They need to say, "Look, we really never should have misled voters with that stuff. We made up an "association" (a term, which even now many in the media use). They can add: "We all know Barack Obama was 8 years old at that time." They should say too "We Clintons know better than most how our adversaries run amok with embellished, fabricated and malicious stories of 'associations.' We've been there and never should have done this to Barack Obama. We were wrong."
Hill and Bill can come clean with Americans. Say they've tried to win at all cost. Correct the facts once and for all. Tell Americans it was a ruthless ploy. Tell us they are deeply sorry. Then shine a light back on the Ruthless duo of the Republican ticket. Only by apologizing can the Clintons resurrect the climate of this campaign --and Hillary's future prospects. (Otherwise, we will have a long memory, won't we!) And four years of McCain would leave too much wreckage for Hillary to clean up in a possible career resurrection scenario.
Too often, the very same pols who get upset when they think we bloggers go "over the line" go way further. They'll make stuff up. They'll mow down their adversaries with a tank. (They'll rail about the "terrible" bloggers. Maybe even complain to a blog or two.) And then they'll dream of smooth sailing right into their coveted elected positions. They (those pols who go too far), not we, have ruined politics. It's their extreme behavior that sets bloggers abuzz.
But John McCain needs to consider something as well. Hillary lost. The unleashing of the "Pit Bull" (as Sarah Palin calls herself) and McCain's reversion to his long-term real self can only end badly, not just for them, but for American politics. They will likely lose because they have gone too far. If they don't, what kind of "leaders" will America have?
As for her renouncing the Bill Ayres stuff, she probably shouldn't say anything. It's being discredited by major journalists who have more credibility than she does on that. As for her having brought it up, the truth is the McCain people have excellent opppo research folks. They had it anyway. The best thing that could have happened was that this got out early. Otherwise, it would have been the dreaded October surprise. That's why competitive primaries worked to our advantage.
The McCain campaign bringing it up now makes them look desperate. Of course Obama and his people need to strenuously get out in front, as they've been doing, and point out that any connection between Obama and Ayres is casual - lots of people have been associated with the award-winning educational specialist and respected professor who happens to have made serious mistakes in his past.
Also, the Obama camp has to counter-attack by pointing out that smears like this are irrelevant to America's serious problems. They are a diversion and an insult to the American people. The campaign has been doing that too and has to continue it. The Obama camp has also done a good job of reminding people about Keating Five and other problems surrounding McCain's own character, which make his attacks look all the more silly. People who live in glass houses and all that.
Really, Obama doesn't need much more from the Clintons. If they are more visible it will be nice. But more important is that Obama, his campaign, and those of us volunteering and blogging all need to stay focused on the fundamentals of getting out the vote.
Hang tight and work hard. Those are the real keys to victory!
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs...
It's Over: Why Bill Ayers Won't Save John McCainPerpetually fretting Democrats will not want to accept it. The campaigns themselves can't afford to believe it. Many journalists know it but can't say it. And there will certainly be some twists and turns along the way. But take it to a well capitalized bank: Bill Ayers isn't going to save John McCain. The race is over.
. . . . . .An election dominated at its inception by the war in Iraq is now overwhelmingly focused on the economy. More than half of voters in polls say that the economy is their top concern and Senator Obama enjoys double digit leads among voters asked who can better fix our economic mess. Put simply, there is no way Senator McCain can win if he continues to trail Senator Obama by double digits on the top concern of more than half of voters.
State polls are beginning to reflect this. If the election were tomorrow, Obama would win all of the states John Kerry carried and add Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio and Florida. Barack Obama is campaigning in Indiana, which last went for a Democrat in 1964 and North Carolina, which has gone for a Democrat only once in thirty-four years. At the same time John McCain has pulled out of Michigan and Sarah Palin has been forced to visit Nebraska.
This dynamic is very unlikely to change. John McCain's goal in the first debate was to discredit Senator Obama as a credible Commander in Chief and elevate the issue of foreign policy and national security. He didn't come close. Absent a domestic terror attack the economy will remain the number one issue in the race, and there is little Senator McCain can do to make up his gap with Senator Obama on it. Oh, Senator McCain will try to make issues of Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko and Rev. Wright, and that might hurt Senator Obama around the margins -- but it will not prevent him from winning. The economy is simply bigger than the rogues gallery that John McCain is conjuring up.
What worries me is a physical attack on American soil, whether permitted to occur through foolishness or incompetence, or even a false flag attack engineered by Oliver North types or G. Gordon Liddy types in mid-to-late October. If the polls continue to show a widening Obama lead, a supposed terrorist attack will be almost the only trick remaining in their ditty bag of dirty tricks.
The effort of the Clinton campaign to feed the media frenzy is particularly ironic, given Hillary's six-year tenure on the board of Wal-Mart and directorship, in the late '80s, of the New World Foundation, which is to the left of the Woods Fund and considerably more political in its grant-making. In the '90s conservatives slammed New World -- and by extension Clinton -- for funding the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, the National Lawyers Guild and Grassroots International, which backed two PLO-affiliated groups on the West Bank while Hillary was on the board. At the time Stuart Eizenstat, Bill Clinton's deputy Treasury secretary, called the reports "erroneous, irrelevant and outrageous slander on Hillary Clinton." That's a pretty good description of what Obama and his former colleagues are enduring today.
But what's really important to note is that we (and I include myself here) continually lose sight (and mention) of the fact that Ayers infamous quote was taken entirely out of context. According to Berman, Ayers' memoir was actually a repudiation of terrorism and his 1960s life, one for which he has worked the remainder of his life to make up for. All of that, though is irrelevant to Barack Obama, who today barely knows the man and was 8 years old in that long-ago time-frame.
The problem is that an innocent bystander, like a guard or an employee working late, could have been put at risk. That's one reason I would always condemn all acts of violence. But the purpose of the bombings was never to harm life. Again, that in no way excuses the actions. But it makes a difference.
And more important, Ayres has repudiated those actions and spent the rest of his life doing constuctive things. McCain can't ask for forgiveness for his own many transgressions, such as cutting and running on a sick wife, committing adultery, Keating Five, and not extend the same benefit of doubt and forgiveness to others who made serious mistakes.