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| US Republicans start to smell blood |
| 2007-08-09 |
| He was once billed as Obambi, the doe-eyed ingénu wandering innocently into the dark forest of an election, woefully unprepared for the dangers that lurked there. But in the old steamboat stop of Sioux City, Iowa, this week, an altogether more ferocious animal stalked its prey. Barack Obama jabbed the air and waved his hand dismissively as he branded his prey a creature of the establishment who had "been in Washington too long". This crony of "corporate lobbyists" was in denial about America being "less safe" than before 9/11 and had to be brought to book for the "disaster" in Iraq. To the dismay of some Democrats in the high school gym, however, the Illinois senator's quarry was not George W. Bush, who escaped almost scot free. His stump speech was all about, as Obama himself put it, his "little argument with Hillary Clinton". In trying to stop the Hillzilla juggernaut, Obama is making a powerful case for why she should never be president. Painting the former First Lady as the ultimate Washington insider is a message that resonates in a country in which Congress is every bit as unpopular as Bush. One of the most puzzling moments of an already extraordinary campaign came last week when Clinton suggested that lobbyists represent "real Americans". For a famously disciplined campaigner, it was a foolish mistake to champion the profession most associated with corruption and a poisoned body politic in Washington. While Obama is presenting himself as the agent of change, Clinton is banking on being the candidate of experience. "For 15 years, I have stood up against the Right-wing machine, and I've come out stronger," she declared in Chicago on Tuesday night. "So if you want a winner who knows how to take them on, I'm your girl!" Her Achilles' heel, however, is that, at a time when disillusion with Washington and all its works is as pervasive as ever, the kind of experience she cites may not seal the deal with the electorate. Equally, as Clinton pointed out in a sarcastic attack on Obama in Chicago, you can "think big", but that is unlikely to be enough either. Like a boxer with her opponent trapped in the corner of the ring, she has been pummelling Obama this week for being naïve and inexperienced on foreign policy. And the punches are hitting home. Slowly but surely, the Clinton machine is stripping away her adversary's lustre. Obama joked in Sioux City that he is accused of being a "hopemonger". But that reputation is receding as Clinton responds to his attacks on her by asking with mock dismay: "Whatever happened to the politics of hope?" The frustration for the other Democrats is that they are confined to the sidelines. "We can't make John black, we can't make him a woman," bemoaned Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband is running a distant third. It seems all Mr Edwards, a Southern pretty boy who voted for the Iraq invasion and has reinvented himself as an anti-war Left-wing populist, can do is snipe at Clinton. "You will never see a picture of me on the front of Fortune saying I am the candidate that big, corporate America is betting on," he thundered. In Sioux Falls, Democrats echoed the criticisms of the candidate they did not like as often as they sang the praises of the ones they did. "Hillary's been power-hungry since she was at college," said Martie Ebner, an Obama backer. Darrell Strong, 85, a retired railroad worker, questioned whether Obama could handle the Middle East. "This isn't kindergarten," he pointed out. All this is giving hope to Republican strategists, whose underlying assumption since their mid-term drubbing has been that they have little chance of winning next November. Recognising that the odds are stacked against them, the Grand Old Party hopefuls are making a decent stab at improving their chances. Rather than attacking each other, the Republicans have been turning their fire against Obama and Clinton. When invited to attack the social stances of Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani during last weekend's Iowa debate, Mitt Romney declined to shoot for the open goal. "I'd rather let him speak for himself," he said. Giuliani was similarly magnanimous when pitched a softball about John McCain's campaign finance legislation, which is despised by conservative Republicans. "I happen to be a very big admirer of Senator McCain and I can tell you quite honestly that, if I wasn't running for president, I would be here supporting him," he said. Instead of aiming at Republicans, Giuliani keeps hammering home his theme that all three leading Democrats are defeatists who have already declared Iraq lost. And there are glimmers of hope in Iraq and a slight up-tick in poll support for the troop "surge" there that could signal an opportunity for the Republicans. An opinion piece in the New York Times last week by Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack - both previously in line to get top foreign policy jobs in a Democratic administration - declared that Iraq was a "war we might just win". It was a message neither Obama nor Clinton wanted to hear. Democratic voters fear that a stridently anti-war candidate - as Obama is fast becoming - could lose because he is seen as weak on defence, just as McGovern was in 1972 and Dukakis in 1988. