With Barack Obama's win in Wyoming yesterday bringing him back to a 110 delegate lead over Hillary Clinton, the battle becomes more pointed and as the Democratic candidates continue to step up attacks against each other, the McCain strategy emerges.
Washington Post reports that some uncommitted superdelegates are waiting before they are going to pledge their superdelegate vote because they believe that this battle between Clinton and Obama is going to take them into the Democratic National Convention without a clear front runner.
"You're going to see a lot of delegates remaining uncommitted," said Rep. Mike Doyle (Pa.), who has not endorsed either candidate. "There's a sense that this is going to Denver not resolved."
Hillary Clinton bets on experience and National Security as an issue.
In a highly criticized gamble, Hillary Clinton steered the conversation to the issue of National Security to highlight her belief that she is better prepared to protect the country in a time of crisis than Barack Obama is and according to some Democratic supporters, she was willing to throw the Democratic party as a whole, "under the bus", if she was not the candidate nominated.
What those supporters were pointing to was a comment that Hillary Clinton made, which she has now made multiple times, where she said, "I think you'll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say. He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002."
Video of that comment can be found on a previous Digital Journal.com article, found here.
Those comments were made in conjunction with a new ad that Hillary Clinton's campaign team produced, some call it the "red phone" ad, and others refer to it as the "3 am" ad, where the question is posed to the public, "It's 3:00am and your children are asleep. There's a phone in the White House, and it's ringing. Something is happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether someone knows the world's leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead. It's 3am and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?"
What Clinton clearly meant to highlight in that ad was that she was better prepared to answer that "3 am" call than Obama was, but that gamble appeared to have helped John McCain, because according to Rasmussen, who is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information, when respondents were polled on that very question, John McCain was seen as the person 42 percent of those questioned thought should be answering that phone, while Clinton and Obama both received 25 percent.
Before Rasmussen even put that question to the public, Democratic supporters were already declaring, "Hillary Cuts an Ad ... for McCain".
Hillary and Bill Clinton, having been in the political realm far longer than Barack Obama, seems to peripherally understand that this prolonged battle between Obama and Clinton, could only serve to help one person, John Mccain.
To that end, both Bill and Hillary Clinton have floated the idea publicly that perhaps a Clinton/Obama ticket would be an "unstoppable force", but even though Clinton is 110 delegates behind Obama, she and her husband insist that Clinton should be at the top of that ticket and Obama should be listed second, as vice president.
As was pointed out yesterday in an article done by HCDL, Obama has ruled that out, stating, "You won’t see me as a vice presidential candidate -- you know, I’m running for president. We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count -- but you know, what I’m really focused on right now, because all that stuff is premature, is winning this nomination and changing the country."
The McCain strategy emerges.
Months ago it was widely assumed that the battle for the Democratic nomination for presidency would be settled early and the Republicans would be fighting over who their candidate would be.
Things didn't work out that way and the Republicans have settled on John McCain and it is the Democrats locked into a neck and neck cut throat battle for who will win their nomination.
This has given McCain what the Washington Post describes as McCain sitting in the "Campaign's Catbird Seat as Democrats Bicker", which is the headline itself.
The article goes on to describe how the bickering between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has given John McCain the unique opportunity handed to him, to exploit that ongoing bickering.
As his rivals clash over who is qualified to answer a 3 a.m. phone call in the White House, McCain will meet with foreign leaders in Europe and the Middle East. While Obama and Clinton argue about do-over primaries in Florida and Michigan, McCain will be free to roam the country, giving speeches, holding town-hall meetings and raking up cash.
As the article further points out, the bickering between Obama and Clinton, leaves him free to take a 10 trip to Europe, and possibly to Iraq, as part of a congressional delegation, while he and other Senators meet with foreign leaders.
This puts McCain in the media as standing on the world stage with foreign leaders, holding news conferences in world capitals and giving policy speeches, and he has the freedom to do this because Obama and Clinton are too involved for the fight for the Democratic nomination, to take the fight to McCain.
