Congress, Fox News
There is nothing as fragile and elusive in politics as charisma. It has been sorely lacking of late. George Bush doesn’t have it, and neither did John Kerry or Al Gore. There is no question that Barack Obama has it, and that he could be in the same charismatic league as Bill Clinton and (the much lower wattage of) Ronald Reagan.
The Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004 was nothing compared with what the rightwing did to the Clintons in the 1990s — and will pale in comparison with what they have in store for Barack Obama.
But in the knife fight that is today’s political way of war, when opponents are attacked not on their weaknesses but on their strengths, no personal attribute is easier to destroy than charisma.
If Obama is the Democratic nominee, I believe Republican political tacticians — whoever the next Karl Roves turn out to be — will have his charisma sliced to ribbons within a week or two.
The question is, without his charisma, who is Barack Obama? I don’t know, and, dear reader, neither do you. Compared with the other candidates in the race, he has barely been vetted. His opponent in his run for the Senate in Illinois in 2004 was Alan Keyes, who had no money and barely put up a fight.
I have no doubt Barack Obama is a smart and decent man who’d make a fine president. But then John Kerry and Al Gore were fine and decent men, too. Sans charisma, my fear is, Barack Obama is like them — an upright, honorable fellow whom the GOP can easily mow down. (Yes, I know they cheated at the ballot boxes too, but vote rigging only works if the margins are slim. We need a blow-out this year.)
Clinton may be thin on charisma, but she is as much a known quantity as we’ve had from any candidate in memory who was not an incumbent. If she is the nominee, most of what the GOP will have to throw at her will have already been vetted — and either has been proven false or accurately could be labeled “old news.”
I am generally neutral on the Clintons. I think the Clinton administration was a hallmark in good governance among administrations of the recent past (which is not really saying a lot) and that America made net gains during their eight years in office. On the other hand, I will never forgive Bill Clinton for signing the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 at the same time he was conducting an extramarital affair.
But having read extensively on the Republicans’ behind-the-scenes anti-Clinton campaigns in the 1990s, the record is clear: Most of what people seem not to like about Hillary Clinton is based on lies and distortions that had their genesis in the Arkansas Project and were fed to the public by the likes of Barbara Olson, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and David Brock — all of whom were nobodies before becoming professional Clinton-haters in the 1990s.
We know now what liars the Republican blond squad turned out to be, and, in 2002, David Brock published a full mea culpa on his hatchet jobs against Hillary Clinton and others, titled “Blinded by the Right.” He has come out of the rightwing darkness and is using his considerable intellect as a force for good instead of evil, as the brains behind Media Matters for America.
In fact, perhaps 80 percent, maybe 95 percent, of the public perception of Hillary Clinton is based on lies and disinformation generated by the right. To test this theory, ask Hillary-haters why they don’t like her. She’s too aggressive, they will say — or my favorite: She’s too divisive. Why is she so divisive? Because Republicans don’t like her. Why? Ask Republicans and the best they can come up with is, “She’s a socialist” — which, of course, she is not. Other than that, no one seems to know.
Here’s why. The same couchant, pampered “liberal” media types who, in 2003, stood by in mute complicity while George Bush lied to the country about his reasons for invading and occupying Iraq were there in the 1990s dutifully ladling the rightwing lies about the Clinton to the public. And, trust me, these same liberal media types — Chris Matthews and Maureen Dowd come to mind — are ready to be the conduit for the right’s smear campaign about Barack Obama this fall.
The Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004 was nothing compared with what the rightwing did to the Clintons in the 1990s — and will pale in comparison with what they have in store for Barack Obama. Right now, on Feb. 4, 2008, in office suites somewhere in the D.C. suburbs, the spiritual sons and daughters of the evil masterminds who dreamed up Whitewater, Vince Foster’s suicide, the rape of Juanita Broderick and the investigation into the Clinton’s cat, Socks, are gleefully working up the Swiftboating campaigns against Barack Obama.
As soon as he has cinched the nomination, they’ll start to work chipping away at his charisma by separating the real man from the image he projects. We got a taste of this from Bill Clinton’s “attacks” on Obama in South Carolina. But when the rightwing goes after Obama’s inspirational persona, there won’t be any Republican voices expressing outrage the way Teddy Kennedy did over Clinton’s tactics. Nothing will stop them, especially not whining from Democrats.
