A Prediction . . . Obama comes out swinging

I have been in a bit of a funk over the recent developments regarding NAFTA and Hillary's increasingly vitriolic campaign to elect John McCain.  Today David Brooks has decided to try and talk Obama's campaign out of going after Hillary's secrecy and duplicitousness.  I'm not buying it.  In the last several days the Clinton Campaign has overreached and overreached badly.

Expect Obama to begin hammering her today in Wyoming and for his surrogates to do the same in their ubiquitous conference calls later today.

Thus far, the Obama campaign has been reluctant to go after Hillary. One thesis, posited by Brooks, is that Obama is trying to run a positive campaign and so doesn't want to be seen in a knife fight.  But I think that his reluctance at least in part thus far has been the result of a desire not to seem overly mean. In running against the first viable female presidential candidate the problem is how to attack without it being conflated as mysoginy.

Fortunately for Obama, Clinton's recent efforts to push her ill-gotten advantage coming out of March 4th are classic overreaches.  She has gone hyberbolic in her praise for our sworn enemy John McCain.  Look for Obama to tie them together and to Bush in coming days.

On another front her hypocritical exploitation of the press's shoddy, initial version of NAFATgate will also increasingly make the 4th estate reluctant to listen to her charges of bias and more willing to listen to Obama's. NAFTAgate worries me because the media has not been running with it. However, I have a little faith, if not in the desires of the media to be truthful, then their desire to cover scandal.  I predict that the NY Times runs an expose on her role in NAFTAgate on Sunday's front page. The story may make use extensively of unnamed sources within the Harper administration, but it will bring to light her two-facedness with regards to NAFTAgate and her surrogates "grain of salt" comment. Look for Obama to begin to call for them to make it right and report her involvement, and overturn the blanket denial in the process.

Her final overreach equated Obama with Ken Starr. Obama's crime: simply asking for the same level of transparency with regards to tax returns that she asked for from Rick Lazio in their 2000 Senate race. Her campaign has slyly tried to indicate that the returns won't be available until the 15th, a surprisingly effective delay tactic.  Expect Obama's surrogates to make clear that the 2000-06 returns being requested are just a Xerox machine away.  Also watch for them to also extend the charges of secrecy to the presidential library.

Now if Obama can shut up his surrogates he should be just fine.