Bloggers: Obama Has Failed To Distinguish Himself From Clinton on Iraq

[wyldwolf]

From National Journal:

Citing polling data showing that positive press surrounding Barack Obama's strong Q2 fundraising totals failed to turn into any gain on Hillary Clinton's frontrunner status, the netroots continue to blame Obama's stalled momentum on his failure to distinguish himself from HRC on Iraq. MyDD's Jerome Armstrong blogs:

Then Obama arrived in the Senate, and for 20 something votes straight, Obama never met an Iraq war-related or funding bill that he would vote against. Obama and Clinton's voting record of supporting funding of the War since then is identical. ... Obama wants to make a preemptive differentiation that only he is prepared to be the Democratic nominee based on his original opposition to invading Iraq. It's as if Obama is trying to become the Dean of '08 in attracting those of us who were against this war from the beginning. But the comparison of Obama to Dean ends in 2003. Dean never supported funding of the war, Obama continually did until the most recent vote. ... If Obama thinks he's going to move primary and caucus voters toward him by making a vote that happened 5 years earlier, given his strident support of funding the war, he's wrong.

Open Left's Matt Stoller voices similar thoughts. First citing poll numbers showing as many as 42% of Dems favored invading Iraq, Stoller writes: "Now, it's far less forgivable that Clinton didn't come out for withdrawal until 2007, and up until 2006 didn't want timetables. But Obama didn't make arguments about ending the war that differed substantially from Clinton's. So both Clinton and Obama fit well within the mainstream of Democratic opinion in 2002-2003 ... Anyway, I just think that it's important to understand why Obama's critique of Clinton on the war isn't working. Lots of Democrats made that stupid judgment call as well, as are willing to forgive a bad decision from five years ago. And Obama's had five years to distinguish himself on Iraq, and hasn't."

Not everyone is being critical of Obama however. AMERICAblog's John Aravosis likes his plan for taking US troops in Iraq and moving them to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border: "Smart move. Bush and the Republicans need to be hit repeatedly on this point. They let Osama slip away. They chose to invade Iraq, where Al Qaeda never was, rather than go after Al Qaeda itself. And now Al Qaeda is stronger. Of course it is, we've ignored them for 6 years - well, other than training them in Iraq."

http://blogometer.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/07/716_if_it_happe.html

[ORDagnabbit]

1. well duh...go with Mike Gravel..... Clinton and Obama are both in the power of the military

industrial corporations.

whats good for business is war....lots and lots of war.

[ludwigb]

2. This is Going to Become One of HRC Supporters' Talking Points

And if Obama veers to the left, HRC will argue she's more electable because she can get voters more sympathetic to the war. Triangulation...

In general Matt Stoller underestimates the power of the fact that Obama opposed the war from the start and never had to retroactively change his position or issue any statement of remorse or regret. This shields him from a lot of the right-wing attack points that damaged Kerry in 2004. On the other hand, this fact is not an unambiguous good as most Americans (being uninformed media consumers) supported the invasion and might be more sympathetic to a candidate whose positions on Iraq are more reflective of theirs.

[welshTerrier2]

3. and neither has distinguished themself on Iran

here we go again ...

[Forkboy]

4. I love how some HRC people here and elsewhere keep saying Obama is just like Hillary.

It's like saying,"your guy is no good because he's just like our guy."

I think it's an offshoot of the "Chewbacca defense". :)

[draft_mario_cuomo]

6. That is because BO supporters paint him as the antithesis to HRC and the DLC

That is the myth. The reality is he is identical on the issues to HRC--and arguably to the right of her.

[Forkboy]

8. Exactly.

For good or ill they're virtually the same.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

11. That is why I call them Clobama (borrowed from Studentsmustunite) nt

[draft_mario_cuomo]

5. This is the truth. Look at their votes and their nearly identical plans for Iraq

They only time in 70+ votes on Iraq they have disagreed is when Obama voting with the Republicans on Gen. Pace.

