When Bubba Attacks
Fred Barnes points out the extreme disadvantage Barack Obama is laboring under. He simply does not have an attack machine to match the power of Bill Clinton. Barnes calls it the Bubba factor.
When every candidate except Hillary wants to put out unfavorable information about an opponent and be sure to draw heavy press coverage, the candidate himself must handle the task. And there's a downside: the candidate is deplored for "going negative." But if an aide or supporter is assigned the task, the media is likely to yawn and the information the candidate wants to trumpet gets far less coverage.
But not in Bill Clinton's case. He's the one supporter of a candidate whose words are reported to the world under blazing headlines. Thus when he criticizes Obama on Iraq and other issues, as he did in New Hampshire, we hear about it. And when he scolds the press for giving Obama a free ride, we not only hear about it but the press takes the criticism seriously.
In Nevada, after two union endorsements of Obama put Hillary's expected victory in the Democratic caucuses in jeopardy, Bill waded in again. He denounced the way the caucuses were set up as undemocratic and unfair. Later, he repeated charges that Hillary voters were being threatened into voting for Obama. Once more, the coverage of Bill was big-time.
Bill Clinton does another thing for Hillary's campaign–respond to criticism of her. When her experience as a major White House player has been questioned, Bill has stepped in to defend her. He should know, right? He was president.
Barnes points out that Obama has no choice but to go head to head with Bill Clinton – something that has already begun.
ATLANTA – Illinois Sen. Barack Obama launched Sunday what his top aides described as a more aggressive bid to challenge “unbelievable falsehoods” pressed last week in Nevada by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton.
With Obama’s new strategy, the Democratic nomination fight took on a new contour: It’s Obama versus two Clintons, not just one. And the line of attack emerging from his second consecutive primary loss appears to be this: The Clintons are a couple whose words cannot always be trusted.
“You know the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling,” Obama told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in an interview taped Sunday and set to air Monday. “He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts — whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas. This has become a habit, and one of the things that we're gonna have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate.”
The very real danger is that the increasingly vicious Clinton attacks will fracture the Democrats. Obama, however, is caught here. He cannot continue to allow Bill Clinton a free pass on attacks but he risks damaging himself in the process of responding. Some heavyweight Democrats are trying to get Clinton to back off, as I pointed out in an earlier post. But it is unlikely that the Clintons will change the ruthless tactics that they are so familiar with.
By ted goldman, January 21, 2008 @ 9:31 am
Obama should learn from the Clintons vicious attacks and return their venom in spades, so to speak.
By Plumb Bob, January 21, 2008 @ 10:28 am
Obama is shrewd, and Barnes misses it. Obama is almost as negative as Clinton, and has mastered the art of using shills to accomplish his attacks. But in this case, Obama wins from going negative. By responding directly to Bill Clinton’s comments, Obama wins the Identity Politics matchup, and he doesn’t even need evidence to call Bill Clinton a liar; everybody knows it. It would have been different if he’d attacked MISSUS Clinton, in which case he’d be the instant loser of the Identity Politics Mud Wrestling matchup (abused woman immediately wins over every opponent except abused child.)
(Unrelated to this topic, please visit my political blog, “Plumb Bob Blog: Squaring the Culture,” at http://www.plumbbobblog.com. Thanks.)
By Tony Iovino, January 21, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
If he is going to confront Bill (disbarred for perjury) Clinton every time Bill lies, Obama is going to be the busiest man in America.
By daveinboca, January 21, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
Barack Obama is correct to imply that Bill Clinton soiled the presidency [read between the lines]. Clinton is the biggest liar ever to hold that office. Even LBJ & sad lil’ Gee-mah were honest injuns compared to the sex-addict compulsive liar named Billy Jeff. I hope Obama keeps coming back against that sex-monster creep who ruined the lives of so many women and yet is the idol of the feminazis