Photo Gallery The Clintons at War
Hillary Clinton's original strategy was to not take Barack Obama seriously as a candidate. After he handily defeated her in the Iowa caucus, however, she switched her strategy and adopted agressive battle tactics.
Clintons advisers had urged her to "go negative" -- but never so directly. The key to character assassination is to have surrogates drive the daggers home, such as that about Obama's admitted drug use or work for an indicted Chicago "slumload." What some might consider the "dream team" of Hillary and Bill Clinton is starting to be seen by many as the "mean team."
In many ways, former President Bill Clinton has been Hillary's "bad cop" and aggressive to the point that Obama has complained: "I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes." For example, Clinton recently chided a CNN reporter for calling the Clinton tactics negative and accused the reporter of being fed stories from the Obama campaign. Some have thought such activities "beneath the dignity of a former president."
In developing below-the-belt tactics, the Clintons have been inspired by the work of psychologist Drew Westen, who has a low opinion of polite restraint as a campaign tactic and writes that it is a widespread myth among Democrats that negative campaigning is unethical, ineffective and, if practiced by an adversary, better left unanswered.
For the most part, Obama has tried to avoid an open brawl with Clinton, chosing instead to pound home his nice-guy message of hope and change. "I don't want to spend the next year," he has said, "refighting the same fights we had in the 1990s." But, in some ways, these rhetorical digs are like loading a gun with flowers -- a poor match for the Clinton artillery.
One tactic of the Clinton's has been to get Obama off his everyman "uniter" rhetorical stance and force him to try to appeal more to black voters and thereby -- supposedly -- become more of a minority candidate, an outsider who speaks on behalf of too few people to be able to represent the entire country.
Another reason to encourage racial polarization is the theroy that by depicting Obama as a candidate more popular with blacks, Hillary might secure more Latino voters in the Southwest. The logic is based on the belief that there is tension between African Americans and Latinos and studies that show that many immigrants from Latin American countries are against having a black president.
While her advisers work the rumor channels and her husband delivers the bite, Hillary is free to stand a bit back from the fray. Despite much barking, she still can present a "cleaner," softer side to the country.
In the end, Hillary's hope is to be able to wave goodbye to Obama's presidential ambitions and still have enough fire and strength to deliver body blows to the eventual Republican nominee.
After his sound drubbing of Clinton in South Carolina, however, Obama might just want Clinton to hold on a bit ... or at least the numbers from Super Tuesday are in, when it'll be more apparent if Hillary's tactics worked.
