Yesterday’s big news was Hillary Clinton’s “ringing telephone” ad, complete with the assertion that only Hillary would be ready to deal with a crisis that might erupt at three in the morning. It’s clear that the Obama campaign’s response ad pretty much demolished whatever advantage Hillary might have gotten from her argument.
But that’s not the worst of it. In a conference call yesterday, her own campaign aides couldn’t name a moment when Hillary Clinton was “tested by crisis”:
It was, in this reporter’s opinion, the most interesting moment in today’s Clinton campaign phoner with reporters. Responding to the release of HRC’s new TX TV ad, which asserts in no subtle terms that only she has the experience to deal with a major world crisis, and, relatedly, to keep your children safe, Slate’s John Dickerson asked the obvious question:
“What foreign policy moment would you point to in Hillary’s career where she’s been tested by crisis?” he said.
Silence on the call. You could’ve knit a sweater in the time it took the usually verbose team of Mark Penn, Howard Wolfson and Lee Feinstein, Clinton’s national security director, to find a cogent answer. And what they came up with was weak — that she’s been endorsed by many high ranking members of the uniformed military.
You can listen for yourself at the above link.
Matthew Yglesias asks the obvious question:
[T]he more strictly political people walked into a debacle. How could they go forward with that ad without having a good answer to the question on hand? It’s inept in the extreme.
Inept in the extreme. That would make a good title for a book after this campaign is over on Wednesday.
And over at U.S. News, Gloria Borger sums up the mood at Camp Hillary:
[T]here is no joy in Hillaryville. In its place are anger (at the press, for being soft on Barack Obama), angst (at losing 11 straight contests), and apoplexy (at Obama, for daring to challenge a nomination that was supposed to have been wrapped up by now). In an aside at last week’s Ohio debate, Clinton herself noted she hasn’t found much happiness lately. “It’s hard to find time to have fun on the campaign trail,” she said, by way of explaining an anti-Obama screed she had delivered a few days earlier. Translation: This should have been over with already. This wasn’t the plan. I don’t like it.
Don’t you hate it when a plan doesn’t come together ?
Previous Posts
Hillary Clinton Death Watch
Hillary Clinton Death Watch, Afternoon Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Saturday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Sunday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Monday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Tuesday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Wednesday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Thursday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Friday Update
Hillary Clinton Death Watch Friday Afternoon Update
What bugs me is that when Hillary does raise legitimate political issues, such as Obama’s inexperience with the ad yesterday, it is immediately written off as “negative campaigning”. Why does pointing out an opponent’s credentials, or lack thereof, constitute a negative attack? Is Obama “going negative” when he claims Hillary exercised poor judgment in voting for the war? Whether or not one agrees with these arguments, they constitute legitimate political points of contention. Maybe the Clintons have just called wolf so many times, parsing what the meaning of “is” is, etc., that people won’t except credible arguments from them either. But this is a legitimate concern and John McCain and the GOP are definitely licking their chops.
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