It’s the electability, stupid. Democrats, please pay attention: Hillary cannot win the general and that is the ONLY point worth putting out at this crucial moment of the primaries. Don't get distracted or side-tracked: put every other piece of info, scrappy fight, comment by surrogates, squabble, newspaper article, blog, story and propaganda-filled speech aside. Its not about race or gender or policies or change or experience. You only need to know ONE piece of information to make your decision: no candidate can win a general election that is not supported by half of her own party. Keep your eye on the 11/08 ball before it’s too late. She is the only thing that will rally the struggling Republican Party. Tell every Democrat and Independent you know: a vote for Hillary is a vote for John McCain, HIS war in Iraq and an economy that will not recover for a very long time. Why does the DNC not recognize this? We are running out of time to put an end to the eight, and I now fear 12, years of negative and never-endingly bad mojo and the moment to do something about it is right now. So stop talking and go out and do something. One simple first step? Email The DNC and tell them how you feel about the way The Clintons are leading our party and running their campaign. http://www.democrats.org/page/s/contactissues . Pass it on.

i would disagree with your charachterization of Obama's ad as "negative". It was a direct, TRUTHFUL, response to a misleading and dishonest ad by Billary.

I'd like to know what exactly made Obama's ad "negative".

Anyone wanna tell me?

Their is negative and their is nasty.

Obama makes good points in his add.

But Hill Bill y's
adds are simply nasty

and that is what Americans do not condone.
Just like they did not like Bill lieing
about his sex life.

Scheduled to come down. Riiiiiiight.

I just saw the video of the 5 year old today asking Bill Clinton at a campaign rally what marriage means to him.

To see him squirm like he did on national tv when he wagged his finger -

"I did not have sex with that woman"
was priceless.

Why is the Obama campaign always reacting to the Clinton campaign?

i would disagree with your charachterization of Obama's ad as "negative". It was a direct, TRUTHFUL, response to a misleading and dishonest ad by Billary.

Pundits like to talk about all negative ads as though they are the same. This absolves them of the responsibility to engage in critical analysis.

In reality, of course, there is a difference between a dishonest negative ad and an honest one; between a negative ad about a relevant issue and one about an irrelevant issue.

I think the folks on this blog mostly make an effort to differentiate. But Greg's previous post is a classic example of this kind of false neutrality.

LTD- Unnh, maybe the Obama campaign reacts because the Clinton always attacks first ? Boy they must be running scared. Was it only a couple of months ago that Clinton was touting herself as the "inevitable "candidate? On the debates, whenever Obama speaks she looks like she'd like to knife him. That "kid" is messing with her coronation.

Go, Obama.

I think what we're seeing here is evidence that Obama can effectively repel negative attacks and distortions. That's a big plus for him IMO.

In the earlier post about spin wars, I had a thought, which is applicable here. There are 2 possibilities I can see, and not really any others.

Either:

1- Obama's claims are true that Clinton is distorting his words, in which case his ad wasn't "negative" and he wasn't "winning the spin wars." Instead, he was simply giving an accurate description of reality, and b/c it was accurate the press was going along.

or

2-Obama is mis-characterizing the events of the past 3 weeks, but in such way that he's beating Hillary at her own old-school politics game.

IMO, it's more 1 than 2, but I think there's a little bit of 2 in there as well.

The fact is, though, neither really speaks poorly of Obama. There is no doubt that 2 makes him out to be "just another pol" like Hillary; but it also demonstrates that he's actually better at those games than she is. 1, on the other hand, suggests he is actually above the whole "mud slinging" business.

Like I said, I think it's some of both, more geared towards 1 but with some elements of 2 in it as well.

Which leads to thought: if Obama really is gonna run a largely positive campaign, but is effective at making negative attacks on him backfire, isn't that a very good thing?

Because, LTD, that is the Clintons' strategy. Say crap then get them to react then ask why they are so defensive; just be because they are losing. Smear tactics are hard to combat. When did you stop beating your wife? That kind of stuff. It's the voters who have to use their noodles here.

They see the polls showing John Edwards making a HUGE move on them right now. If they do not want him back in the race for real, they better quit firing shots.

Like the Brits at Cowpens, The Clintons beat retreat!

Orwell's Intuition

weak, weak.
it's the Hill Billy idiots always bringing up bill's sex life like it did not matter.
oh and the HRC's-a-progressive "slur".
must be a campaign talking point.
and ps, grow a pair so you can loan them to Monica the tattle tale.

It is sad that they are pulling the only ads that both of them are running that were remotely based on truth . . . But what the hey . . . That's Clinton/Obama '08 . . . Obama/Clinton '08.

So Ms. Clinton takes the high road...

Er, sure, whatever...

Doesn't take much to bring out the worst in Obama's supporters. So much for hope and change, eh? I'll wait until after the primaries to come back to TPM EC. The general discourse of this forum has seriously deteriorated.

Mr. Orwell: the problem (at least for me)was less your opinion than the fact you decided to parrot the Clinton attack machine's "GOP Talking Point" canard. If you have an opinion, by all means, give it but at least give us respect enough to put it in your own words.

What the Count said.

