I saw this on Josh Marshall's TPM and was floored. Is this Obama's primary campaign strategy going forward?
More after the break...
This is an excerpt from the mailer,
Obama Directly Attacks Bill's Presidency, Blames It For Massive Dem Losses
By Greg Sargent - February 6, 2008, 12:38PM
In what may be Obama's most direct and aggressive criticism of Bill Clinton's presidency yet, the Obama campaign dropped a new mailer just before Super Tuesday that blasts "the Clintons" for wreaking massive losses on the Democratic party throughout the 1990s.
"8 years of the Clintons, major losses for Democrats across the nation," reads the mailer, which goes on to list the post-1992 losses suffered by Dems among governors, Senators and members of the House of Representatives. The mailer was forwarded to us by a political operative who told us it was sent to Alaska, though it was probably sent elsewhere, too.
The article has images from the mailer, which you can see in this link-
TPM Election Central article
This is a rovian tactic, sending local mails that fly under the media radar. Obviously aimed at the superdelegates.
But this will also be a GOP campaign tactic going forward. Is Obama willing to be a trojan horse for the GOP, in order to secure his win? He will be guaranteed to make the convention become a civil war between Obama ns and Clintonians, which will take precious months to heal.
I lived through the catastrophic 1968 convention, with police riots outside the doors, and delegates and reporters being beat up on camera. The party never recovered, and Humphrey lost to Nixon.
At least we Democrats had the Vietnam war as our reason for the ugliness. But that signaled the end of our lock on power and ushered in 40 years of Republican rule, with only Carter and Clinton as the exceptions and even then they were going against the Conservative tide of the day.
This time the GOP has lost their mooring and the people are turning to the Dems for answers. We don't need to tear our party apart at this time. We need for Obama and Clinton to fight for the nomination in a way that inspires voters to feel good about our party and it's leaders.
The last debate was the examplar for how we should be conducting this primary campaign. At the end of that debate the audience was electrified by both candidates and even the media was blown away by the power of that image of the two candidates who each showed their strengths and weaknesses. But it gave a powerful impression of a party ready and fully able to take our country back.
Clinton was punished for using negative tactics against a fellow Democrat. Obama should heed the lesson he taught his opponent, and fight his fight with light, not darkness.