[TeamJordan23]

7. Maybe you should read this:

http://www.answers.com/topic/barack-obama-s-iraq-speech

And tell me if Hillary said something similar before comparing Obama and Hillary on Iraq.

[Alamom]

9. 5 years ago? Check his voting record since he's actually been a senator. eom

[TeamJordan23]

18. 5 years ago is when it mattered. nt

[maximusveritas]

10. Wow, so 2 anti-Obama bloggers say something bad about Obama

and that's news?
I'm glad the National Journal is on top of that.

[Ethelk2044]

12. He has distinguished himself from her

He did not vote to go to war. She failed the American people when she decided it was not important for her to read the report before voting. She knew what the authorization meant. It would give the President of the United States the authorization to go to war. Not only did she vote for the war. She was out in front trying to validate the war. She keeps trying to say it is Bush war. It is not only Bush war. It is her war as well. It also let's me know that we should not put her in place to make major decisions for the United States, when she could not make one very important decision correctly. However, can she make other decisions. I want someone in the White House who is capable of making better judgment calls. I do not feel that she is capable of making good judgement calls. We have soldiers lives at stake.

Obama did none of these things.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

13. Exactly--the only real difference between the two on Iraq was half a decade ago

Since Obama has become a national figure eying the White House he has been identical to HRC on Iraq. This is even the case on the vital issue of what to do regarding Iraq going forward.

The OP is correct. If there really was a difference between the two on Iraq he would be highlighting it consistently, instead of simply invoking the IWR. The IWR is a huge part of his appeal and he deserves credit for being right in 2002. However, as Howard Dean proved in 2004, opposing the IWR can only get a candidate so far. ;)

[Ethelk2044]

15. You need to tell the family members of the men who died that.

See what response you will get.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

33. If HRC voted against the IWR not a single thing would have occurred differently

The vote being 76-24 instead of 77-23 would not have saved a single life.

[zulchzulu]

14. Precisely...

Senator Clinton voted for the IWR and supported the war. Obama thought it was a dumb idea at the time.

So that means they have the same view on the war.

Better yet, they both have a favorite color. Senator Clinton likes red and Obama likes green. Same color. See? Get it?

:crazy:

[Ethelk2044]

16. I agree it is a Big Difference

[BeyondGeography]

17. Except she was a long-time defender of the war and Obama was an early and articulate critic

Jerome Armstrong is anti-Obama, everyone knows it.

[wyldwolf]

19. Except Obama snubbed his anti-war stance when he won the Senate

According to a new book on Obama, he had ulterior motives for giving his 2002 anti-war speech:

Obama gave the speech not just because of a desire to speak out about the coming war, Mendell asserts, but also to curry favor with a potential political patron, Bettylu Saltzman, a stalwart among Chicago's liberal elite, and to win over political adviser David Axelrod, who was close to Saltzman.

"Obama, still an unannounced candidate for the U.S. Senate, did not immediately agree to speak at the rally," according to an advance copy of the book obtained by the Tribune. "But he told Saltzman that he would think it over."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-obama_thujun21,1,2273337.story?coll=chi-politics-stories2

Then he took the speech off his website after he got elected to the Senate:

Then there is the Iraq War. Obama says that during his 2004 election campaign he "loudly and vigorously" opposed the war. As The New Yorker noted, "many had been drawn initially by Obama's early opposition to the invasion." But "when his speech at the antiwar rally in 2002 was quietly removed from his campaign Web site," the magazine reported, "activists found that to be an ominous sign"--one that foreshadowed Obama's first months in the Senate. Indeed, through much of 2005, Obama said little about Iraq, displaying a noticeable deference to Washington's bipartisan foreign policy elite, which had pushed the war. One of Obama's first votes as a senator was to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State despite her integral role in pushing the now-debunked propaganda about Iraq's WMD.

The Nation, quoting The New Yorker.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060626/sirota/2



...and from there, he voted almost exactly like Clinton on the war.

[TeamJordan23]

20. I forgot, has Hillary ever apologized for her Iraq war vote? nm

[wyldwolf]

24. no, and she won't kiss your ass and grovel at your feet.

