Hampshire primary last week, after the candidate choked up describing the rigors of the race.”
“But as her advisers said after New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton cannot cry her way to the Democratic nomination. So she and her team have been searching for the right personality to help her connect emotionally with voters — an intuitive talent of her chief competitor for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Barack Obama — while also emphasizing her competence and experience. Her newest public face is a blend of policy and persona.”
The Boston Globe on Clinton vs. Obama on Iraq: “But as she returns the spotlight to the Iraq war, Clinton has glossed over aspects of her own Iraq record, in which she voted to authorize the war and did not support alternative legislation that put more emphasis on international diplomacy. Clinton doesn't have the option of asserting that she had more foresight on the war than Obama, since she now views the invasion as a mistake. So her attack is aimed less at Obama's stance on the Iraq war itself than at using his Senate record to convince voters that he failed to follow through on his prewar rhetoric.” More: “Some of the Clintons' arguments are exaggerated, while others are true. A review of Obama's votes on Iraq in the Senate shows that he was not one of the most outspoken opponents of the Bush administration's Iraq policy in the Senate until he began preparing to run for president. But Obama's position before the invasion was one of passionate opposition.”
The New York Sun fact-checks one of the hits the Clinton campaign has issued against Obama regarding his abortion and notes she backed a similar restriction. “[O]ne of those bills — the ‘Born-Alive Infants Protection Act’ — is similar to legislation that Mrs. Clinton and 97 other senators supported in Congress in 2001. The federal measure, sponsored by a leading abortion foe, Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania, was intended as a protection against botched abortions and required that a fetus that survived an abortion be defined as a person.”
EDWARDS: “Edwards, who is relying on federal money to help fund his presidential campaign, may not get any more. The list of lobbyists raising cash for the candidates, and how much they have brought in, remains hidden. The Federal Election Commission doesn't have enough members to oversee what is expected to be the most expensive election in US history. Down to just two of its six commissioners, the FEC can't assemble the quorum of four votes required to approve federal campaign funds, enact regulations, undertake fraud investigations, or provide legal advice to candidates.”
OBAMA: In an ongoing series of checking the candidates’ records, NBC’s Lisa Myers, on TODAY, examined whether Obama is an agent of change. Said presidential historian Michael Beschloss in the piece, “ No one can argue that Barack Obama in three years in the Senate has not tried to bring about change == but there is only so much you can really do in three years.”
The Politico reports on the latest piece of Obama oppo that was circulated and then denounced by the candidate himself. Obama apparently didn’t like the talking points memo that a South Carolina staffer circulated regarding Clinton campaign rhetoric on race. This is not the first time Obama has expressed unhappiness with his campaign staff when they’ve been caught fanning the flames of a particular negative Clinton story.
“Last month, at an Iowa news conference, Obama said he would fire any of his staffers who engaged in personal attacks, saying, ‘It's contrary to the message of change that I've been talking about on this campaign.’ He noted differences between personal attacks and pointing out policy divergence. Axelrod said Obama only sent word of his displeasure with the four-page memo but defended Obama's response as ‘appropriate action.’”
“‘Let's put this thing in perspective,’ Axelrod said. ‘This is a compendium of quotes from newspapers that was provided on request from a low-level staffer in South Carolina who probably thought she was being responsive to an inquiry. I think word was sent and received.’”
Obama is trying to shift the focus of his campaign message to the economy, like, pretty much every other candidate.
An attendee to an Obama town hall in Los Angeles yesterday brought up Obama’s past drug use. “‘You've had experience yourself, where if you were arrested when you were a teenager, you would never be elected to the presidency,’ the man said. Obama did not acknowledge the personal reference. ‘I am not interested in legalizing drugs,’ he said.”
“‘What I am interested in is putting more of an emphasis on the public health approach to drugs and less on ... incarceration.’ He said too many ‘first-time nonviolent drug offenders’ were locked up ‘instead of diverting them into programs where they can get treatment, and all we do is give them a master's degree in criminality.’”
