But Does It Work?
By I thought this passage from the Times story about Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama was interesting:
In a 20-minute address, Mr. Kennedy hailed Mr. Obama’s ability to transcend racial divisions. Mr. Kennedy, who associates said had become furious by the tone of the Democratic campaign, including the words and actions of former President Bill Clinton, said Mr. Obama would usher in a new era of politics.
The strongest case to be made for Clinton is that her willingness to fight hard if not dirty will make her the strongest candidate against the GOP in the fall. And I don’t think this is a frivolous argument by any means. Although Obama has shown some ability to fight back (cf. his reply to John Howard, and he did a good job of replying-to-without-naming the Clintons on Saturday) at times he can seem unnecessarily defensive in response to even mild attacks. On the other hand, while I like the idea of having a street fighter as a candidate in the abstract I think one also has to question whether the specific tough tactics being used by Clinton have actually been effective. Given the complete blowout in South Carolina and the recent rash of Obama endorsements, it’s hard to make the case that Bill Clinton going on the offensive has been particularly helpful to Clinton’s campaign. The odious Jesse Jackson invocation was additionally dismaying because it seemed to reflect a very dim view of 2008 Democratic primary voters, and it’s one that I don’t think is terribly well justified. I think Clinton does have some very real political skills, and she may well be the strongest candidate in the general election, but her primary campaign hasn’t been terribly effective given the large advantages she started the race with.
And one can say the same thing about some of her policy panders. I can maybe see it in the immediate aftermath of Texas v. Johnson when such silliness briefly became a salient issue, but at this late date does anyone think that sponsoring Constitution flag-burning legislation is going to convince anyone to vote for her? I actually am inclined to think that her vote on the war represents a sincere conviction that the war was right, but for those who think that it was political positioning her judgment has quite clearly been erroneous — her position on the war bot would deprive her of a crucial issue in the general but also could quite possibly cost her the Democratic nomination. I’m all for politics being the art of the possible, but Clinton’s political instincts don’t always seem especially sound to me.
Or, to put it another way, not only does Mark Penn make me worry a little bit about the policy direction of a Clinton administration (compared to the other major Dems), I see little reason to believe that he’s any great shakes as a political tactician either.