I find myself in total agreement with Campaign Spot reader Joseph on the appeal of the less kindler, less gentler Hillary, mocking Obama and his “celestial choirs“:
Being mean to Obama in this particular way stands at least some chance of helping her. Leaving aside the twaddle about “special interests,” the rest of what she says comes off as sincere–or at least as sincere as Hillary has been able to be since the age of, I dunno, twelve. This kind of meanness is different from the lame, calculated meanness about “change you can Xerox.” Surely she really does hold the Obama-as-Messiah routine in contempt. As surely she should.
I think the woman is mean and vindictive. I dislike her; I really, really dislike her. But when she’s being forthrightly mean and vindictive and is making a valid criticism, I find that a good bit more appealing (and infinitely less nauseous) than the “poor me” Hillary or the clap-and-nod Hillary or the socialist-den-mother Hillary. If she attacks Our Savior in Tuesday’s debate, she will of course get booed by the faithful, but it might not be a bad idea to acknowledge the boos, face up to them, and continue to press the attack. It would draw attention to the one virtue, outside of intelligence, that even her critics grant her. She’s tough.
Ah well. If trends continue and Obama is the nominee, at least the McCain people will be able to use the Hillary clip against him in the fall.
Jen Rubin points out that this isn’t a message that Democratic primary voters want to hear. They don’t think Obama is too liberal, and they don’t think building utopia will be hard.
She’s right, but Democrats do sometimes pull back from the ledge. They preferred John Kerry over Howard Dean. In the 2004 race, the key issue was electability; Kerry convinced Iowa Democrats that Dean was unelectable (and the scream confirmed it). That’s why we’re seeing the Somali garb, the “he uses Karl Rove’s tactics,” everything. Hillary is (finally) trying to convince Democrats that they’re on the verge of making a terrible mistake, handing the nomination to an inexperienced guy, who has never run a tough general election campaign, with a glass jaw going up against the one Republican who still has great ratings among independents.
She can argue, rather plausibly, that many Americans haven’t heard a discouraging word about Obama since this race began. What will Obama’s ratings look like when they hear the other side of the story? How will the thumbs up from Louis Farrakhan play in suburbia?