This editorial from the Times is so spot on.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/opinion/07brooks.html?ref=opinion
This is what happens when a candidate runs on an idea and not on real policies. I applaud the Obama campaign for recruiting millions of young voters to get involved with politics, that is only good for America in the long run. But as this Democratic race has tightened after Tuesday's results, Obama is going to have to start to playing conventional, election-year politics. Look, I have no problem with attack ads, or bringing up questionable incidents from a candidate's past or present actions, as long as they do not blatantly propagate falsehoods. I mean, this type of campaigning is a result of the ill-advised American trend to vote for candidates based on character rather than policy. So in order to differentiate yourself from your opponent whom you have almost identical policy ideas on most issues, you are going to have to dig in and find reasons the people should not vote for your opponent.
But, to go back to Obama for a second. He has stated that he is going to get negative and respond in kind to Clinton by 'taking the gloves off.' And this article points out something that most have forgotten: Obama's candidacy is based on "changing politics in Washington," change, change and change. Well if he slips and starts to campaign negatively as the going gets tough, then what the hell is his candidacy about anymore? If he 'stoops to Clinton's level', then he has failed his message, and failed his followers. What would he run on? He has very little national political experience, and has very little policy differences than Clinton. As the piece points out, he would just be some one-term senator (really half-term since he has been campaigning for president since January of '07) who has abandoned his core campaign theme: changing the game of politics. And that is not the candidate I want to cast my vote for.
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It is quite a jump to make to assume that Obama's initial goal of 'changing politics' excludes negative campaigning. It is really more of an assumption with the aim of discrediting Obama and it is baseless. To then go on and say that he has failed his supporters and his campaign is to fall prey to a slippery slope.
As for the issue of experience that so many Democrats flaunt around as if it were Obama's kryptonite, if democrats really revered experience as highly as they now claim they do, then Bill Richardson should still be in the race and winning it by a landslide. I am not a supporter of the New Mexican Governor but when you talk about experience, he has more than any other democratic candidate out there.
"He's been a congressman, an ambassador, a Cabinet secretary and a governor. Instead, he had trouble finishing ahead of Dennis Kucinich and dropped out."
Quote taken from:
http://www.denverpost.com/quillen/ci_7937865
Please continue to read the above article and examine the experience of a couple of the faces on Mt. Rushmore, two of whom served less than two years in any government office prior to becoming president. My point being that character is not something to be sneered at, and for some, holds more than its own weight.
Back to Obama's idea of change. I don't see how 'taking off the gloves' constitutes a failure of any sort or even that he is deviating from his idea of change. Maybe your idea of change is different than his because it is certainly evident that your idea of a president is different than that had by Obama's supporters.
Talk about naivete. Have you been paying attention to the campaign at all? Obama's message is 'above politics.' He is going to somehow eliminate partisanship, and he has definitely proclaimed that he will not resort to attack campaigning, he said it just two weeks ago, as quoted in the article. So yes, Obama's goal is to change politics, and that includes the politics of negativity and divisiveness. If, and I stress if, he becomes divisive and negative towards Clinton, then he has failed a key tenant of his message.
In response to your experience comment and article, Washington and Jefferson were in a completely different era and were prominent in the birth of our nation. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and was a founding father, that is all the experience he needs. Regarding Teddy Roosevelt, yes he had little governmental experience but turned out to be a good president. The same for Lincoln. Experience isn't everything you are right, but I believe it is still greatly important. When applying for any job, experience is the key factor for getting hired by any employer. This is no different. There is nothing wrong with highlighting your experience when applying for the job of president, and for me, it is a good argument to differentiate yourself from others. It should not be discredited.
No one is discrediting experience, but you ARE discrediting Obama's character.
Obama has been quoted to say that he will not invest time in criticizing the personal aspects of a candidate, as in their religion or personal decisions outside of policy. He will, however, attack someone if the flip flop on their policy stance or say, voted one way in the past and now say something not congruent with their past votes (perhaps regarding the iraq war or something along those line).
Again, clarity is the solution. Clarity regarding what 'negative campaigning' means and clarity regarding 'changing politics'. Obama is above personal attacks but will take on anyone directly when it comes to the character of their decisions, past and present, regarding policy.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/12/obama_on_negative_campaigning.php
Not to make this just a two-person debate, but again, you are wrong in your support of Obama. Negative campaigning of course does not include pointing out flip-flopping or anything of that nature. We all know that. The Obama camp has claimed Clinton's 3 am red phone ad last week was negative, because it looks dark and casts Obama in a dark context. Obama claims this is negative. There was no personal attack, just an attack on his experience.
When has Clinton engaged in personal attacks? By saying Obama is above personal attacks, are you saying Clinton is not? Obama is guiding the discussion on what is negative and what is not, claiming Clinton's ad was negative. Claiming Clinton's exposure of Obama's campaign senior finance advisor meeting with a Canadian consulate and contradicting Obama's stance on NAFTA was negative. And making him answer questions about questionable campaign contributors, this is negative too per Obama. Obama has told us what is negative and what is not, and if he is going to repudiate Clinton's tactics, then say he is going to implement them himself the next week (by bringing up her tax records and the Clinton Presidential Library funds) after losing key primaries , then is that not hypocritical and an abandonment of his principles? Remember, Clinton has never said she was going to "save politics", this is Obama's claim. He should live up to it not through just words, but his actions.
Clinton is not above personal attacks. Let us review the numerous personal attacks she has made since the start of the campaign.
First she called Obama 'naive' with regards to his political experience. Then she attacked his origins with the comment: ""Voters will judge whether living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next President will face,"
After that she accused him of lying, that is right, lying about his lifelong lust after the oval office because of an essay he wrote in kindergarten about wanting to be president.
"So you decide which makes more sense: Entrust our country to someone who is ready on day one ... or to put America in the hands of someone with little national or international experience, who started running for president the day he arrived in the U.S. Senate,"
Clinton's non-personal attack above.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1690519,00.html
If you would like to review more personal attacks she has made with regards to his character, not his policy, I implore you to read the above article or just search for new articles as there are plenty.
Obama has yet to stoop to these practices. Here is another site that tracks many of the attacks Clinton has made, and these are personal ones that attack things like integrity, motives and character.
http://hillaryattacks.barackobama.com/
These are not assumptions I have made, unlike the assumption you have made that I even support a democratic candidate in the first place. I just believe that Clinton has been despicable in much of her campaign and don't want to see the candidate having to endure this be accused, by a self-professed supporter of Clinton no less, of personal attacks.
Yes, when Clinton was facing a two-pronged attack machine in John Edwards and Obama, she may have resorted to what can be perceived as personal attacks. But about Obama living in Indonesia as a kid, he said that his "global" life would lead to him making a good commander-in-cheif. Clinton was responding to that by saying, well, frankly, no it doesn't. The Kindergarten letter? Probably not necessary, but again, the point of my argument was that IF Obama begins to feel the heat and engages in tactics for which he has castigated Clinton, then he has abandoned his message. He has already stated he is going to get tough, and that includes cheap shots about her undisclosed tax records and Bill Clinton's presidential library issue.
I just think that this big theory of playing politics in a different way and that he will be able to transcend Washington politics is bankrupt. It is a fraud. I believe that he will succumb to the realities of the American political landscape, which has always been like this. He needs to face reality, because if he makes this huge promise to the American people, and then when the general election comes and presidency thereafter (if elected) he starts to engage in partisan politics, he will have let down his supporters. Don't make promises you can't keep, the downfall of so many politicians.
Good discussion!
I started to read this article and then I read the bold, black print at the top. It read "Opinion." You can pick apart any campaign if you'd like, but my vote will go to a candidate who can bring people together (even if it's with promises). And if that candidate fails to deliver on those promises, those people who elected him will be the ones who hold him accountable.
It simply is fact that Obama has campaigned on changing politics and that part of that promised change is rejecting the politics of the past, including negative campaigning. He just said as much in an interview shortly after his stunning losses in Ohio and Texas:
from Time Magazine online:
Transcript of Obama Press Availability on Plane
"Q: (paraphrased) Do you feel like you should have responded more aggressively? Do you feel like you let the Senator get ahead of you?
A: Look…They have run a pretty negative campaign over the last couple of weeks. I have said consistently that we do things differently. It’s worked for us so far and you know I’m not gonna do things that I’m not comfortable doing and I want to make sure that we stay focused on the issues. I am a little surprised that all the complaining about the refs has actually worked as well as it has for them.
This whole spin of how the press has just been so tough on them and not tough on us, I didn’t expect that you guys would bite on that. But you know it is what it is. Like I said our focus is just to keep on talking about the issues.
I don’t want to change the tone of our campaign because that’s how I think we’re going to ultimately be able to govern."
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And while I think Obama has every right to respond in kind to any real, or even perceived, attacks, based on his own words this week, if he does use negative attacks, his message of changing politics forever will be lost to political expediency, much the same as any other politician before him.
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