When Obama’s cloak of charismatic invincibility is in tatters, the Swiftboating will commence. Our hapless liberal media will be bombarded with stories about Obama, some of which will be tinged with truth — the setting of the events might be accurate but all the details will be false — and much of it will be outright lies. But the sheer volume of whispered stories will confound the media, as it always does. Fact checking, unlike reporting the horse race, is like, you know, actual work.
(Remember — the truth does not matter to Republicans: The Clintons lost thousands of dollars on Whitewater. Al Gore never said he invented the Internet. John Kerry really was a war hero who risked his own life to save the life of one of his men. These are the facts behind just three of the most egregious lies circulated by Republicans that many Americans, including many Democrats, still believe.)
Come the fall, the media will be inundated with anti-Obama stories and will arrive at the collective conclusion, as they did with the Clintons, Gore and Kerry, that where there’s smoke, there’s fire — and even though they can’t prove much or anything he’s being accused of, they’ll conclude it’s probably substantially true. So, once again, the liberal media will grow to hate the 2008 Democratic candidate, as they did in 2004, 2000, 1996 and 1992.
Why go through that? They already hate Hillary.
And then there is the race issue. Having lived through a few senatorial campaigns of the old North Carolina racist warhorse, Jesse Helms, believe me, Republicans do not care if Democrats accuse them of racism. If what it takes to turn off liberal Republicans, independents and “Reagan Democrats” who are thinking of voting for Obama is mudslinging about race, they will do it.
If destroying Obama means John McCain or Mitt Romney are permanently dirtied by accusations of racism, they will not care as long it’s McCain or Romney, not Obama, who is sworn in on January 21, 2009.
Here’s the bottom line for me. As I have said before in these pages, on policy, there’s not a dime’s bit of difference between Clinton and Obama. And if elected, they’ll both appoint smart, capable and qualified people, who in turn will appoint competent people.
If nominated, Barack Obama might well win in November, but I believe, if nominated, Hillary Clinton will win in November.
And Democrats must win this year.
That’s why I’m voting for Hillary Clinton in the California primary tomorrow. She’s been vetted. The media already hates her. And she has experience beating Republicans.
A few things you are overlooking. If Hillary is the nomine, there are a lot of us who will absolutely never, under any circumstances, vote for her mainly because she voted time and time again for the war which gave Bush unlimited power. There is absolutely no forgiveness for that. Also, because she is such a polarizing influence, the Repubs will be out in droves. It will be unprecidented. It will bring repubs out and they will overwhelm the election. You can call me any name in the book for not voting for Hillary if she is the nominee, but if the Dems nominate that coward who will say anything to be popular politically, it won’t be my fault for the election being lost.
Wait to you see the Rednecks flooding in to vote against the black man. If you think they will stand back while a black family moves into the White House, your naive.
Stephen: If you are not going to vote for the Democratic nominee, I really think you are not a Democrat anyway. However we feel about each of OUR candidates, we all must agree that the Republicans have been an unmitigated diaster for this country for the past seven years. Will you do what the Nader voters did 7 years ago? Take your ball and go home? What we learned from the 2000 election is that there is ALWAYS a huge difference between the Democrat and the Republcan. If you don’t believe it, you are not really one of us anyway. Grow up and do what’s right for your country. I’m voting for Clinton tomorrow. But if Obama is the nominee, he gets my vote in the general election. When alleged Obama supporters say they won’t vote for Clinton in November, it kind of shows how they are not progressives, or even liberals, and it is really kind of disturbing. BTW: Obama voted for every war-funding bill that came down the pike once he was in there.
yes, she voted for the occupation of Iraq, and yes you must vote for her in the general election (remember, her opponent will have also voted for, or endorsed – and still does! – the occupation), but the reason to vote against her while you still can is that 5 years later she voted for Kyl – Lieberman. she learned nothing, and is now lying about it.
as for her being “vetted” – that was 7 years ago. there are Bill’s pardons, and the rest of thier life for the last 7 years supplying fresh fodder for attack. the swiftboating of either obama or clinton will be tried. we know she has sharp elbows. but we’ve also seen his ability to swoon the press, and America wants someone who can go above and around gracefully without resorting to the same schoolyard drivel.
victory in november is far from certain with either of them. but independents will vote obama, not clinton, and there are signs that new age evangelicals will vote obama as well. the old school evangelicals might not vote for mccain, but they will certainly be driven out in hordes to vote against hillary.
obama stands a better chance. and bill and hillary should lead the antiswiftboat forces for him.
