Obama Winning Spin War Over Who's Victim In Campaign
By Greg Sargent - January 24, 2008, 3:57PM
One of the central struggles between the Obama and Hillary campaigns right now is this: Which of the two can successfully persuade voters that he or she is the fair-fighter being victimized by the other's out-of-control aggression? Which of the two can persuade voters that his or her opponent is using a steady stream of vicious, old-style attack politics to prevent history from being made?
Right now -- if media coverage, pundit opinion, and insider chatter among Dems is any guide -- it's hard not to conclude that Obama is winning this particular spin war handily.
At risk of overgeneralizing, much media coverage and commentary right now appears to be hewing closer to the Obama campaign's chosen narrative, which is roughly that the Clinton machine is using every gutter tactic at its disposal to halt the triumph of new politics and the making of history.
Today's Washington Post, for instance, is carrying a front-page piece reporting that Hillary's ad yesterday hitting Obama over his "party of ideas" comment is heightening "unity fears" among prominent Democrats. There's no mention in the article of the ad Obama released yesterday saying Hillary will "say anything" to win. The article also reports that top Democrats are concerned that Big Bad Billary's tactics could result in a "loss of black voters" in a general election. No one seems inclined to ask whether women would be upset at a Hillary loss.
Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, meanwhile, laments that Obama's "professorial and all-too-Stevensonian air" leave him hopelessly unequipped to handle the "two people teaming up against him." And a recent Daily News editorial expressed "distress that the Clintons have crossed the line into attacks." There's been tons more like this, frustrating some Clinton advisers who insist that Obama has managed to go negative on Hillary -- such as in yesterday's ad -- without being tagged in the same way.
"Only a Chicago politician could get away with attacking someone personally and call it the politics of hope," I was told by Democratic National Committeeman and top Hillary fundraiser Robert Zimmerman.
The Clinton camp would have you believe that this can be chalked up purely to the media's desire to "get" the Clintons. "No one has ever lost a media war with the Clintons," longtime Hillary supporter James Carville tells me. "Anybody that goes to the press with any grievance against the Clintons always wins. You can't lose. It's impossible. It's a loaded deck." Bill himself pressed a similar point yesterday, arguing that the press was over-obsessed with his own role.
But I'd argue that a more complex dynamic is at play. Whatever the media's role in this, the fact that this narrative is taking hold can be chalked up to two other factors. The first is that the Obama campaign's very conscious efforts to frame the race this way are working. The second is that this Obama effort has gotten a big assist from the strategic downside of having Bill play such a prominent role. In short, Big Dog's entry, whatever its upsides, has made it far easier for Obama to carve out the role of victim for himself.
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http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/obama_winning_spin_war_over_whos_victim_in_campaign.php
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