The time is right to reverse the field. Obama has always been the one calling for a more positive campaign. If he ups the ante on this point right now, it will be both the right thing to do AND politically effective.
There were lots of good reasons for Obama to go on the attack against Clinton over the last month and a half. He had to show some Democrats that he would be tough enough to fight back against Republican Swiftboating. He had to remind the media and the public of the substantial negatives that the Clintons bring with them. He had to show that he had street cred to go along with the power of his ideas.
And let's not be squeamish. He did attack Clinton, and not always in the most noble or uplifting ways. Some of the Clinton statements that the Obama campaign has pounced on and exploited were simple slips, and in an ideal world, in a nobler campaign, they would have passed without comment.
But it's time for a shift in tactics. With angry supporters starting to bring up Monica, Whitewater, even Vince Foster, the time has come for a renewed call to positive campaigning that will incidentally leave the Clintons sputtering.
Here's how it works--at some point in the next few days, somebody somewhere will criticize Hillary and bring up some scandal from the Clinton White House years. Obama should take the opportunity to defend her:
"Bill and Hillary Clinton rightly earned the loyalty of many Democrats when they suffered through the most vicious and virulent personal attacks, attacks that cheapened our political culture substantially. They earned my personal respect by the way they persevered through those unfair assaults. They were the victims of an ugly shift that took place in this country when it became acceptable to sift through every donor, every investment for insinuations of evildoing that could be exploited, to spend millions of dollars on special prosecutors to set perjury traps and tie up the White House with document requests and litigation. Their ongoing success is a testament to their persistence and determination against these attacks. I honor their experience and their service."
"What's important now is to lift our political culture up out of the gutter. I apologize for the times when my campaign or my supporters have unfairly criticized Senator Clinton over what are ultimately petty, minor quibbles that have nothing to do with the serious issues our country faces. We will strive to do better. I would ask Senator Clinton to do the same for the remainder of the campaign. So long as we remain strong and united as Democrats, we will prevail in November and the Democratic candidate, whoever she or he may be, will become the next President of the United States."
- People are getting really tired of the campaign right now. I think they will respond to something like this.
- He will look gallant for speaking up for the Clintons. Their sliming of Wright will look cheap in contrast.
- Even if all it does is slow down the negativity for a week or so, that helps him get further along on the calendar with fewer opportunities for a major collapse.
- The subtext is, "they should know better." And it will subtly remind the media that any criticisms of Obama's house purchase or Rezko connections coming from the targets of the Whitewater probe take a lot of gall. The Presidency is not an entitlement for the victimized.
- It connects to the theme that the Clintons have joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. More substantively, it suggests that the Clintons learned the wrong lesson--it must feel only fair to them to use these same weapons against their opponents. Obama can be inspirational in contrast.
- He will need to do this against McCain as well, as the Republicans also will have to go negative in order to beat Obama. The more he can innoculate the public against that, the better. The more he engages in the dirty back-and-forth, the weaker he is on the experience issue.
- It will require actually letting up on attacks. But there are a lot of anti-Clinton strands already floating around out there that the media will follow up on without the Obama campaign stirring them up--the tax returns, the Tuzla episode, the FMLA claims, the exploitation of the African American church. Let them play out without him for a while.
What do you think?