December 4, 2007 6:00 AM
No more Mrs. Nice Guy
Associated Press photo by Nati Harnik
By M.E. Sprengelmeyer
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
CLEAR LAKE, Iowa – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is baring her “fangs.”
That wasn’t somebody’s insult.
It was the approving reaction from one of her fans as the Democratic presidential front-runner ripped into rival Sen. Barack Obama’s character for the second-straight day – this time accusing him of dodging positions on politically-sensitive issues.
“A President can’t pick and choose which challenges he or she will face,” Clinton told her supporters at the legendary Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake – site of Buddy Holly’s last concert before a fatal plane crash in February 1959.
Clinton said Obama took no stand by voting “present” on several abortion-related or gun-related measures in the Illinois state legislature, and she blasted his absence earlier this year during a closely-watched U.S. Senate vote on the diplomatic posture toward Iran.
“Instead of looking for political cover or taking a pass, we need a President who will take a stand and stand there and do whatever is necessary for their country,” Clinton said.
That drew applause from Clinton’s supporters, who say she needs to go on the offense against Obama and former Sen. John Edwards with now just one month until the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus on Jan. 3, 2008.
“She has really run this campaign like a superwoman,” said Mary Jane Porter, 75, a retired teacher from Mason City, Iowa. “The superwoman now is showing her fangs and her nails, which she needs to do.”
While Clinton enjoys a double-digit lead in national polls, Iowa is considered a three-way, statistical dead heat. One weekend poll showed Obama slipping ahead slightly and two other polls released Monday found Clinton in the lead.
“She’s gotta start showing (that) the mother lioness is gonna take care of her own,” Porter said, standing on a chair as Buddy Holly music played during Clinton’s exit. “She’s gonna show her fangs, show her aggressiveness and assertiveness and do it like a lady to protect her dream, and her view… the dream for America.”
Clinton’s openly combative posture in recent days is a sharp departure from her deferential style for most of this year, when she often ignored some of her rivals’ direct challenges or shrugged them off with dismissive laughter during televised debates.
But Obama’s campaign has fired back, saying Obama has an “100 percent” record favoring abortion rights and a record of accomplishments on public safety issues.
“The truth is, Barack Obama doesn’t need lectures in political courage from someone who followed George Bush to war in Iraq, gave him the benefit of the doubt on Iran, supported NAFTA and opposed ethanol until she decided to run for President,” Obama’s campaign spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said in a release.
On Sunday, after a Clinton spokesman telegraphed an attack on Obama over the operations of his Hopefund leadership PAC, Obama told reporters in Des Moines that “all these accusations that are starting to come out seem to correspond to shifts in political fortune.”
Obama backer Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor under former President Bill Clinton, was more blunt, saying on his blog that the charges will backfire against the former First Lady.
Clinton’s campaign, Reich wrote, is “singularly lacking in conviction about anything.”
“All is fair in love, war, and politics,” Reich said. “But this series of slurs doesn't serve HRC well. It will turn off voters in Iowa, as in the rest of the country.”
The sniping between Obama and Clinton has only intensified since last week, when they sparred over details of their health care reform proposals.
They’re challenging each other on everything now – and we mean everything.
Case in point: on Sunday, after Obama asserted that he hadn’t been “planning to run for president for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for it,” Clinton’s team fired back, quoting kindergarten and third grade teachers who said Obama wrote essays titled “I Want to Become President.”
December 5, 2007
1:01 AM
Pauline writes:
Hello back to you, Maryj! I like Hillary too, but agree with you, she is unelectable in a general election. I couldn't have expressed it better...
December 4, 2007
8:39 AM
maryj writes:
Hi Pauline, I do support both Senators Obama & Edwards, because unfortunately I believe some older voters have not put their prejudices behind them.
I admire Senator Obama's candor, however have heard criticism about his approach. Living in the south, a transplanted NY'er I experience that many in the south want to hear their accent, so I think a ticket of Sentors Edwards/Obama could win.
I like Senator Clinton but do not believe she is electable.
Most importantly it is time to put an end to the G(reedy)OP-big business interests and for a governement of the people by both parties, end lobbyism, and corporate ties.
December 4, 2007
8:11 AM
Pauline writes:
t is amazing how the people of America, as a collective, have been able to put bigotry and racism behind us during the past forty years. How much of our blood, sweat, and tears have gone into changing America so that today our young people are color blind. In place of racism we now have a "may the best man or woman win" standard. It should always have been this way, and actually it HAS always been this way -- but only among the truly privileged classes of the world who now are sitting together at the drawing board and creating a new vision of the future of man. This vision includes perpetual wars and continued erosion of our civil rights. Today every country in the world, except a few, have passed a Patriot Act, along with other science fiction like internal criminal laws aimed at homegrown terrorists and thought criminals. Prior to America's passing its Patriot Act, never in the history of Western Civilization, except in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia, had human kind ever seen the likes of such a law.
America is at a turning corner in its history, and we the people of America are faced with a momentous choice next November. Seventy percent of the American people want a BIG change in Washington, but there are only three candidates who are offering us any change. Barack Obama is one of them.
So let's not permit Hillary's Attack Machine to destroy one of the best candidates for President we now have before us. Let's refuse to listen to Hillary's twists, slurs and innuendos, knowing full well that her trained attack dogs could tear up the integrity of a man of the likes of Martin Luther King. Let's give Barack a chance to show America what a free man can do when he becomes President. Go Barack Obama!
Still free, still white, and loving Liberty!