how NOT to capitalism on an opponent's gaffe

[unblock]

i think it's obvious that, while what obama said was substantively true, his word choice was less than ideal. had "cling to" been replaced with "turn to", and prehaps "bitter" been replaced with "frustrated" or "fed up", we wouldn't have this little drama.

we'd be finding some other little drama, but that's besides the point.


could hillary capitalize on this? of course, any slip-up by the opponent is an opportunity. unfortunately, hillary, for all her experience, hasn't diagnosed the real nature of obama's error and therefore is not taking proper advantage.

she's now running a full on anti-obama attack. he's elitist, out of touch, condescending, and so on.


the first rule of going negative is that the dirty work should be left to surrogates while the candidate stays positive and above the fray, sometimes even disavowing the surrogates publicly while thanking them privately and rewarding them later.

the other problem is that obama's gaffe wasn't a contentless insult. it's not like he just dismissively called them hicks or something. had THAT been the correct diagnosis, then hillary's attack would have resonated better -- i'm on your side while obama is calling you hayseed rednecks. that would have played well.

however, that was NOT the problem with obama's original statement. he WAS connecting with a genuine emotion felt in the rust belt. whatever you call it, people do have strong feelings about the great jobs that went away a quarter-century ago and some not very nice things to say about the stream of politicians who have paraded through every 4 years, promising something better only to ignore them outside of campaign season.

IN THAT CONTEXT, obama said something inartful.

consider the difference between shrub's and obama's attitudes. shrub looks down on the little people and tells them to help themselves. obama tells them he understands them and wants to help them. you can take the poor word choice and paint it as looking down on them, but in the same breath it's clear he wants to help.

in order to take advantage, hillary needs to CONNECT with those voters BETTER than obama's clumsy effort. it's not good enough to simply use it as an opportunity to beat up on obama. that doesn't convince voters that you're one of them or that you understand them any better. she's missing a golden opportunity.

she should go hunting in rural pa., especially if she really knows how, as she has recently claimed. she should go to a local church service. she should talk frankly and sympathetically about the job situation. she should convince them that she can and will help them better.


instead, she is coming across as pandering, at best. dismissing the emotion that obama attempted to connect to and replacing it with optimism is missing the mark. it's a politician's response, not a statesman's (stateswoman's?) response. handing out "i'm not bitter" buttons is a pathetic was to try to take advantage. i'm not saying it's low, i'm saying it's at least as inartful as obama's word choice in the first place.

BILL clinton won by connecting with voters. he tapped into emotions that were ignored by other candidates. hillary knows how to do this. unfortunately, she isn't.

instead, by missing the mark, she's giving obama more time to fix his statement. he can rephrase it, explain it, apologize, make amends, and make a fresh connection with the emotion he was trying to reach the first time. then obama comes out on top of this little battle.

[jgraz]

1. If Obama had said people *weren't* bitter, Hillary would be attacking him for it

Since she has no core principles of her own, she's going to attempt to twist whatever he says into a negative. Obama should just keep telling the truth and ignore Her Irrelevancy.

[lapfog_1]

2. "she should go hunting. especially if she really knows how..."

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

By her own admission, it's been nearly 45 years since she last handled a gun.

Does anyone think that she should take it up again, with a crowd of journalists as witness?

That's not very wise. Better stick to bowling, because in bowling... when you look silly, you can grin and laugh at yourself for throwing a gutter ball. In hunting, you might shoot a friend in the face with bird-shot.

[unblock]

3. hey, i'm from texas. i know folks who take their 8-year olds hunting.

she can sneak 15 minutes at a firing range first if she isn't feeling sure about it.
she doesn't have to bag anything, she just has to fire the damn thing away from people.

on the other hand, cheney actually got an apology from his victim, so maybe that's not as bad as you might think.

[lapfog_1]

4. Not as bad as I think???

Really. I grew up hunting. I WAS the 8 year old that went hunting with my father and his friends, but at 8 I wasn't allowed to shoot anything other than a air rifle BB gun.

Darth Cheney was DRINKING and hunting. And he followed a covey of wing-clipped quail right into the hunting line and shot his buddy in the face and chest. And he was DAMN lucky that it was birdshot and even then one BB came close to the heart. You tell me again that it's not as bad as I think.

Item.

1. Cheney and his friends were up late the previous night drinking.

2. There were allegations that Cheney had drinks before or during the hunt.

3. They hunted by car, they hunted birds raised and clipped for the purpose of easy prey.

4. Cheney didn't allow himself to be interviewed by police for hours... and even then he was not given a sobriety test.

5. The guy apologized because Darth Cheney was the Vice President. His apology (what, that he stepped in front of the shooter?) is totally without merit.

[unblock]

5. i just meant that it didn't seem to cost cheney politically or otherwise

the scumbag should be in jail for many reasons, not the least of which was reckless endangerment and very nearly killing someone.

i think the incident itself was horrendous, and the only thing more horrendous is that the world treated it as a one-week story and then dropped it.

all i meant from my post was that, at least in cheney's case, shooting someone in the face didn't seem to cost him anything.