By Jonathan Martin
It may be too little too late, but Hillary Clinton may have been onto
something with her warning to Democrats last night.
Only one of us, she said about her and Barack Obama at a rally in
Youngstown, Ohio, is "ready to defeat the Republicans."
On potentially lethal lines of attack, religion and patriotism, Obama
has twice now demonstrated that he's not sufficiently aware of the
danger that exists from the conservative Freak Show that did as much
to beat John Kerry as George W. Bush did in 2004.
Last year, Obama's campaign largely ignored the persistent rumor that
he was some sort of crypto-Muslim. Emails to this effect circulated
for months, tainting the first impression many casual voters had of
the young senator. Obama's camp didn't want to give the smear more
attention by spotlighting it, but it reached such a fever pitch in the
days leading up to Iowa that the candidate himself finally had to
bring it up in his stump speech. And even now, new anecdotes emerge
every day about voters who are wary of Obama's middle name (Hussein)
or his purported Muslim roots.
And again this week, they've been slow out of the blocks in
recognizing another danger zone.
"For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my
country," Michelle Obama said Monday in Madison, Wis.
By that evening, the quote was the top headline on the Drudge Report
and quickly found its way onto conservative blogs.
Yesterday afternoon on his influential radio show, Rush Limbaugh
played the clip and then lit into both Obama's.
"Doesn't it just grate on you that liberals in general are not proud
of their country, period?" Limbaugh asked.
By last night, the conservative commentators on Fox News were in high
dudgeon over her comments, repeating them over and over before
lambasting her and predicting they would be used against the candidate
this fall.
And as of now, Wednesday morning, Michelle Obama has made no public
comments nor issued any statement to stop the bleeding. Only Obama
campaign advisers have sought to explain away an obvious gaffe.
Now, the Obama camp can make the case that her comments are being
distorted and that they don't want to legitimize their right-wing
tormentors by having Michelle apologize or even clarify the statement.
After all, the mainstream media hasn't exactly pounced on the affair.
The New York Times, for example, had just a small story deep in the
paper today, completely overshadowed by Obama's success last night.
It all sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Kerry and his top aides didn't want to elevate the attacks of the
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth by forcefully rebutting them. And the
Swifties didn't exactly garner much attention when they launched their
campaign in the summer of 2004. The elite newspapers and network
newscasts initially gave them only the most cursory mention. Plus,
Kerry was riding high after his military-bedecked convention. Why
dignify a few fringe voices?
But as Kerry learned too late, the politico-media world has changed.
Obama may not want to play by the rules of the Drudge-Limbaugh-Fox
News axis, but their influence is as real as the voters they reach.
More ominous for Obama is that his general election opponent in
waiting appears to appreciate the opportunities afforded by the new
media forces.
The right-wing media voices may not have any great affection for John
McCain, but the senator and some of his top advisers have been around
long enough to know that most of these conservatives loathe liberals
even more.
They'll never go anywhere near the Muslim smear or anything
approaching racial territory, of course (that has already proven to
have considerable currency underground). But there is nothing that
delights a Republican operative more than the prospect of a Democratic
candidate (or spouse) criticizing the country. It plays right into the
blame-America-first narrative that the GOP has been beating over the
heads of Democratic candidates dating back to George McGovern in '72.
So sure enough, Cindy McCain used a public appearance the day after
Michelle Obama's comments to bring them up and note that, for the
record, she is "very proud of [her] country."
That McCain doesn't typically delve in partisan politics and that her
husband served in Vietnam and two sons are currently on active duty
today only made her remarks that much more striking.
More important, they doused gasoline on a fire that was already
burning on the right and helped pushed it into the mainstream media.
The good news for Obama is that he and his campaign have now —
assuming they've grasped the impact — been given something of a
warning shot. It's only February. There is time yet to figure out the
difference between the way to win and the way to lose.
UPDATE: Barack Obama has said that what his wife meant is that "this
is the first time that she's been proud of the politics of America."
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