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, could be a safe choice in the mould of Mondale in 1984 or Gore in 2000, whose problems over likeability and ennui spelt defeat against folksy, optimistic Republican opponents. Being the change candidate in a post-9/11 world is problematic in a country that remains intensely fearful of the terror Islamism can wreak at home and abroad. The change and experience candidates, moreover, are already inflicting serious wounds on each other with five months to go before the first primary ballot is cast. With the general election still 15 months away, the Republican creatures in the forest can afford to wait, sniffing the air as the scent of blood approaches. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #14 Jay Leno is right, every time the Democrats debate, George W. Bush's approval rating goes up 5 points. |
| Posted by: whatadeal 2007-08-09 23:09 |
| #13 The Democratic Party is devoid of ideas and leadership. It uses the same old tired formula for trying to win elections. There don't seem to be any adults in the party. The far left has taken over the party. You would have to look hard to find a conservative Democrat. That animal just doesn't exist any more. The people in the party seem to be a shrill bunch of carping, nitpicking whiners and losers. They don't seem to have any national pride or patriotism. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2007-08-09 17:34 |
| #12 John Edwards is what he am... and he apparently is one who serially sends his wife out to talk for him. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2007-08-09 15:48 |
| #11 At the current rate of decline of the dhimocrats, they should have no problem completely losing everything in a '08 landslide. However, the race really hasn't even started yet. The runners are still jocking for starting position. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-08-09 14:16 |
| #10 How many Americans realize what EUrope is really like? |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-08-09 14:10 |
| #9 The only thing the GOP needs to do to win in '08 is educate about 10% of the Americans who don't know it already that the Democrats want to make America indistinguishable from Europe. How hard can that be? |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-08-09 13:32 |
| #8 "We can't make John black, we can't make him a woman," bemoaned Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband is running a distant third. Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that. |
| Posted by: Michael Jackson 2007-08-09 13:14 |
| #7 Now if the GOP would only wake up and smell the coffee. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-08-09 11:27 |
| #6 "We can't make John black, we can't make him a woman," bemoaned Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband is running a distant third. Elizabeth, if you're into black women, hey, to each his own. |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2007-08-09 10:50 |
| #5 Sometimes I like British newspapers. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-08-09 10:13 |
| #4 Painting the former First Lady as the ultimate Washington insider is a message that resonates in a country in which Congress is every bit as unpopular as Bush. The last poll I saw suggested Congress is radically less popular than the President. And from what I can make out, the President's current popularity has suffered most from perception of weakness on the war, weakness on border security, weakness on illegal immigration, weakness on China, the Saudis, the Iranians, etc. etc. etc. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-08-09 09:33 |
| #3 Obama's Church Presidential candidate Barack Obama preaches on the campaign trail that America needs a new consensus based on faith and bipartisanship, yet he continues to attend a controversial Chicago church whose pastor routinely refers to "white arrogance" and "the United States of Whiter America." In fact, Obama was in attendance at the church when these statements were made on July 22. ... # Wright on 9/11: "White America got their wake-up call after 9/11. White America and the Western world came to realize people of color had not gone away, faded in the woodwork, or just disappeared as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns." On the Sunday after the attacks, Dr. Wright blamed America. Much more at link. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-08-09 09:10 |
| #2 "We can't make John black, we can't make him a woman," bemoaned Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband is running a distant third. Well, you can't make him black... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-08-09 09:03 |
| #1 Dueling pistols! Issue each of them dueling pistols! |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-08-09 08:49 |