By Libby
I'm really trying to stay out of the day to day fray on the primary but this really irked me. Geoff Garin, the Clinton campaign's replacement for Mark Penn, has an op-ed at the WaPo that is just insulting to the intelligence. I get that this is politics and politicians are going to spin but this op-ed is really over the top. In the interests of sanity, let's just look at this one section.
This was in keeping with the direct, personal character attacks that the Obama campaign has leveled against Clinton from the beginning of this race -- including mailings in Pennsylvania that describe her as "the master of a broken system."
How is that a character attack? Do they think I forgot when Hillary was inevitable and her whole schtick was about running on her experience within the system. Prepared from day one and all that. She described herself as the master of it and damn it, the system is broken. Obama has consistently run on the platform of changing it from the get go and Hillary co-opted that meme from him much later. That is just fact. There's no innuendo there. But moving on, here's how Hillary's tactics are not character attacks.
And we believed it was appropriate to debate Obama's comments about working people in small towns, because they expressed a view of small-town Americans with which Hillary Clinton strongly disagrees. But throughout that debate, Clinton deliberately focused on the content of Obama's comments without making sweeping statements about his character.
Oh really? Calling him an elitist and out of touch isn't attacking his character? Saying she and McCain were ready to lead on day one and all Obama has is a speech wasn't attacking him personally? Pounding the inconsequential Wright meme isn't attacking his character? Going back to Ohio, she wasn't attacking his character with her Rezko ads? Justin Gardner has more and I sure anyone could come up with addtions to all these.
I mean come on. I know Obama isn't faultless either, but attempting to paint herself as above all that is just ridiculous. And we don't even have to look to the past to find examples of character assassination. Jake Tapper unearths a current push poll in NC that I personally find rather egregious and it's being conducted by Mr. Garin's agency.
Furthermore, the timing of this op-ed is questionable. It seems to me to be an odd moment to be complaining about unfair treatment in the press when the entire establishment media has joined into the campaign's contention that the PA win was some kind of knockout blow. It simply wasn't a game changing win, it merely kept her in play a little longer, but it gave rise to endless headlines in the legacy media that favored her narrative about electability.
If this was supposed to engender sympathy for her, it didn't work with me. It diminished what sympathy I had left. It smacks of the same kind of denial and false accusations we've been subjected to by Bush and the GOP for the last seven years. Yes, the press has been unfair. They're unfair to all Democrats. If this op-ed had contrasted the media's treatment of McCain with their treatment of both candidates or even only her, I would have been impressed. This just left me extraordinarily irritated.
And for a broke Clinton campaign, that's not an editorial. That's WaPo providing free ad space.
ReplyDeleteGood point. Should they even be printing op-eds by top campaign operatives during the race?
ReplyDeleteLibby,
ReplyDeleteI'm a fan and LOVE your blog, but I disagree with some of your points.
First, since January, the media has been more than a tad unfair (toward Obama or against Hillary).
Second, the Obama campaign started going negative in January: rather stealthily and via "surrogates" but the messages were clear -- Obama is clean and Hillary is dirty.
Actually, Obama's money is no cleaner or dirtier than McCain's or Hillary's -- yet, Obama uses technicalities to claim greater cleanliness.
This is disturbing, given that one the major planks of his platform is that he hasn't been tainted by dirty money.
Obama took more Pharma-connected money than Hillary or McCain. (USA Today).
Obama took lobbyist or PAC money up until the day he formally announced. (The Hill)
After he announced, Obama took six digits worth of donations from lobbyists' spouses and firm partners (though technically not from the lobbyists themselves). (NewHouse)
Obama let Greenberg Traurig (Abramoff's old firm) and other firms throw fund raisers for him -- where he took "non-lobbyists'" money. (USA Today)
I could go on, but instead I'll link to some articles.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-04-15-obamainside_N.htm
http://www.newhouse.com/obama-takes-donations-from-persons-in-groups-he-opposes.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-money24apr24,1,2328541.story
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Barack_Obama/Campaign_Financing#_note-1
As for media unfairness: while many TV and cable outlets slam Hillary for every little thing, many simultaneously ignore real stories that the voters deserve to hear (e.g., the campaign finance issues).
The media may like McCain even more than Obama, but they like Obama far more than Hillary.
D., thanks for the kind words and the feeling is mutual. I adore your work but I'm afraid I have to disagree.
ReplyDeleteI think the media's criticisms of Clinton have been uglier and maybe more unfair in terms of how they've criticized, meaning I think Hill has endured more sexist commentary than Obama has racist stuff but I think they have been rather equally abusive to both candidates, just at different times in the cycle.
In terms of what's important, I'd use that old parable about filling a jar. You know the one when you put in the big rocks, and then the pebbles and then sand... For me, the money is the sand. I don't think either one of them are saints when it comes to taking deep pocket funding, but it stands to reason that Obama has taken less overall in his career, simply by dint of his lesser time within the system. But that's not even an important issue to my mind. That's just politics. But it's hard to ignore that one reason Obama has so much more in the bank is because he has built a donor base of regular Americans who can only contribute small amounts for economic reasons.
In any event, for me the big rocks in the jar, the deal breakers, are things like voting for the Kyl amendment and her horrifying threat to annihilate Iran. And as far as tactics go, again both have played dirty, they've both used surrogates to do their dirty work but Clinton's tactics just echo the same GOP tactics that have ruined us, more strongly in my ears. I thought this op-ed was really dishonest and it conjured up every GOP press conference where they insisted down was up in my mind. And there's many instances like that I recall.
I'm not at all enthusiastic about either candidate and my reactions are based solely on my personal observations about the process, not any emotional attachment to either candidacy. I have great empathy for Hill, both as a woman and as a mother, but she's been losing my respect for her political skills by degrees. I think she's run her campaign really poorly and as this has dragged on what respect I had, has slowly evolved into disbelief and disgust.
It's my honest reaction and I hate that it conficts with a lot of people whom I like and respect but I can't help the way I feel.