The Literary Divide/Dr. Paul Barrows
| As Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic Nomination meanders through its final stages, it’s desperate times that call for desperate tactics. It appears that the Clinton campaign is now calling for a scorched-earth strategy that will do all it can do to search and destroy and leave no prisoners in its wake in attempting to elevate her while bringing down Senator Obama’s campaign. Senator Clinton has adopted the strategy of aligning herself with Senator John McCain on issues of defense and trust with the obvious implication that Americans cannot feel confident about Obama on such issues. It’s the old adage; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Some of the pundits are positing that Clinton is doing so because, even in the worse case scenario, a McCain win would give her the opportunity to run again within the next four years; whereas with an Obama win, she would be relegated to the sidelines for another eight years. The latest flare-up occurred when Clinton criticized Obama for remarks that he made while fundraising in San Francisco. Senator Obama commented that many of the people in rural Pennsylvania were very frustrated and bitter about the fact that they had lost jobs, income, healthcare and other benefits during the years of the former Clinton Administration. Obama reflected that this sense of frustration expressed itself in many by getting them to look to their faith, be less sensitive to people who are different or who are immigrants, and to give more rise to the gun culture. Senator Clinton’s campaign has had a very rough time over the past two weeks. After one full week of getting battered by the media for her tale about sniper fire in Bosnia, her husband Bill extended the shelf-life of this issue for one additional agonizing week when he tried to defend Hillary by saying she told him about the sniper fire at 11:00PM and got it wrong because “she was tired.” President Clinton made matters worse when he got caught telling more lies in defense of the original lie. Things further backfired when pundits and late night comedians poked fun at Senator Clinton saying how can we expect her to be ready for the red alert call at 3:00AM if she doesn’t have a clear head at 11:00PM? To shift the focus, Senator Clinton used this opportunity to attack Senator Obama claiming that he was elitist and insensitive to the cultural morays of people who lived in rural American. What Senator Clinton has done here mirrors her positions in matching herself with John McCain. She has grabbed onto the “Red State” strategy that the Republicans have used throughout the South and rural American. That strategy, which Carl Rove has made famous and effective for President Bush, calls for putting the focus on hot button social issues in order to get poor and blue collar Whites not to vote for Democratic candidates who best represent their economic and political issues. It is the so-called “gays and guns” strategy. The Clinton campaign trotted out several surrogates on the Sunday News media circuit to try to give broader legitimacy to this strategy. Michael Nutter, the African American Mayor of Philadelphia interviewed with the right winger Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday where he admonished Senator Obama for making elitist comments that were out of touch with the cultures of rural Pennsylvanians. Former Senator Tom Daschle, Co-National Campaign Director for the Obama campaign, was right in proclaiming that the comments of both Senator Clinton and Mayor Nutter were the ones that were out of touch with reality. On the notion that Obama was elitist, Daschle contrasted Senator Clinton’s privileged background with that of Senator Obama who was raised by a single parent, who lived in the Southside of Chicago working as an advocate for the disadvantaged. Daschle suggested that Mayor Nutter, not Obama, was the one who was out of touch with the needs, frustrations and bitterness of his constituents in Philadelphia and the poor and blue collar workers throughout the state of Pennsylvania. Senator Obama has struck back making mockery of Senator Clinton’s renewed interest in guns and the right to bear arms. Obama noted, Senator Clinton “is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment. She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley.” The use of the Republican gays and guns strategy in the Clinton campaigns attempt to woo rural White blue collar workers is a flawed and desperate strategy that can only fail. It will fail because the bulk of those voters will more than likely vote Republican in the presidential election anyway. Pandering to the right wing may help the Clinton campaign in the short-term by shifting the focus off of her foibles and bringing Obama down. In the long run, it may well serve to backfire by alienating a substantial proportion of the liberal base of the Democratic Party as the Clinton campaign moves forward. The sad part about all of this is that Senator McCain continues to get a reprieve from media and national scrutiny for his flip flops on tax cuts, his support for the war that continues to be a quagmire, and his own admission that he doesn’t have a clue about what to do to address the ailing economy. |
Desperate times dictate desperate tactics