Thank Clinton?

Please, world, forgive me for my ingratitude as an Obama supporter. I guess I was too busy pondering the supernatural force it'd take to prevent McCain from making this attack in the general election no matter what. It's a terribly obvious strategy for him to use in the general even if it had never been previously leveled by a Democrat in the primaries. It's a strategy that he'd be sure to use against Hillary should the planets align and pigs fly to deliver her the nomination at this point. The implied attack communicated using the "Experience Counts" campaign McCain is expected to run is that the other candidate lacks precisely that, which is tantamount to saying they're not ready.



That aside, Hillary and her surrogates have already gone on record several times with this negative attack. That she would decline to repeat it directly to Obama's face speaks only to her campaign's calculation as to what might play that particular evening. A smart calculation, as it turns out, when one considers how well her "change you can Xerox" line went over. If McCain and Co. are going to run ads featuring Hillary and Co. making this attack, they already have plenty of clips to do so. Whether this strategy would work against Obama will have more to do with how Obama handles himself in the general than anything a former political opponent might have said. The quick counter to this argument, inspired by Ross Perot in '92, would be, "you're right, I have no experience giving all the tax breaks to the richest amongst us, no experience stripping away our most fundamental constitutional rights out of dumb fear, and no experience whatsoever voting our country into the most idiotic military quagmire in American history!"



The thing I find most interesting about the "Hillary the Magnanimous" argument is how they reconcile this against the above-mentioned Xerox line. If asked, I wonder if Hillary would fess up to authoring that clunker all by herself or if she'd admit to it being handed to her by someone else. If Hillary is now concerned about how Obama will do in the general election, why doesn't she just throw in the towel?