Ever since Hillary Clinton rolled out the new theme "solutions," contrasting her own proposed ability to provide them against the supposed empty rhetoric of the Obama campaign, I've been having flashbacks to GW Bush using that awkward emphasis of his while he belted out "a reformer, WITH RESULTS!" I think it's essentially the same message and I have the gut feeling that it's no accident. I guess it makes a kind of sense to try to steal the playbook of the team that's winning, but it also runs the risk of showing the Clinton campaign to be as calculating and shifty as opponents have been claiming.
More after the jump..
And it's by now no secret that the Clinton campaign has been using Republican tactics in digging up as much dirt as they can and flinging it all against the Obama campaign, hoping some of it will stick. It's the kind of thing that, by now, you expect from all campaigns. Once again, it's the team of wannabe's copying from the winners playbook. But it really isn't true that all campaigns use these tactics. It seems as if the Obama campaign has made a strategic decision not to do that sort of thing because it wouldn't jibe with their emphasis on changing the tone in Washington.
But even having made that connection, that the Clintons are copying GW's campaign talking points and Republican tactics, taking plays from the Republican playbook in other words, I never expected to see what I just saw over on Talking Points Memo. Take a look at the video they put up this morning, called "A Tale of 3 Speeches." They don't make the point in their text, but the editing of the video makes it clear that they're onto the similarity I'm talking about, and it is truly shocking. Clinton and McCain could be reading from the same speech.
See the video A Tale of 3 Speeches at TPM.
I haven't put up a diary in well over a year. I don't have a lot to say most of the time, though I do read every day. But here, in words and deeds, is what is to me the essential point to take away from the primary season. What Nader used to say back in 2000 has finally come true, in a way. There's not a dime's difference between the campaign styles of Clinton and the Republicans. They are the same. I think this is an important thing to consider while going forward.
I have always liked and respected Senator Clinton. I thought, before this primary season, that she'd make a fine president, probably better than her husband had been. But the tenor and style of her campaign has changed my mind. Doing things the way they are makes sense if you are running a football team, when winning is the only consideration. What the Clinton campaign is telling me is that winning has become more important than anything else. I know I'm idealistic, but I don't want my president thinking that way. I want my president thinking about how to make things better, you know, "solutions". But the deed has got to match the word.
I'm sure many folks will say this is an issue of campaign style and nothing more. I have the one nagging worry, though: What assurances would we have that Clinton would stop acting like a Republican after the elections are all over?
Just watch that video.