NOVEMBER 1, 2007
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This passage from today's New York Times piece on Hillary and illegal immigrant driver's licenses sounded strange to me:
After the debate, Mrs. Clinton did not again publicly address the [driver's license] issue herself, but her campaign struck back at Mr. Obama by mocking his theme of “the politics of hope.”
“With each attack, Senator Obama undermines the central premise of his candidacy,” said Mark Daley, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign. “The politics of hope that once characterized his remarks has now been replaced by the kinds of jabs one typically sees from candidates desperate to gain traction in the polls.”
Wrapping Obama's "politics of hope" mantra around his neck turned out to be a great way of discouraging him from taking on Hillary more aggressively. But, now that he and Edwards are both doing that, continuing to remind people about the "politics of hope" seems like pretty feeble stuff. I suspect people will make their own decision about whether or not he's abandoning the politics of hope. And, having made their decision, they're still going to want to hear what Hillary has to say about this or that specific issue or accusation. I don't see how reminding people that Obama pledged to campaign on the politics of hope gets her off the hook.
--Noam Scheiber
12 comments
The ATPOH (Abandoning the Politics of Hope) jab is itself one of "the kinds of jabs one typically sees from candidates desperate to gain traction in the polls."
It sounds like Clinton's camp is saying to Obama, "Welcome to the gutter!"
I happen to hate all this nonsense. There is nothing wrong with candidates criticizing each other. It's a DEBATE, not a therapy session. Obama should have come back with something to that effect, saying that if Clinton can't handle some gentle probing from fellow Democrats, how will she hold up against Republicans?
- stgla
November 1, 2007 at 1:54pm
But wait! The Hillary Machine is VAUNTED! They're SAVVY! She's SMART! She's EXPERIENCED! She's TOUGH!
And then they get hit by some second-rate attacks from Obama and they whine to the media like little babies?
How will they stand up to the Republicans? How many "You can't attack me! I'm a woman!" press releases will the media tolerate?
Of course, none of this is surprising to me. Hillary is a second-rate politician with a record of catastrophic failure (healthcare) and midjudgement (Iraq).
- virginiacentrist
November 1, 2007 at 1:59pm
VC
In addition to the flaws you just mentioned, I am beginning to see her as thin-skinned, whiny, arrogant, dishonest, and small-minded.
But otherwise, I think she's better than Rudy and Romney -- both of whom share some of those same faults.
- purcellneil
November 1, 2007 at 2:10pm
"I don't see how reminding people that Obama pledged to campaign on the politics of hope gets [Hillary] off the hook."
It wouldn't, if anybody could ever be bothered to ask her a damn follow-up question.
- ejbenjamin
November 1, 2007 at 2:14pm
"...about whether or not ..."
Sorry pal, but take it from--in a past life--a once upon a time English teacher, the "or not" in your phrase is redundant since it is necessarily implicit in "whether".
Editors: a country not heard from here.
- basman
November 1, 2007 at 3:22pm
Neil -
I'd support her ENTHUSIASTICALLY in the general election against the GOP (though I admit I have a soft spot for Giuliani). But primaries are about debate! So I'm scorching her now.
- virginiacentrist
November 1, 2007 at 4:40pm
basman -- Thanks. I always find it disappointing that there aren't more pedantic corrections of minor grammatical errors in Talkback.
Good points all around here. ... I'm pro-Obama (and frankly, anti-Clinton) enough to feel a little unsure on this, but it seems to me that Clinton's campaign is putting out a horrible response to a dreadful debate performance -- potentially fomenting some very serious negative public perceptions of their candidate: The whole victim angle feels, as Neil suggests, thin-skinned, whiny, arrogant, small-minded, ... and cheap. Moreover, the more they repeat this "What about the politics of hope"? whine, the more, and more clearly, people are likely see that the campaign is just trying to shield Clinton from scrutiny by pretending that Obama's invocation of the "politics of hope" was a promise not to engage her substantively on any issue whatsoever. It's a joke.
- J.J. Gould
November 1, 2007 at 5:02pm
J.J. Gould
"basman -- Thanks. I always find it disappointing that there aren't more pedantic corrections of minor grammatical errors in Talkback."
You are welcome.
People who say "whether or not" are right up there with those who say "irregardless" and use "impact" as a verb. And for my money, these mistakes are a few small steps away from the kinds of complaints Orwell made about bad wriiting in "Politics And the Englsih Language." A publication of this calibre, occupying the very high place it deservedly has in American culture, deserves to be called out for such terrible writing by one of its main posters.
p.s. There's no chance you were damning me with faint praise, is there? Like none, right?
- basman
November 1, 2007 at 6:02pm
This is an old fight, and Obama does keep swinging back. He didn't do it at the debate because she didn't try it at the debate. She does it by emails and press releases, and he responds with same. His latest says something like "politics of hope doesn't mean hoping you don't get asked tough questions". But he answered it thoroughly in the ny times interview a couple of days ago. I am too lazy to link. He said the obvious, that he never promised to not distinguish his positon from hers.
- psantillana
November 1, 2007 at 6:13pm
basman!
Yay! I hate impact as a verb! My praise is not faint! I would like to add that I hate visual as a noun.
- psantillana
November 1, 2007 at 6:15pm
basman -- Not damning by faint praise, just teasin' a little. Blog posting involves a trade-off between speed and thorough self-editing. Small mistakes are routine in the medium and shouldn't, I think, be taken too seriously. As someone who works with people who routinely use "impact" as a verb, I, too, appreciate your vigilence on behalf of the English language. I'd just suggest that it's appropriate to treat blog posts more as dashed off notes for prompting conversations than as proper compositions. Sometimes it's OK to leave the red pen in the drawer.
Here's the NYT piece psantillana refers to -- er, to which psantillana refers:
www.nytimes.com/.../28obama.html
- J.J. Gould
November 1, 2007 at 6:53pm
J.J. Gould
I take your point to a point. And I don't get too excited about mistakes in the Talkback posts---I make my share of them, Lord knows. But I guess I figure that the main posters should try to guard against the too obvious gaffes like "whether or not" and locutions of that grating ilk.
- basman
November 1, 2007 at 9:30pm