Flashback: January 4, 2004

[wyldwolf]

"He is a good guy, but I truly believe he is a Republican," Howard Dean said of retired Army general and former NATO supreme commander Wesley Cark, January 2004

"I don't want a continuation of Bush-Cheney. I don't want Bush-Cheney lite". Barack Obama, referring to Hillary Clinton, July 2007

[Colobo]

1. I don't want Bush-Cheney lite either. Do you?

[wyldwolf]

3. nope, but I don't want Nader-lite, either

[FrenchieCat]

2. Are you saying the tactics are the same?

Cause I would see it differently.

In January of 2004, Clark had very little history with voters for them to judge him on.....and so, it was easy for what Howard Dean was stating to be thought to be true.......and although Clark was never a Republican, Clark himself had admitted to voting for Republicans Reagan and Nixon in past presidential elections. Add that to the fact that Clark was not a registered Democrat until shortly after throwing his hat into the ring, gave Dean's statement some basis for technical credence at the time.


Clinton has a strong record with Voters, and so whatever Obama says about the senator can be judged on by individual voters much more easily.

[wyldwolf]

4. yep

Not discounting anything you've said, the tactic plays on the emotions of a very small part of the party who've set up standards and benchmarks for what constitutes a "real Democrat."

You realize, don't you, that Obama would not be allowed to make that insinuation on DU?

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. Well in both cases those are fighting words

and voters can themselves decide how in bounds or out of bounds fighting words are in the context of a heated campaign. I know for certain that Howard Dean would not say anything like that now. When fighting words are spoken they usually either follow or preceed a fight, so I expect we will see/hear more hard wrestling between the Obama and Clinton camps.

While agreeing that any comparison to Bush-Cheney is fighting words, I think Obasma's clear inference here was that Clinton's approach to diplomacy with adversaries was Bush-Cheney light, not that Hillary Clinton herself is Bush-Cheney light.