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.
