U.S. Politics: Analysis and Opinion

Clinton throws “kitchen sink” at Obama

Posted by John Publius Jr. on March 14th, 2008 — in Referee whistle, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Blog

Quick Preface:
I like football and I like “political football”. I like aggressive political campaigns and pointed exchanges between candidates. Voters need to know how candidates handle pressure and adversity. Let’s not elect a president based on their beer drinking companionship score.

I like hard hits, but not cheap shots. I really do not look forward to calling “fouls”. Clean hard hits sharpen the debate, engage voters, and hopefully result in the election of the best candidate. Cheap shots muddy the waters. The history of political cheap shots is as old as dirt.

Clintons throw the Kitchen Sink at Obama:
The Clinton campaign has been hitting Obama pretty hard, from different directions, with increased frequency. Media voices aptly named it the “kitchen sink strategy”. Some items in the kitchen sink are good clean hits, others are clear fouls, and most are borderline. Senator Clinton tosses the cleaner items at Obama; surrogates throw the messier stuff. Sometimes a surrogate must resign as result, but they can always put another surrogate into the game. Political calculation: landing a cheap shot is worth losing one surrogate.

Inside the kitchen sink: “Obama doesn’t have enough experience”, “who do you want to answer the phone at 3AM?”, Rezko corruption, “Obama wants to be like Reagan”, “Obama’s health plan doesn’t cover everyone”, illegal drug past, “Obama’s anti-war position is a fairy tale”, “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice”,  Farrakhan, “Obama is ahead because he’s black”, “naive about talking with our enemies”.

The Clinton campaign presents a very negative view of Obama, yet also says Obama would make a good vice-president for Hillary. Triangulation?

I am not going to “call a foul” on this strategy. I think it’s more logical to address individual tactics (e.g., my previous post on Geraldine Ferraro). Strategy is the plan; there isn’t really a foul until an individual unfair tactic is committed. Again, some kitchen sink items are legitimate, others rancid, some borderline.  I am not a big fan of this plan.

The Clinton kitchen sink does not include everything. The Clinton campaign did not make an issue of Obama’s pastor (”to my knowledge”).

Clinton’s well publicized “3AM phone call” commercial is a clever tactic and may have been effective. The point is to dramatize the importance of Clinton’s claim of being more experienced. I agree with media voices who criticized the ad for “fear-mongering”. It may not be a “foul”, but haven’t we had enough “fear”? Some analysts attribute a racial message to this ad. I suppose that is possible, but I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. Some people read too much into everything. (Here is a link to the official “3AM Phone call” ad; and a gratuitous link to the Saturday Night Live video, just because it’s funny).

At this point, for Hillary Clinton to win the nomination, her campaign probably needs to criticize Obama. This kitchen sink approach is much more typical of a general election campaign against the opposing party’s nominee. Hillary must maneuver the political landscape with incredible agility to win the nomination without further alienating Obama supporters, and it may be too late. Harshly criticizing a candidate (in your own party) as popular as Barack Obama is tricky; unfairly attacking him is foolish.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has had its ups-and-downs. Bill and Hillary are expert campaigners, but the Hillary 2008 campaign made many mistakes. Meanwhile, Barack Obama has lead an historically impressive grassroots campaign. The Clintons have shown an amazing ability to survive adversity. Time will tell if this kitchen sink plan works. Moving forward, I do not expect the Clinton campaign to play fairly on principle, but it may be the only politically feasible path to redemption if not victory.

Political Science 101:
Most voters do not like negative campaigning, but campaigns use cheap shots because they work. Candidate A is mainly trying to distract, impede, and interfere with Candidate B. If Candidate B is getting good publicity, Candidate A wants to change the story. When Candidate A unfairly attacks Candidate B, Candidate A does not expect to win over Candidate B supporters. It is an attempt to dampen down enthusiasm for Candidate B. Maybe enough Candidate B supporters and undecided voters will get sick of the whole thing and just not vote at all.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Referee whistle, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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