Craig Crawford’s Trail Mix: Obama’s Clinton Assault Misfires

Source: CQ Politics via Yahoo News

Craig Crawford’s Trail Mix: Obama’s Clinton Assault Misfires

By Craig Crawford
Mon Oct 15, 12:15 PM ET

Barack Obama finally took aim at his Democratic presidential campaign rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, but his attack against her Senate vote defining the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group looks more like a misfire than a direct hit.

That’s because he was absent for the vote that he deemed so important, instead saying he would have voted the other way had he been there. And yet in Iowa on Friday the Illinois senator focused on last month’s non-binding resolution known as the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment for his most specific and pointed attack against Clinton so far in the Democratic race.

Obama said the New York senator’s vote for the amendment proves that there is “a real difference” between them. Sure, Clinton was the only Senate Democrat running for president who backed the amendment, making it a worthy debate among party hopefuls. But not bothering to cast a vote of his own takes the some of the punch out of Obama’s attack.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20071015/pl_cq_politics/craigcrawfordstrailmixobamasclintonassaultmisfires_1

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Craig Crawford hits the nail on the head. I've taken Obama to task before on not even bothering to vote on critical issues.

It's political cowardice, IMO.

Why is he so afraid to be on record in the Senate, and say in effect 'this is my vote.'

Looks more like an editorial to me.

I'm just saying that threads here should be related to Latest Breaking News (i.e. news from the past 24 hours). This appears to be Crawford's editorial re-hashing of an old story.

1. He was sick with a bad cough and possibly a 24 hour stomach virus. (In other news, Michelle spent the previous night taking care of an upchucking kid, so I tend to believe this report.)

2. The vote was rescheduled at the last minute. Even if he had been well, I'm not sure he could have made the connections from New Hampshire to Washington.

3. Instead of ignoring the vote, he has called attention to it time and again.

4. Given that other commentators attribute Ms. Clinton's vote to an attempt to run right for the General Election, I think it is valid for Obama to set himself apart by denouncing the vote. Agree with Ms. Clinton or agree with Obama on the meaning of Kyl-Lieberman, take your choice.

And if this were SO important, why was he not shouting from the rooftops that this was another vote for war? He wasn't cause he is playing politics.

Glass house meet rock.

In 2004, Obama said he would NOT run for prez in 2008. Then the DC establi$hment, media pundits and presstitutes began URGING him to run - knowing Hillary needed the illusion of a challenger to race to the top of Money Mountain - and KNOWING he would suck support and donations from John Edwards.
Obama had to know it too.

Per Chicago Trib, Obama began plotting his prez run in early 2005 - hiring PR and marketing strategists and Hollywood types to cast him as a rockstar - to attract Obama Girls and Boys more interested in "hope" than substance. Once the media image had been created - Obama became whatever his supporters needed him to be:

Obama endorsed warmonger Lieberman. No problem.
Obama refused to be seen publicly with anti-war Lamont. No problem.
Obama co-sponsored a CTL bill for the coal industry. No problem.
Obama voted with Repubs to fund a war he "opposed." No problem.
Obama voted to fund the war until he ran for prez. No problem.
Obama voted "secretly" against war funding. No problem.
Obama stated Bush hadn't even committed impeachment offenses! No problem.
Obama has accepted donations from DC lobbyists and PACs throughout his political career - until 2/07. No problem.

to show up to vote.

He's too nice and cuddly. Too much of this "national unity" jibberish.

That's what concerns me about him as the Democratic nominee: he does not know how to take on the Republican Noise Machine. And make no mistake about it, he will become every bit as polarizing as Hillary currently is, if he becomes the nominee. The RNM won't let up on him one bit simply because he's not Hillary.

Obama missed the vote because the date of the vote was changed. Harry Reid had said that the vote would not take place on the date it occurred. Obama left for New Hampshire under the belief there would be not vote, and then Reid changed the date. Although Obama could not make it back for the vote, he did state he would have voted against it.

There was no political cowardice here, and he was not afraid to be on record.

is working for Ms. Clinton, of course!

I brought it up myself earlier and they don't care. They're going to view it as cowardice anyway because it's his obligation to assume Reid's lying to him and to abandon his campaign.

any capacity.