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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Struggling Clinton throwing 'kitchen sink' at Obama Struggling Clinton throwing 'kitchen sink' at Obama After struggling for months to dent Sen. Barack Obama's candidacy, the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton is unleashing what one Clinton aide called a "kitchen sink" fusillade against Obama, pursuing five lines of attack since Saturday in hopes of stopping his political momentum. The effort reflects not only Clinton's recognition that the next round of primaries - in Ohio and Texas on March 4 - are must-win contests for her. It also highlights her advisers' belief that they can persuade undecided voters to embrace her candidacy at the last minute by drawing sharply worded, attention-grabbing contrasts with Obama. After denouncing Obama over the weekend for an anti-Clinton flier about the NAFTA trade treaty, and then portraying his message of hope Sunday as naive, Clinton delivered a blistering speech Monday that compared Obama's lack of foreign policy experience to that of the candidate George W. Bush. "We've seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security," Clinton said at George Washington University. "We can't let that happen again." With a crucial debate in Cleveland tonight, both Clinton's advisers and independent political analysts said that, by going negative against Obama when polls in Texas and Ohio show a tightening race, Clinton risked alienating voters. Clinton always has been more popular with voters when she appeared Advertisement sympathetic and a fighter; her hard-edged instinct for negative politics, meanwhile, has usually turned off the public. "There's a general rule in politics: A legitimate distinction which could be effective when drawn early in the campaign, often backfires and could seem desperate when it happens in the final hours of a campaign," said Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist who is not working for either candidate. In Clinton's speech Monday, she also portrayed herself as "tested and ready" to be commander in chief, while accusing Obama of believing "that mediation and meetings without preconditions will solve some of the world's most intractable problems." Obama has said he would go further than Clinton to meet with leaders of hostile nations, but he also has said he would prepare for those meetings carefully and would not be blind to the leaders' motives. But the attack that received the most pop on cable TV and the blogs, came after a photo of Obama dressed in ceremonial African garb appeared on the Drudge Report, and the item's author, Matt Drudge, said the image was provided by a Clinton staff member. Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, said if it circulated the photograph, the Clinton campaign had "engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party." In turn, Clinton's new campaign manager, Maggie Williams, issued a withering reply: While she did not take responsibility for the photo, she assailed the Obama campaign for suggesting the photo amounted to fear-mongering imagery. "Enough," Williams' statement began. "If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely."
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I've been watching Hillary's 'struggle' for the past few days. It's... well... hilarious, in an almost surrealistic way. The faces she makes, the bitchy things she says, the almost witch-like dancing on the podium routines... What exactly is her strategy? I am wondering which voters that are now for Obama she thinks she can bring to her side by performing that act? It's bizarre, to say the least. Is she losing her mind now or is this what Bill had to endure for all those long years?
They "debate" tonight, don't they vast?
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