You idiot. There is no vetting in this sort of politics. There are so many lines of attack on Hillary that she has no chance. The tactics are simple. Put out the old tired lie. When it’s refuted go to the next. When it’s refuted continue on to the next. When you hit the last one, go back to the start!
It doesn’t matter that the first, or any other charge has been refuted. Just keep cycling through and the damage will be done. It’s the same tactics that creationists use, and now less than half this country accepts the fact of evolution by natural selection.
Hillary and her husband are compulsive liars. She in particular has very bad judgment, the failure of her health care plan, her support of the Iraq war, her voting for Kly-Liberman which greased the skids for war with Iran… she is manipulative, going for the teary sympathy today… I don’t really want to hear who Bubba has been sleeping with the last 7 year.. Hillary has taken decades of psychological abuse often publicly from Bubba… you think the Republicans have nothing more to say.
I will vote Republican if she is the Democratic nominee.. I am tired of the Clinton sleaze, their lies, their lack of responsibility. This country needs fresh air.. better a republican for 4 years and then get rid of him than risk the Clinton for 8.. the only think worse than the Clintons are the Bushes, and happily they are not running this year.
“Democrats Must Win In November…”
If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, democrats lose — and so does the country.
Our next president MUST BE effective. We want 8, 12 years of Democrats in the White House. Heck, 16. Let’s fix this mess.
As to actually getting elected, who knows. Female versus Non-White. Experience versus the Penis. To me it’s iffy with them both.
So we gamble. I take the known quantity. Clinton gambled with her hawk-like kowtowing in the Senate, but if there is another terrorist attack on US soil between now and November (hello, Cheney), she has the record that can stand the hysteria and get her elected.
Is she cynical and a cold hard snake? Possibly. Would she and I get along? No. Does that matter when it comes to the future of our country? No.
Clinton’s “ickyness” is just what we need to move forward and ruthlessly clean up these messes, including the illegal occupation of Iraq.
I am concerned that if elected Obama is too inexperienced to really make that change happen in DC. It’s a bummer, but that’s not the point. We need to play to win before AND after November.
After Clinton lays a fix-it foundation, we can transition very well to “ideal”… Obama can follow in 4 or 8 or 12 years, as long as there is fertile ground for his vision to take root. Right now, it’s gonna take a real bitch to get those seeds of change to grow, let alone get into the White House in the first place.
I respectfully disagree with you, Jon (but, if you’ve been reading my blog at all lately, you already know that). I think Obama beats Hillary in electability hands down — the Repubs hate McCain, but they’ll vote for him if he’s running against their dearly hated Hillary. Indies and moderates love Obama, so they’ll vote for our ticket if he’s on it, but not if Hillary is at the top. Everyone I’ve talked to out in the real world bears this out.
Further, Hillary really hurts our down-ticket candidates by increasing the turnout among Republicans who will show up just to vote against Hillary, who they do love to hate.
Further, I sincerely believe that Obama is the better candidate. He was right on the war, and he’s proven his skills at coalition-building. The Clintons have demonstrated during this campaign that they will fall back on the politics of division when it serves them, so you can count on more of the same if Hillary wins the White House. I also think Obama has the better health care plan, which doesn’t involve garnishing people’s wages to pay for health care.
But, like I said, if you’ve checked my blog already, you already know that. ;-)
Best wishes!
So many of the left wing complaints against Clinton are just regurgitated right wing talking points.
This is exactly what happened to Al Gore in 2000.
Hillary also voted against a bill that would ban cluster bombs around civilian areas. Obama voted for the ban. Amendment No. 4882
http://www.jabberwonk.com/flinker.cfm?cliid=8g5uo
What is it going to take for people to wake up. Hillary is more the same. And what did she do on 9/11 to help protect New York? Did she know about the fireman’s radio’s? She had been in office for 9 months. Even I knew Saddam was no threat to us. Even Bush’s lying cabinet said so in the summer of 2001. Not that I believe them but we know the story. Hillary knew she was voting for WAR
What a 1990s type of argument.
50% +1, eh?
Ever hear of the election of 2006? The one that Democrats weren’t supposed to even win the House in, and they won both House and Senate?
