Thank You, May I Have Another?

As always, a very thoughtful article for Josh Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo.) And, though it’s tough to read, he makes some points that, I think, reflect the reality of the current state of the Obama campaign.

The Clinton campaign has gotten so deep inside the Obama campaign’s collective head it just ain’t funny — or, depending on your political persuasion, it’s very funny.

Late Tuesday night I wrote that the upshot of the March 4th contests was that Clinton had beaten Obama up a bit and he hadn’t responded. She’d not only bloodied up his poll numbers a bit by throwing all sorts of stuff at him. She also showed that it wasn’t at all clear that Obama was enough of a fighter to stand up to this stuff or get back in her face. More than the delegate numbers, that was the challenge March 4th had left him with.

But since then she’s just been slapping this guy around like crazy. She’s on the offense every day, dictating the terms of the discussion and getting results.

This is the element of American politics I like the least: the incessant need to beat up on your opponent, regardless of party. As that applies to the current campaign, I’m actually more irritated by the effect the attacks are having. They’re working.

This “monster” thing is a good case in point. That’s a pretty over-the-top thing for a key campaign advisor to say. But what it tells me more than that is that the Clinton campaign has these guys rattled really bad. Some of this is no doubt due to the fact that Power is a bit out of her element. She’s more from the academic/policy world than the political/policy world. But, again, rattled. The Clinton folks have been bashing Obama like crazy. Now they follow up by explicitly demanding that Obama fire one of his key foreign policy advisors and … how, long did it take? An hour? And she’s gone.

If boxing is our metaphor she’s got him cornered on the ropes on one side of the ring and she’s just landing punch after punch. And all he can manage are the defensive moves that her constant attacks dictate.

Combine the Power resignation with the Austan Goolsbee/NAFTA dustup from last week, and it’s clear that the Clintoninstas are gutting the Obama campaign like a freshly hooked bass.

Even more disturbing is my rising belief that it may be necessary for Obama to strike back much harder, in sharp contrast to the thoughts of Joe Conason in Slate:

Obama, who has mounted an inspiring and effective campaign, remains the favorite to win the Democratic nomination. And as the contest continues, he should answer every attack by the Clinton camp on his experience, his policies and his rhetoric. But he should stop seeking to divert attention to her supposed ethical problems, and concentrate instead on responding to every serious question that is raised about his finances and his associations. He will have to address them all sooner or later. Sooner would be better for him, the party and the country.

I’d love to believe that the high road will work. But, this primary season is, in the end, going to be about delegates, earned and super. In the case of both, Obama needs to show that he can withstand the fire. No one - consitutents or party officials - will allow a candidate to run against the Republicans who has shown an inability to fight back and to do so strongly. I don’t think Conason’s tack will take with any of the delegates. Josh puts it well.

The Obama folks can either withdraw to a world where the ‘new politics’ reigns or focus on the fact that here in the real world there are two ‘old politics’ practitioners standing between him and the presidency and he needs to decide how he’s going to deal with that fact.

With the Clintons in the race, it’s starting to seem almost naievely idealistic to have believed that this race could have been run in a civil fashion.