"Bubba" is stumped - Bill can't help Hillary

I liked Barack Obama before, but I’m loving him now that he’s finally going on offense. His campaign is still about the politics of hope, but he had to adapt his approach because the conditions on the ground in the first important state (Iowa) have changed. I’m talking about John Edwards’ plans to accept federal matching funds - an admission that his campaign is dead in the water - and the fact that Hillary Clinton is now selling a two-for-one Hill & Bill package. This weakness on the part of both campaigns means the time is right for Barack to ratchet up the rhetoric, and few things make me happier than Hillary Clinton being exposed as the fraud that she is.

Clintons don’t take positions, they position themselves. In the New Hampshire debate, Sen. Clinton was asked about her loyalty in a Cubs/Yankees World Series (she’s from Chicago, but represents New York). She replied, “I would probably have to alternate sides.” The next day, Barack spoke to a rally in New York City saying, “Even your senator of New York wasn’t clear about the Yankees. Ah, I know who I‘m rooting for, the White Sox. I know my team.” It was a sign of things to come.

In that debate, she tried to distance herself from her husband. Asked if political family dynasties are healthy in a democracy, she said, “I’m running on my own. I’m going to the people on my own.” Polling in Iowa which had her tied with Obama and trailing Edwards by eight points in May now has her leading Edwards by seven points. Did she take her message to the people of Iowa and win them over? Not so much. Instead, she trotted out her not-so-secret weapon (Bill) twice this summer, and he delivered a fifteen-point swing. I guess she’s on her own unless she’s losing, then she’ll go back on her word in order to win. After all, she’s a Clinton.

I don’t think that motivated Barack to kick it up a notch because I don’t think he’s scared of her or her husband. He’s raised more money than any candidate in history, and in 25 weeks built a network of supporters bigger than the one the Clintons have been working on for the last 25 years. I think he was counting on the press to ask Sen. Clinton about her voting record, her position on Iraq, and to explain the difference between the two. But the Clintons are now leveraging access to Bill in exchange for favorable coverage of Hillary, like when they forced GQ editor Jim Nelson to choose between running an unflattering piece about Hillary’s campaign and another GQ writer’s seat on Bill’s plane when he went to Africa in July. The story was killed.

So Barack is taking his anti-war message to Iowa Democrats himself because, after all, the Democrats are an anti-war party. Conveniently, Sen. Clinton just cast a vote which shows she’s learned nothing over the last five years, and how out of touch with voters she is. In 2002, she voted to authorize the president to wage war in Iraq, but without reading the National Intelligence Estimate on the Iraq threat. Barack described that vote last week saying, “She says that she wasn’t really voting for war back in 2002, she was voting for more inspections, or she was voting for more diplomacy. But all of us know what was being debated in the Congress in the fall of 2002. We didn't need to authorize a war in order to have United Nations weapons inspections. No one thought Congress was debating whether or not to conduct diplomacy. The headlines on October 12, 2002 did not read: ‘Congress authorizes diplomacy with Iraq’ - the headlines on October 12, 2002 read ‘Congress backs war.’"

A few weeks ago, she voted for an amendment stating it should be the policy of the U.S. to use “military instruments” against Iran. Barack hit her on that saying, “Why is this amendment so dangerous? Because George Bush and Dick Cheney could use this language to justify keeping our troops in Iraq as long as they can point to a threat from Iran. And because they could use this language to justify an attack on Iran as a part of the ongoing war in Iraq. I don't want to give this President any excuse, or any opening for war. Because as we learned with the authorization of the Iraq War - when you give this President a blank check, you can't be surprised when he cashes it.”

If he keeps up like this, the press will have to start asking her those questions she knows she can’t answer – and even big, bad Bubba won’t be able to save her bacon.