"When you are standing on the world stage with significant international leaders, and the Democrats are throwing deck chairs at each other, there is a dichotomy to the race that works in our favor -- particularly when the Democrats are having a fight over preparedness, experience and readiness," said one top aide, who requested anonymity because the trip has not been publicly announced.
This strategy of the McCain campaign was handed to them on a silver platter and in politics, a chance like this doesn't come every day, especially in a battle for presidency of the United States of America.
Some are actually that McCain is blessing his good fortune as we see from an article written by Andrew Rawnsley from the Observer, published by the Guardian.
John McCain, meanwhile, blesses his good fortune. The more bitter the contest between the two Democrats, the better it is for McCain. The more focus there is on the murk surrounding the Clintons, the better it is for McCain. The more questions raised about Obama's experience, the better it is for McCain. The more the two Democrats contend that the other is unfit to step inside the White House, the more likely it is that the next President will be neither of them.
Hillary's three pronged strategy to beat Obama.
The Times Online shows Hillary Clinton's "three ways to win" and they explain that Clinton aims to win the popular vote, secure reruns in Florida and Michigan and undermine Obama's credibility as the candidate to beat McCain.
However, the new strategy explains why Clinton is prepared to mount an assault on Obama that risks handing victory to McCain in the autumn. It is worth badly wounding her rival because she believes she has found a way to win.
Winning is everything in American politics, but usually it is the Democrats against Republicans or vice versa, and it is very off putting to some Democratic supporters that Hillary Clinton would be willing to risk the "ultimate" victory, which would be a Democrat taking the White House, to win the short term victory of being the candidate to go up against McCain in November.
Former senator Bill Bradley, who is a leading supporter of Obama and ran for president in 2000, points to the danger within the Democratic party, regarding Democratic supporters when he says about Hillary Clinton, "The bigger the lie, the better the chance they think they’ve got. That’s been their whole approach. She’s going to lose a whole generation of people who got involved in politics believing it could be something different."
Bradley believes that Clinton will stop at nothing to tear down Obama even if it boosts John McCain, who was confirmed last week as the Republican nominee: “The Clintons do not do long-term planning. They’re total tacticians and right now their focus is on Obama, not McCain.”
The reality facing Barack Obama.
Living here in America, I have a unique birds-eye view into the hypocrisy of American politics as well as supporters of both Democrats and Republicans.
I have heard, read and seen in comment sections of blogs, media outlets and forums, that supporters of both sides of the political aisle would like to see a campaign run on issues without negative attacks that have nothing to do with the issues that face America.
On the Republican side of things, I see members of the conservative party make this claim and yet when Bill Cunningham, a radio talk show host, referred repeatedly to Barack Hussein Obama and called the Democratic presidential candidate a "hack, Chicago-style" politician, John McCain quickly and denounced those comments.
Conservatives from all over came down hard on McCain for denouncing those remarks, despite the fact that some of the very same conservatives have "claimed" to want a "clean campaign", showing the hypocrisy of that claim.
Hypocrisy on the other side is the same, they claim to want a "clean campaign" and yet criticize Obama for not going totally negative on Hillary Clinton.
The problem that faces Barack Obama now is that, as Ohio and Texas proved, negative campaigning, sadly, works and he is stuck with the option of letting Hillary Clinton attack at will in her bid for the nomination, without getting into the mud with her, thereby showing he truly wants a change in the way politicians do things or he can fight back in the manner that he is being fought against.
The biggest challenge for Obama is to go on the attack without forfeiting his claim to represent a new kind of politics. Campaigning in Wyoming on the eve of yesterday’s caucuses, Obama said he was not going to be “drawn into a knife fight” and used humour to defuse the impact of the “red phone” ad.
For Obama, this may just be the perfect example of why his inexperience does matter and will hurt him in the end, because if he is not willing to fight back on Clinton's terms, which the unfortunate reality is, the way American politics works, then despite his delegate lead, and despite him being what many claim to want, he will not win the Democratic nomination for presidency of the United States of America.
At the moment, John McCain is benefiting from the Democratic fight for that nomination and he plans to take full advantage of the continuing battle between the Democrats.
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