[BeyondGeography]

22. Keep trying...It took guts to say what he said when he said it

and if things had worked out in Iraq the way your candidate thought and hoped they would, Obama's career would have been pretty much finished. Which is another way of saying, his clear antiwar stance in November of 2002 continues to have meaning, just as his opponents' support for IWR continues to define them, no matter how much the Clinton and Edwards camps strive to deny it.

[wyldwolf]

25. hit a nerve, huh?

[BeyondGeography]

26. Uh, no

In fact, keep throwing those hanging curve balls...they're fun to hit.

[wyldwolf]

27. Obama:

"I'll give the anti-war speech as a favor and to get the backing of a wealthy donor, when I win my Senate seat I'll quietly remove the speech from my website, then I'll vote just like Clinton on the war, and finally I'll pander to the left when I decide to run for President and my anti-war speech will magically reappear."

Yep, that about covers it. But you have your fingers in your ears and are singing lalalalalalalalala!

[Ethelk2044]

30. You forget she is voting like him. She hangs in the wing and wait till he votes

then she votes just like him. Even the media notice what she does. She has been trying to copy him.

[wyldwolf]

31. give me a few examples....

[draft_mario_cuomo]

35. Don't forget Axlerod, who authors Obama's rhetoric, was part of the package for making that speech

[Ethelk2044]

28. I agree

[Kingstree]

32. Polls are subjective.

If you want a certain result, you will target a certain audience. The media does a good job of targeting audiences to get a desired result. Hillary is their news story and they will continue to rally her as the front runner. Dollar wise, she's behind, support wise, she is behind, only the media keeps her ahead. Also, Obama had distinguished himself from her on the war by not supporting it in the beginning. Hillary has yet to admit she was wrong about her vote to support the war. Everyone wants to systemically forget about that or even discuss it, including the media. If she can't admit mistakes, it say a lot about her stubbornness and lack of integrity. For all you Hillary supporters out there, that HUGE mistake was made in not paying attention to the Bush campaign. The result: 7.5 long years of this screwed up administration. We don't need anymore from her.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

34. That is hilarious

Aside from image and abstract concepts such as "unity" and a "new kind of politics" (both straight from the Rove 2000 playbook. Remember "I am a uniter, not a divider" and "changing the tone in Washington"?), the IWR is the thing he is relying the most on to win. It is the only substantive difference between him and HRC that would appeal to primary voters as Obama's platform is identical to HRC's platform on everything except health care and merit pay, where he is more DLC than the ultimate DLCer HRC. Yet, the sacred speech was something he thought so highly of that he removed it from his website after he was elected until he was called on it. :rofl:

[maximusveritas]

21. Their major flaw is reading too much into the polls, too early on

You can't just look at a polling result and make up reasons for why the poll is trending a certain way.

To say that Obama's continued deficit in the polls is due to people not buying that there's a difference between them on Iraq is either an amateur mistake or a bad attempt at spin.

There is still a long way to go and most people aren't paying attention yet. Obama still has a name recognition gap to close and even those that know him may not know his record on these issues. Obama just has to keep talking about it and eventually, he'll move up.

[Ethelk2044]

23. Plus you have to wonder who are they polling. I never get a call

I have asked several of my friends and they have not been polled either.

[illinoisprogressive]

29. all the bloggers are big time for Edwards. You must not read other blogs.

especially places like blogometer and mydd. They don't like Obama like the hillarybots here.
They have been backing Edwards from the start and are upset because he is not making headway and blame obama./

[draft_mario_cuomo]

36. lol they are biased against BO? No one is disputing the fact that they are identical on Iraq

Not a single difference between their votes on Iraq or their plans for Iraq going forward have been presented in this thread. Why? Because there is none. The bloggers are not biased but simply reflecting reality.

Edwards is closing the gap on Obama (who once reached 30-33% in the polls) and is closer to Obama than Obama is to HRC... If Edwards is struggling vis-a-vis Obama that must mean Obama is hopeless vis-a-vias HRC. :crazy: