Senator Hillary Clinton has hinted that she will keep her fight going until the convention, placating potential Florida and Michigan voters and in turn, bolstering her populist stance for a shot at VP.
On the same day that the Obama camp is whispering to the press that he has moved on and has begun his search for a running mate, Clinton has declared publicly that she is willing to stay in as long as it takes. Under the guise of counting Florida and Michigan’s primary votes, she is keeping herself relevant in the race and claiming, in no uncertain terms, that Obama is thinking prematurely about Veep candidates before her campaign has drawn its last breath.
You may think differently, but I’m still sold on the idea that Hillary’s camp is making these statements to preserve the overture that she is the only candidate that can begin the healing of the Dems if her name is next to Obama’s on the ballot. Her immediate shift in messaging, on the same day as Obama’s ‘confidential search’ for a V.P. got underway is what clues us in on her thought process.
On the other side of the Democratic primary fight (you know, the one with the ‘potential nominee’ attacking the ‘presumptive nominee’?) Senator Barack Obama is now taking Sen. John McCain to task on ethics lapses. In so doing, Obama is also tipping his hand on what his strategy is going to look like in the fall.
Employing the Karl Rove tactic whereby a candidate should attack his opponents on issues where they are strong, Obama is going to attempt to get some miles out of questioning McCain’s (seemingly) stellar ethics record. The junior Senator from Illinois is calling McCain out for having lobbyists on his campaign staff, being caught for it and ultimately (and embarassingly) dismissing them.
And though I think that it is good strategy for Obama, and it fits well with his overarching message about McCain being ‘politics as usual’, I have to give credit to McCain’s staffers in their response to these charges. Mr. Obama, they said, still has not disclosed whether his campaign associates might also be lobbyists, which should raise questions about what the Senator might be hiding.
Kudos to you, McCain camp. You’ve properly dismissed the baggage you would carry into the General Election, admitted to it, let yourself be attacked on it but still maintained the moral high ground by essentially saying ‘if we’re willing to fire our lobbyists, why isn’t Obama doing the same thing?’
I hate to admit it. I like what Obama did here, but I like the McCain response better. The Obama strategists and messaging folks might take a good lesson out of this exchange – before you attack, you’d better be able to defend against a similar counter-attack.
