As the bruising Democratic Primary season dragged on, Team Clinton attempted to bash Obama's brains in with any club they could get their hands on. There was Jeremiah Wright. There was gun control. There were those 3am calls on 90s-era telephones. (Really - the Senator from New York can't afford a frigging cordless phone?) There were the racially fueled insinuations that Obama would be pummeled as a druggie.
With every new barrage, Obama supports like myself shook our heads and wondered in dismay: How is she ever going to walk back from this?
Well, here we are. The Democratic nominating contest will end some time this week, leaving only a handful of diehards manning the barricades. By next week, Hillary Clinton's only viable political option will be to get behind the Democratic nominee for President, Barack Obama.
The moment this Primary is officially over, the MSM is going to have a field day asking Clinton, her team members, and her high-profile supporters about all their past slanders on Obama. If Team Clinton doesn't have a ready set of replies, they could end up doing more harm than good by fueling the bullshit media narrative of a "fractured" Democratic Party. Clinton needs to walk back her attacks, and walk them back fast.
The question is, how? How does her team counter their own oft-damning slanders of Obama - especially since many of the Clinton team's talking points mirror John McSame's?
[Before I begin: The following assumes that Clinton will actually concede at some point, and not take down the Democratic Party in a hail of appeals and populist torch-waving. Sadly, even at this late hour, it looks like it could go either way.]
The most damning missile the Clinton campaign shot at Obama was the "3am attack" - the idea that Obama is too young and too untested for the awesome responsibility of Leader of the Free World. Buying into the bullshit Republican talking point that the President must be some "yippee-kai-yay-motherfucker" badass willing to nuke terrorists with a flick of his pinky finger, Hillary and her advisors did everything they could to undermine Obama's experience. Bill Clinton chided Obama for having "one year of service in the Senate." Hillary herself urged voters to "get real" and elect the experienced candidate.
Even worse, Clinton said that Obama wasn't even ready for a general election, much less the Presidency:
"I know people look at this campaign and say, well, somebody said this and somebody said that, but by all accounts there haven't been the kind of attack ads that you're going to see in the general election," Clinton said.
She said that based on his previous electoral races, Obama has never been exposed to such bitter attacks.
"The other side has no compunction about raising any issue against whomever they're running against, and we haven't seen that tested and vetted experience this primary," she said of general elections. "And frankly, in his prior election in Illinois, Sen. Obama didn't face anyone who ran attack ads against him."
Clinton's best option here would be to praise Obama as "tested" by the nominating process. Throughout the Primary, Clinton lambasted Obama for not being "ready on Day One," and for napping well past 3 in the morn. She can flip that around by declaring that the Primaries have tested him. Hell, they've tested me, and all I've done is watch.
Given that McCain's campaign continues to pound on the "readiness" theme, it's important that Clinton work overtime to do any damage her campaign caused on this score. And yes, Obama has a handy response: that McCain's "readiness" involves support for an unjust, deadly war. But the "readiness" concern will still linger in the minds of some independents. Clinton muddied those waters; it's up to her to clean 'em up.
This is a rather self-serving talking point, but it fits Clinton's style. (Yes, that was a back-handed compliment.) To use some geek terminology, it's also backwards-compatible with her campaign, during which she defended her "hot kitchen" approach to the Primary:
"I have to tell you that there have even been some things said about me. I don't take any of it personally, and I don't take most of it seriously," she said. "If you can't take the heat, don't run for president, because it's a very hot kitchen in the White House."
See? Hillary did Barack a favor by attempting to tear out his heart and eat it with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Now that she's lost the nomination, she and her team can attest that they put Obama through Hell's Kitchen - and that he came out unscathed. What better proving ground for the high-pressure job of the Presidency? Clinton can even spice it up with a little poll-tested humility, acknowledging that Obama and his team proved just how wrong she was about his readiness to fight and to lead.
Beyond the "readiness" debacle, the other phony fire the Clinton camp helped fuel was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright "scandal." While Obama was busy dissociating himself from his former pastor, Clinton made a point of emphasizing that she would never have exercised such poor judgment. The Wright controversy was arguably the pinnacle of nastiness in this brutal campaign, leading NYT columnist Bob Herbert to talk about the Democrats' "circular firing squad."
Team Clinton will need some talking points on hand when pressed about how they view the Wright controversy in the Primary aftermath. The best they can do here is to argue that Obama has dealt with that situation, and that it's time to move on. Clinton, McAuliffe et. al. can praise Barack's "swift and decisive response" to the controversy, and emphasize his instant denunciation of the untoward remarks of Rev. Michael Pfleger to boot. (Really, Reverend. We all have our bad days, but...what the hell were you thinking?!) Any press attempts to revisit the controversy, in other words, can be spun as paeans to Obama's decency and civility.
What other controversies will Clinton need to defuse post-primary? How else can she and her team walk about the readiness and Wright attacks? How can she talk down her supporters, who are still promulgating fact-free innuendo and vowing to take it to Denver? Post your thoughts below...