Edwards was up to 27% in Zogby's polling yesterday and had surpassed Clinton for second place. And Obama was dropping a bit. I suspect they both realized that the appearance of a spat (no matter who was actually in the right) was hurting both of them.

OK freaktown, I'll give it a shot...

The ad paints every single thing Hillary and her campaign say and do as: 1) Dishonest and 2) Purely driven by politics. It is based on very generalized statements that on their face are dishonest, i.e. the "say anything/change nothing" frame doesn't hold water and they know it.

I know that all the Obama supporters think that anything that anyone says in criticism of Clinton is true, but down on planet reality, no such thing is real about any candidate.

You may think she represents everything you hate, but when she says she cares about children (for example), her career proves it's true. She might not change things the way you want, but things like forced abstinence in federal foreign aid (and multitudes of other ideological staples of the Bush ideology) will be history moments after she takes office. Cabinet chiefs will likely rise in qualification and status by light years overnight.

So, sorry for the run-on response but saying something that general, that she's basically a liar without a good motivation or sincere bone in her body is clearly a negative attack -- even if a sub-set of the electorate like you has decided to believe it's all true, for whatever reasons.

I think the tone of the Obama ad was unduly harsh and overwrought (Hillary may not say "anything" to win, though she'll evidently say a lot of untrue stuff), but there's a difference between that and the outright fabrication of the Clinton ad.

I'm glad to see both ads go.

Agreed RS. I'm not a fan of this stuff from any side. I think Obama is smart for fighting fire with fire - he doesn't have a choice, if the fight goes there. My point was simply that his 'response' came in the form of a negative attack - an escalation that was celebrated by some of these same commentators earlier when it first came out. To deny what it was to promote a false argument on this important subject.

It's clear these definitions bend quite severely depending on which candidate people are defending or promoting. I agree with the other post that this primary fight has brought out the worst here at TPM...I look forward to it being over so we can focus our efforts on winning an election. Perhaps that's naive.

Sorry, meant to say:

"To deny what it was IS to promote a false argument on this important subject."

Editing functions please!!

can we have a real comment system when the primarys are over?

haha, you all sound just like it was 2000 and BushCo was up for election. Anyone care to step back and see that all politicians do bad things. However some of them do good things. National Debt, gun laws, international relations... those are big ones to the nation, not a state. Just step back, re-read, re-think, consider without prejudice, without reading into middle names, or last names. Let's be the proud honorable country we should be and lost sight of. It always seems criminal one someone you personally don't like does something wrong, but when it's someone your backing, it's seems as though some become criminally blind. Stop drinking all candidates koolaid. Yes they all are providing koolaid.

Lee Atwater
Bill Clinton
Karl Rove

What do these three have in common?

They tear apart democrats for sport!

I just gotta say --- classy! And an interesting repeat, in a way, of what happened with the"race war" that started in NH and moved to NV.

--------- That episode may have been started unintentionally w/ Hillary's awkward comment that truly hurt some people not even affiliated with Obama's campaign, but for whatever reason, it certainly escalated. Hillary, on Meet the Press, had a chance to be the adult and start to put out the fires but instead she just whined about it all coming from the Obama campaign (no proof) and complained in a way that made it worse. She let Bob Johnson speak without correction, really turning up the heat. Then Obama steps in on Monday and puts a STOP to it in a peaceful way ... one the Clintons had to agree to or look like real idiots. Campaigns can now go back to the issues and *legitimate* contrasts.

---------- Now this Reagan flap, certainly started and continued by the Clintons and escalated (by them) even after many impartial observers announced that it was incorrect/unfair. Nevertheless they kept riding the hobbyhorse to the point of putting attack ads on the radio. Situation spiraling out of control like the 'race war' did. Then Obama steps in and with a pretty powerful counterpunch (out of character but effective) gets them to pull back and immediately takes down his own, stopping the spiral. Campaigns can now go back to the issues and *legitimate* contrasts.

Folks, look at what we have here. Problems (no matter who created them) that were derailing the campaigns, depressing the voters, and hurting the party. One candidate fans/creates the fires and tries to make the situation spiral more out of control. One candidate takes action to *stop* the distraction and get back to the real and important business at hand.

Which one of these people is a true leader? Which one could do a better job tackling the very real problems this country faces? ---- What was it Hillary said? We want to see actions, not just words. Well, I think we are.

Obama's responding to Bill Clinton's charges is appropriate and measured. What will not be civil is when the Republicans start to reveal what Bill in private has been up to over the last 7 years fully detailed in Secret Service logs. The whole Democratic restoration
will be derailed by this as it all hangs on Bill Clinton's belt buckle.
The past is prelude.This is a real roll of the dice. No more dynasties!

But here's the reality in terms of how people have responded:

Obama's numbers in SC have gone DOWN 3 points since the nasty debate , even though he's still projected to win due to the 50% Black vote.

That 3% moved AWAY from Obama, TO John Edwards.

So, Obama's image as "above it all" has slipped amongst voters other than his fellow Blacks.

And he still has plenty of states to campaign in that don't have 50% Blacks.

His image has been tarnished by his staff and campaign members' nastiness.

You may not like that, but it's the truth.

So the negative ads came down and the positive ads go up. Must be 48 hours before the election. Everyone wants to wind up on a positive note. You can pretty much set your watch by it.