Obama/Clinton v. McCain: Strategies
By SusanUnPC on May 21, 2008 at 6:40 PM in Current Affairs
Let’s take a break from the primary fights, and look ahead to the general: Which strategy is best? And, if we prevail, and Hillary is the nominee, what should SHE do?
Robert Novak, via Human Events (I get its newsletter):
The Obama campaign has already begun to identify McCain as the third coming (that is, the third term) of George W. Bush. When President Bush inserted himself in the campaign-however intentionally or unintentionally-in his Israeli Knesset speech last week, Obama seized on it to buttress his main theme that McCain, improbably, is a Bush clone.
Sidney Blumenthal, via Real Clear Politics:
From the US News and World Report’s blog Washington Whispers:
Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and strategist for Hillary Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign, went “off message” (his words) today with a warning to his party: Don’t run against GOP nominee John McCain by painting him as Bush III, because he’s not. Bucking the Democratic National Committee’s talking points that characterize a potential McCain administration as tantamount to a third Bush term, Blumenthal told our Liz Halloran that running on that strategy in the fall would be a mistake. “I understand people’s political reasons for doing that,” he said. “I think it’s more helpful to describe [political opponents] as they are.” Bottom line, Blumenthal calls the strategy “a mistake and adds: “The public doesn’t see [McCain] that way. That’s a hard sell.” At an event to promote his new book, The Strange Death of Republican America: Chronicles of a Collapsing Party, Blumenthal also predicted that McCain has “lots of room to maneuver” politically before the fall election. What hurts the presumed Republican nominee? His need, Blumenthal says, to reassure conservative Republicans about the kind of nominees he’d make to the Supreme Court.
Real Clear Politics adds:
That sounds like good advice, although I think McCain’s “independent” streak might not be as well known to the general public as it is inside the Beltway. That’s hard to gauge. Voters will see a Republican, and that will be enough. So let’s call Sid’s warning exactly that: A warning to Dems not to rely solely on the “McSame” line.
by Ronald Scott
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