ELECTION ’08: Barack Strikes Back!!

To paraphrase the not-so-great-rapper Bubba Sparxxxs, this week in politics has gotten ugly as a somewhat revived Hillary Clinton has begun churning out her ‘kitchen sink’ strategy of throwing everything she’s got after Barack Obama, while placing her own narrative into the media super spin cycle. ? The result has been a gut wrenching mix […]

To paraphrase the not-so-great-rapper Bubba Sparxxxs, this week in

politics has gotten ugly as a somewhat revived Hillary Clinton has begun

churning out her ‘kitchen sink’ strategy of throwing everything she’s got after

Barack Obama, while placing her own narrative into the media super spin cycle.

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The result has been a gut wrenching mix of conflicting

messages and ideas. On one hand, Clinton

reenergized her charge that Obama lacks the experience to be

commander-in-chief, saying

that, “I think that I have a

lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator

McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a

speech he gave in 2002.” But at the same time, on CBS’ ‘Early Show’, she offered

Obama a VP seat

in her administration. (An interesting offer, considering

he still holds the delegate lead).

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This type of

obvious political duplicity has left many Democrats boggled. If you take her at

her word, then does she truly believe that John McCain will make a better

president than Barack Obama? And if that’s the case, then why would she give

him the second seat? Is she that sure of her health, or does experience not

matter for Vice-President? Or truly, has Hillary gotten to the point where she

will literally say anything to win, regardless of veracity, integrity, or

legitimacy?

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Either way, it’s

become apparent by her willingness to extol the merits of her Republican

opponent that if she doesn’t get her way she’s willing to burn down the

Democrat’s house in her march to power. You had better believe that should

Obama take the nomination you will see McCain’s people repeat Hillary’s above

quote so much that it will look like she endorsed McCain.

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That’s not to say

that Hillary has been the source of all of Obama’s problems this week. Although

Barack was the big primary winner this weekend, taking

Wyoming by a whopping 61 to 38, and he leads

polls in Mississippi, the next primary, by 14 points, Obama is still haunted

by two continuing scandals: NAFTA gate, and Tony Rezko, which goes to trial

this week.

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Some background

on the Rezko-Obama link can be found here;

the most important thing to note though is that, so far, there is no evidence

of a quid pro quo relationship between the two—meaning that although Obama had

ties to the slumlord it doesn’t look as if the Senator exchanged favors for

Rezko’s support.

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?Still, just the look of impropriety will

negatively affect Obama. Furthermore, there have been hints that Obama could

possibly get called in as a witness for either the defense or the plaintiff.

This would be a no win scenario for Barack.

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If anyone wants

to dig up dirt on him the witness stand is perfect place and time, and any

attempts for Barack to insulate himself will be spun by the Clintons as a mark of corruption. Asking for

his testimony to be sealed will look bad, and should he have to take the

fifth…well that’s the doorway that no Obama fan wants to walk through.

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Then there was

the ‘monster’ comment. Last week Obama’s foreign policy advisor and Pulitzer

Prize winner, Samantha Power,

resigned

from Obama’s campaign after a story was published where she called

Hillary Clinton a ‘monster.’ Even though Power, who realized her mistake as

soon as the word had crossed her lips, told the reporter that the comment was

off the record, and even though during the week Hillary again refused

to release her tax returns, and McCain still remains tied to right-wing,

anti-catholic zealot John Hagee, this was the story the media latched on

to. For all the discussion of how the media has a pro-Obama bias this has

completely worked against him and was totally blown out of proportion.

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If there was a

winner this week, it’s probably been John McCain. As I mentioned before he

seems to have been given a pass in regards to his Hagee connection, and last

week he sealed up the GOP nomination as Mike

Huckabee conceded. Later that week he officially got Bush’s endorsement,

and now his campaign rides high as Clinton

tries to tear Obama to shreds.

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Most likely what

you’ll see from his campaign in the next couple of weeks is a few stops here

and there to sell the surge and continuing to stay in Iraq, while making comments on the

Democratic war.

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Since the real

story will be between Clinton

and Obama the media won’t hold McCain’s feet to the fire and any scandals

featuring him, barring something tremendously grotesque, won’t

find teeth. This allows him to pick off his challengers at whim, while

maintaining a steady keel. The longer the in-fighting woes of the Democrats

continue the stronger John McCain will get.

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Things to look forward to this week: Clinton’s

attacks will get worse, but expect to see Obama parry strongly, pressing on Clinton’s refusal to

release her tax returns. Look for Obama to defend his Rezko links, possibly in

the form of a major news program interview, but he will not get called to

testify. John McCain will take an external blow as the Iraq situation

will intensify.