Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Here We Go

Swift-Boating, Hillary style:

ABC News has learned that a group of Democratic politicos have set up a new independent 527 organization called the American Leadership Project (ALP) with the express purpose of helping Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, beat Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in Ohio, and possibly Texas and Pennsylvania as well.

Free from campaign finance rules, ALP will not be legally permitted to coordinate with the Clinton campaign, but it is clearly intended to help her. * * *

ALP has developed three ads aimed at pushing the idea that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, is a talker and not a doer -- the ads are called “If speeches could solve problems" -- and they will contrast Obama and Clinton on issues of importance to middle class voters, such as the economy, health care, and the mortgage crisis.
This is a classic Republican tactic. You take the strength of your opponent -- in this case, it would be Obama's speaking ability (with John Kerry, it was his status as a decorated war hero) -- and attempt to turn it against him. I don't think it will work, though, because Democrats just aren't any good at this stuff. At least they haven't been up to now.

And by the way, doesn't Obama have plans to deal with health care, the economy, and the mortgage crisis? I mean, Hillary has long been attacking Obama's health care plan on the grounds that it leaves something like 15 million people uninsured, but he still has a plan, doesn't he? If Hillary's line of attack is really going to be that Obama is all speech and no substance, how does such a tactic succeed when Obama's campaign actually does have substantive positions on all of these issues?

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