With the January presidential caucuses and primaries growing closer and closer, all eyes will be tuned in for tomorrow's Democratic debate on NBC. The debate will emanate from Philadelphia and Brian Williams (w/ Tim Russert) will moderate. All the Democratic contenders, with the exception of Mike Gravel, will be there and we all know who the bull's eye will be on-----Hillary Clinton.
The big story of the night will be, as I mentioned, the way in which Hillary is targeted. There is a sense of franticness among the other Democrats' campaigns. Everyone else in the race realizes that Clinton, despite their attacks against her, is not only staying a strong candidate, but is becoming even more popular. There was one mistake, in my opinion, that one candidate made leading up to this crucial debate.
Right there, on the front page of the New York Times is Sen. Obama talking about how he is going to go after Clinton at the debate tomorrow. He doesn't just stop there either. He proceeds to tell the world, obviously including the Clinton campaign, what issues he is going to attack her on. I can assure you that Hillary will have all those issues, and more, ready to answer for now. If Obama would have kept his mouth shut, he could have potentially surprised her on a number of issues. This is just another example of the inexperience of Obama. Obama needs to realize he is fighting a war against Clinton for the nomination, and in a war, you don't tell your enemy how you're going to attack them days before the actual battle.
There is another thing that the candidates have to be careful about when they inevitably go after Clinton. Obama, Edwards, and other have all brought it up. They continue to say (or imply) that voting for Hillary would be like a vote for the 90s again with Bill. Do they not realize that talk like that works against them? Is it just me, or isn't Bill Clinton, and his time as president, one of the best in history? The point is----that in the current state of the world, people, especially Democrats, look back on the time of Bill Clinton as, "heaven". In fact, about 70% of all Americans (Democrats and Republicans) liked Bill Clinton as President. Thats compared to about 25% for our current President.
One last thing I must caution the candidates about when going after Hillary: Don't be a hypocrite. She will undoubtably be attacked for her Iran vote. The problem is that Obama, and others, supported and voted for a bill, just like the recent one, back in April. And to make matters even worse for Obama, he didn't even bother to show up to vote against this bill thats he is all of a sudden dead set against. It's hard to claim that you're a leader on an issue when you simply don't show up to vote on it.
I must say that I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow's debate. I think we will finally see some fireworks between the candidates. This is Obama's chance to "chop" away at the support of Hillary. But, Hillary also has a chance to do something big. She can, with a good, convincing argument, effectively shut down the Obama machine. What I mean by that is this----if Obama comes at her full force, and Hillary can counter-argue his points in her favor, then she makes it just about impossible for Obama to do anything more to hurt her chances at the nomination. In simple terms---it's do or die for Obama. He has to put all his cards on the table and hope that they work. If they don't, its over; he's out of the game; he doesn't have any more cards to play, and Hillary wins. As for the other 5 candidates, quite frankly, they don't have a chance. This is a two person race, and, after tomorrow's debate, it could become a one person race.
3 comments :
Looks like your predictions were wrong. Obama & Edwards came out on top as Hillary was called out for her lack of "experience," lack of judgment and flat out lies (eg. social security & supporting driver's licenses for illegals). She shot herself in the foot several times on dodging point blank questions like releasing the correspondence between her and Bill during the 90s to give some credence to her claim of white house experience.
Obama on the other hand, did well releasing the statement Monday to squash any possible counter that he was loosing his "politics of hope" by engaging her. And since she had time to prepare, you think she could answer a question directly. I say she was knocked from her media-positioned pedastal... finally.
Chris Matthews, which I happen to like, and others have the bad habit of doing more than just giving opposing candidates good advice. If candidates, with their large staffs of advisers, aren’t smart enough to beat the opposition, they don’t deserve to win. In the last Democratic debate, Tim Russert went too far. Everyone kept saying that Edwards and Obama needed to attack. So Russert took it upon himself to draw blood from Hillary to insure that the sharks would come in for the kill. It seemed to me, that with every question he asked, he was on a mission to created a dog fight. He made it all too easy for Edwards innuendoes and Obama pilling on after the fact. Obama always has clever comebacks - the next day. I didn’t think Russ was clever. I thought he was sleazy.
P.S. My favorite candidate is Joe Biden. But Hillary doesn’t deserve to be bushwhacked by the referee.
Poor Hillary? that's the only tactic Hillary's supporters can muster? please. She has been working furousily behind the scene to attacks the other campaigns. (see link at the end for an example) She wasn't attacked by the referee... she was being held accountable for her double-speak and her flat out lies.
If she wants to maintain her lead, she need to be honest in her position and her "experience."
example of Hillary: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/25/AR2007102502421_2.html?wpisrc=newsletter
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