No More Mrs. Progressive Girl; No More Mrs. Competent Girl

With Iowa behind us, it looks like the worst impulses of the Clinton campaign are kicking in.  Via Yglesias, her people are using crude right-wing attacks to go after Obama:

Hillary's aides point to Obama's extremely progressive record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with "left-wing" intellectuals in Chicago's Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants' rights as subjects for examination.

I know that independents can vote in New Hampshire.  But it's still mostly a Democratic primary!  Is this really the best way to attack your opponent? 

I used to be impressed with Clinton's campaign, and her ruthlessly effective press operation still impresses me.  But ever since she started to decline in the polls, the campaign's strategic judgment has been wildly askew.  From the sloppy attacks on Obama's drug use to the ridiculous kindergarten attack to this, it's been a really unimpressive performance that doesn't make me optimistic about how she'd perform in a close and hard-fought general election.  (And what's with this weird new strategy of pitching herself as the candidate for young people?  That does more to remind people of Obama's strengths than it does to benefit her.)  I'm far from happy with Obama, but I have more confidence in his ability to run a competent general election campaign than I do in hers. 

Comments

[Ron]

These are the kind of attacks the GOP will try in the fall, so it's valuable to give Barack some experience at dealing with them. It seems like this actually does him a favor in the primaries though since you'll have Clinton saying he's too liberal and Edwards saying he's too conservative which naturally makes a voter think he's moderate.

[Stephen]

The problem with the "Vote for Hillary, she's inevitable" strategy has always been the degree to which she and her advisors have believed it themselves. They've always been in danger of going into panic mode.

Attacking the dirty liberals is always the preferred strategy for Villagers no matter their affiliations. Obama will simply reply in kind, and if Edwards does manage to prove himself a real threat to Obama's candidacy, the gloves will really come off and the nasty, dirty hippy contingent of the Democratic party - which is either all of us, or a majority, or an inexplicably powerful minority depending on who is doing the attacking - will really come under attack.

[ikl]

This is a bit unfair to Clinton - I don't really think that this reflects on how she would govern. As I see it, the Clinton campaign messed up its marketing strategy pretty badly so now that they realize this, they are just flailing around. The problem for them is that 5 days isn't enough to rebrand a candidate. I suspect that if they had more time, they would do a better job with it. But since they don't, it is not clear what to do (hense this sort of pathetic attack). They probably ought to stick more or less to the original marketing plan and hope that organization, money, residual good will toward and Clintons and low information voters carry them over the top.

[Neil the Ethical Werewolf]

ikl, I'm not making any criticisms of how she'd govern -- as my last sentence implies, I'm criticizing how she'd campaign. I think your last sentence is correct, and a more intelligent campaign that could be trusted under fire would realize that.

[ikl]

Well, I suspect that the Clinton people do realize this, which is why they are not going negative on the airwaves in NH or doing anything else drastic at the moment. Of course, they should have been planning for this, but perhaps the truth is that Clinton just doesn't match up well against Obama. It seems that the Clinton folks wanted Edwards to beat Obma in Iowa.

[Neil the Ethical Werewolf]

Yeah, I bet each of the top 2 campaigns wanted Edwards to top their opposition in Iowa.

[ikl]

The difference is that this was sort of wishful thinking in Clinton's case. It sort of seems that they thought that Obama would fold under pressure / media scrutiny. Maybe he still will, but it doesn't look like a good bet now.

My gut feeling is that NH is a good state for Obama as well. If I were Clinton or Edwards I would be quietly sinking resources into Nevada right about now.