TPM Reader IB responds …
The bigger question is how did we get here? Obama rolled the dice, thinking he could win Texas and keep Ohio close. Had he done that, the kitchen sink strategy would have been seen as a failure. He chose wrong, and Clinton is making him pay for it. To dovetail on your boxing analogy, I don’t think he gets out of the corner by punch back hard. I think he just needs to wait for her to punch herself out. In the past few days she’s made some horrible statements (CIC Threshold), and the didn’t come from staffers. they came out of her own mouth. She turned up the volume and won in OH and TX. There is nothing saying that strategy will work next Tuesday.
Could be. And there’s always a danger of overplaying your hand. But firing Powers was an awfully big tell in my book. And as they say in a different context, hope is not a plan.
Obama-supporting TPM Reader PT is less sanguine …
I agree with your long account of the Powers flap/Obama floundering.
And let me add a further observation: this is not a good way to raise money. First, lose your mo in a suite of big contests – what good did my last donation do, I ask myself? Then, tell the world that you raised $55 million last month – ok, so they have more than enough money now. Finally, let themselves get visibly kicked around in the press and by Clinton. Do they even intend to fight? Do they have any plan? Any determination? Any discipline? Is there anyone even responding to Clinton on this stuff? Does Obama think he can just go out there and answer another eight questions this afternoon? My wallet’s closed shut, for now.
I do agree Hillary is a monster – in a cartoonish way, I think it’s true. And Obama has turned into a wet noodle. Sad to have to say it about my guy.
But not TPM Reader BH …
This is good strategy for Obama, not a sign of weakness. What he is setting up is one more in a long list of examples about the difference between the kind of leadership he offers, and that coming from the Clinton camp: Hillary plays dirty right out of Karl Rove’s operating manual (see going after Obama on NAFTA-gate when it was her people that talked, thus her vulnerability), while he gets rid of people that stoop to her level. The contrast will be increasingly clear to voters.
Yet another take from TPM Reader TSJ …
He had to fire powers. His campaign is based on not being the same old politics. Calling Clinton a “Monster” would qualify and they would have hammered him incessantly over it had she not resigned. My guess is The Scotsman screwed her but oh well. The other point is he can’t fight back at Hillary in a similar way as she’s attacking him. Even on non-slights (The Snub, the writing at the Texas debate) the pundits kept talking about how he was “disrespecting” her. He goes after her too hard he becomes the Angry Black Man beating up on the Poor White Lady. That’s a no go. She wants him to get dirty (so she can say, “See he isn’t special. He’s just like me.) AND she wants to play the victim card (Oh he’s beating up on me *tears*). He’s responded well to her attacks but they don’t get as much play in the media as his attacks on her gets. His campaigning in Mississippi has been brilliant and my guess effective but it hasn’t garnered as much attention as Clinton’s barrage ’cause it’s not the story they want to tell.
I take the point about the standard Obama is trying to set. And in a vacuum, making an example of power might not be a mistake. But in the context of recent days it seems of a piece with the rest.
And now TPM Reader BOM gets in on the act …
To project on what TB wrote you, Sen. Clinton apparently just made the following comment on the Power resignation âI think Senator Obama did the right thing but I think it is important to look at what she and his other advisers say behind closed doorsâ¦â
Now, first of all that sounds very follow-me-Gary-Hart kind of comment as we all know her own campaign staffers probably say things that are just as bad behind closed doors.
But more importantly, isn’t there a point at which the media realizes how conspicuously they took the bait when Clinton complained about media coverage and there is some kind of backlash ? I have been thinking it should come at some point because I don’t think journalists like the widespread perception they were easily manipulated by a SNL sketch and this kind of comment makes me think she is on the verge of overplaying her hand by constantly attacking Obama for things that it is easy to prove she is doing herself (Rezko trial that are actual her donors, NAFTA-gate, the comment thing … and so on).