Obama is going to win 54%-46%.
Don’t worry, be happy.
Hilary has enabled the worst excesses of this rogue administration through her votes in the senate and offered torturous, labyrinthine rationalizations whose careful reading point to the fact that she loves the theory of the unitary executive. She wants that power. If she wins, Democrats lose.
Both Hillary and Barack would be far better than any republican that is running so I will vote for whoever gets the nomination for the dems. However, nobody activates the republican base like the Clintons and they will flock in droves to vote against her. The far right is not thrilled with McCain and many of them will sit out this election if McCain faces Obama but they HATE Hillary. Also Obama draws from independents while Hillary’s support is only in the Dem establishment. Because of this, if we want a Dem in the whitehouse, the smart vote is for Obama.
Oh, one other thing to all the Hillary people who tout her experience. Obama 8 years State Senate and 3 years in the US Senate, that is 11 years experience in a legislative position. Clinton 7 years US Senate. Toss in her time as first lady and that would be only 15 years but including her time as first lady is like saying that Arnold Palmers wife could have beaten Tiger Woods because she had more experience around the golf course.
Apart from a small minority of people who make up what passes for a left wing in this country, most voters want out of Iraq but simply DO NOT CARE about Senator Clinton’s vote on the “use of force” resolution that Bush later abused to launch the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In fact, barring another “tehrist” incident, this election season the economy is at least as pressing an issue as the war, as well it should be. You people who have fixated on this single vote, taken completely out of context, are no better than single-issue fanatics. Get over yourselves. Please.
I’ll bet all the people who hate Clinton and would never vote for her because of her vote for the Iraq “use of force” resolution voted for John Kerry and John Edwards in the 2004 general election. Both Kerry and Edwards voted for the resolution too.
Clinton has made the calculation that if she apologizes for the vote now, if she wins the nomination, she will be crucified by the GOP the way Kerry was. I suspect she’s right.
And to be clear, Bush/Rove didn’t feel they “needed” the resolution to invade and occupy Iraq. They put that vote before Congress two weeks before the 2002 congressional elections to make mischief, to cause exactly the sort of dissension on the left that is reflected in these comments.
I refuse to allow George Bush and Karl Rove to manipulate me. I knew at the time that all the Dems voted for it out of what they viewed as political necessity (or expedience), and that it was a bad decision — but the pols who vote 100% the way I want them to could never be elected president.
I really love people telling me I am not a democrat. Well, I am registered as a democrat. Just because I will not vote for someone who does not represent me, you tell me I’m not a democrat. If you vote for someone who doesn’t represent you, what does that make you? The problem we have now is that politicians think they can do anything and people will vote for the lesser of two evils. I choose not to vote for the lesser of two evils ever again.
Like I said, you can call me any name in the book, but I will never, ever vote for Hillary. If you want to denegrate me and say I’m taking my ball and going home, you’re missing the point. If you vote for someone who does not represent you, you’re just a whore.
I see you’re getting flamed by the Obamabots, as per usual.
After what I’ve read on blog comments here and there, I still have good feelings about Sen. Obama, but I can’t say the same for some of his supporters.
Also, that “divisive” label is bogus anyway. If you look at “unfavorable” ratings, you’ll find that Hillary is only 3-4 points more “unfavorable” than Obama.
Obamabots, please: Your guy may be wonderful, but he’s not Jesus, OK?
YAll are nuts. Haven’t you paid attention? The Republicans are going to call him the “L-word” 24/7 until no Republican or moderate dem will ever vote for him. Pro-illegals. Pro-abortion. Pro-gay. Anti-gun. Liberal, liberal, liberal…
Were you asleep during 04 and 00??
By the time their done w/ him, Huckabee could beat him.
from
http://mediabloodhound.typepad.com/weblog/2008/02/hillary-vs-obam.html
In 2005 ‘Senate Amendment No. 4882,[was] an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.’
Hilary voted against the ban.
‘Analysts say Clinton did not want to risk appearing “soft on terror,” as it would have harmed her electability.’
‘On not one but two of her most
important life-and-death votes in the
Senate, Clinton embraced political
expediency over the protection of
innocent human lives.’
It was Obama supporters who were whining in S.C. Oooh, Bill Clinton was mean!
Well just wait — if Obama gets the nomination, and that is looking increasingly likely, the Republicans won’t care if you whine when they’re mean. In fact, they will like it.
They will also laugh at talk of unity. Republicans don’t want unity. This is a zero-sum game to them. They want to crush us.
And remember it was Teddy Kennedy who ran against Pres. Carter, weakened the party and paved the way to Reagan. I’m not sure his endorsement or John Kerry’s is necessarily a sign of strength, esp. come the general.
And btw, you’re going to need Hillary’s supporters then so you might want to tone it down just a hair. He definitely won’t win without us, especially if we’re right about how savage they are to him, and about how quickly his support outside the party dries up and blows away.
” you’re going to need Hillary’s supporters then so you might want to tone it down just a hair.”
Grow up.
So much for unity.
Karl Rove’s bogus Iraq authorization bill was a political gambit that had no practical effect whatsoever. Only one Decider made the decision to go into Iraq, and he could have and would have done it without the congressional authorization. (Clinton invaded Kosovo without congressional authorization, and we are still there.)
Rove’s political stunt worked! Your rage against Hillary is still fresh as new six years later. It is one of Rove’s only lasting successes. (Not that it was an original idea. LBJ did the same thing against members of his own party with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which was based on a falsified incident that LBJ used as a pretext for war. After the Vietnam war went south, he called the war’s critics who’d voted for the resolution “nervous nellies.”)
When her husband signed the Defense of Marriage, as a lifelong Democrat, I was pretty upset. When I found out later he was having an extramarital affair at the time he signed it, I was really pissed. I will never forgive him for that. But while it lessened my respect for him, I still think he was a good president.
The living politician I most admire is Jimmy Carter, but I think he was too decent to be the kind of president the public wants. He didn’t back down on his principles and he didn’t lie, and these admirable traits, combined with events he had no control over, conspired to doom his presidency. He was followed by amiable lunkhead who lied all the time, survived failure after failure, but was and is beloved by Republicans still today.
Barack Obama would be a good president, I’m sure. But this is for certain: He is not perfect. If he does become president, at some point, he will screw up or make a decision that you hate. It’s one of the few things in politics you can count on.
The only people he tricked were people like you who fell for it and still haven’t figured it out all these years later. The invasion was happening. The intelligence had been fixed. Nothing could have stopped Bush from going in.
The resolution was a wedge issue, nothing more. It didn’t fool Clinton, Kerry, Edwards, Daschle or any of the 77 senators who voted for it. They knew they were being played but Bush held all the cards then.
Same with Obama voting for any number of Iraq “supplementals” Bush has sent up there. Bush should have included those funds in the regular budget process but he didn’t, and all the Dems, including St. Barack, are too terrified of being accused of “not supporting the troops” to vote against them.
These are political decisions, not decisions made on the merits. All pols do it, including your guy.
Could Obama ruin the lifetime work of millions of Americans who have donated, walked and worked with the nations first extremely well qualified woman for the White House bid? In the name of change, he rejects the billions of hours of millions of Democrats and others over the years working for change, who methodically have worked for such a positive, final step and moment of truth for the nation, indeed the world, that women are in fact equal. Undoubtedly, it will be decades before a woman will be elected. That would be a terrible injustice brought on by Senator Obama.
A Hillary-Obama Ticket would basically solve THREE major issues in this country.
They have the not too often opportunity to choose to forever solve three long standing, hard worked for, dragging along issues in this country.
1) The glass ceiling and women’s equal paychecks,
2) race and
3) gender.
An Obama-Hillary ticket would cover only race and gender.
But would these folks actually DO the Jesus and MLK thing for JUSTICE, rather than continue to just talk about the MLK thing? Would Obama put his agenda (his possessions/quest) aside in selfless service to the country to solve three major injustices rather than only two?
That is the kind of character that creates change and builds good leadership. That kind of direct action for JUSTICE is what Americans desperately crave from their leaders and Congress. Meanwhile they will cling to to anyone just using the word change. Actual change begins in ourselves. Change and talking about change are two different things.
Obama served only three terms in a state senate and has served three years in the U.S. Senate – 1 year he has been running for president full time – so he’s the least qualified candidate in either party this year.
He also weaseled out on the Iran vote. You may not agree with Hillarys vote but at least she took a stand. He took the cowardly way out, was on the senate floor but did not vote yes or no.