The Debatable Land

Hillary-bashing Quote of the Day...

From commenter JSN at Daily Kos:

Proximity does not equal ability.

Saying that Hillary has Executive Branch experience is like saying Yoko Ono was a Beatle.

[Hat-tip: Mark Steyn]

Hillary's Walter Mitty Fantasy

November I suggested that Hillary Clinton's own autobiography provides no evidence to support her on-the-trail assertions that she was a foreign policy player during her husband's administration:

The book is not a policy manifesto of course. But even making that allowance it is striking how much of Hillary's memoir is taken up with fluff - "I had given a lot of thought to how Chelsea and I should dress on the trip. We wanted to be comfortable, and under the sun's heat, I was glad for the hats and cotton clothes I had packed" - and how little is concerned with affairs of state...

Perhaps it's unfair to judge Hillary by the evidence published in a book she didn't write. Then again, it did appear under her name and judging from Living History there was lots of travel but precious little real policy. If that's an unfair conclusion then Hillary will, doubtless, tell us why and how and where this verdict is unwarranted.

In December last year I also argued that her claim to have been a significant "force for peace" in Northern Ireland is a preposterous fabrication. Still, since Bill Clinton is prone to exaggerate his own contribution to what we're still supposed to call the "Peace Process" it's scarcely a great surprise that he should also lie about his wife's role.

Happily Toby Harnden was in Belfast at the time the Clintons were supposedly spreading peace and prosperity and is thus in a good position to report that Hillary's claim that:

"I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland*,"

is, as you might expect, absurd. David Trimble, who is of course, in a good position to know, suggests Hillary is being "a wee bit silly" (ie, lying through her teeth) in saying this:

"I don’t know there was much she did apart from     accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around...She visited when things were happening, saw what     was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I     don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for     something is slightly different from being a principal player."

Quite so.

*For reasons best known to themselves, the Clintons are enlisting the support of the ghastly Peter King (himself, of course, an IRA apologist) to argue, contra the evidence, that Hillary was important. Toby blogs this intervention here:

"She was actively involved." [says King] "It was George Mitchell who was negotiating and Bill Clinton who was calling a lot of the shots but Hillary, first of all she had access to the President on I think it was three trips to Northern Ireland. She knew all of the players on a first-name basis….She was certainly more than just someone along for the ride. She spoke with some authority. I consider her to be a serious player. I say that as someone who supports John McCain and wants Hillary Clinton defeated in November. But fair is fair.”

He then spoke about a meeting about arms decommissioning in December 1998. “That was right after Trimble and Hume were given the Nobel Peace Prize. There was a big dinner in Washington for all the players in the peace process. I was just there in the audience and President Clinton was speaking. I got a notification that the President wanted to speak to me after the dinner and so I go behind the stage and there was a small room and when I went in the door there was President Clinton and Gerry Adams and Hillary Clinton and they were talking about decommissioning – that was still the issue, who would go first and how it would be done. Hillary was part of that conversation.”

By this "standard", of course, I also "helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland".

Why, at university in Dublin I organised meetings and debates at which Unionists and Nationalists could exchange their views and, for sure, learn more about one another! It's about "building trust" and "breaking down barriers" you see? And, lo, we invited Loyalists and Republicans too! And I also had conversations about "decommissioning" with General John de Chastelaine and David Ervine and Mitchell McLaughlin and David Trimble and so on and so on! Some of these men even came to dinner and insisted I call them by their first names too!

For more on this, see how a comedian named Sinbad destroys Hillary's claims to foreign policy expertise in the Balkans too.

Remember the definition of a Washington "Gaffe"?

Mike Kinsley famously defined a "gaffe" in Washington as an accidental, inadvertent moment of truth-telling. Well by that standard Geraldine Ferraro, Mondale's 1984 Vice-Presidential pick who is supporting Hillary Clinton, has committed a gaffe. She seems to have caused a minor-rumpus with these comments:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position... And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Dana Goldstein despairs, while Toby Harnden is merely incredulous:

What? So being black, with the middle name Hussein and a Muslim-born father is just a walk in the park compared to the sexism faced by a white, upper-middle-class woman who just happens to be married to a former president and can claim every accomplishment of his as her own (apart from the inconvenient ones)? The bitter – perhaps racist - comments got lost in the media avalanche following Eliot Spitzer's shenanigans but they may well have legs tomorrow.

Er, Obama's "very lucky to be" a black man? All you black guys out there take note – you're so fortunate to be able to have an inbuilt advantage that'll guarantee you kid-glove treatment throughout your life.

Well, hang on a minute. Ferraro's comments may have been unwise but that doesn't make them untrue. You doubt this? ask ourself if you think of any other circumstances in which a first-term Senator would have been in a position to  challenge Hillary Clinton seriously, let alone defeat her. Or, to put it another way, look at the number of white men she defeated. Then recall how easily she defeated them.

A white Obama might be as intelligent and as eloquent as the real BHO is, but he'd be deprived of Obama's greatest advantage: his being black trumps her being female. If Obama were white, don't you think the Clinton campaign would have talked even more than it has about the need to "smash" the "highest, toughest glass ceiling of them all?" As a young, white first-term Senator there'd have been a sense that his candidacy was unduly presumptious (a consideration that did some damage John Edwards in 2004) - what, after all, would be the rush? Better, in those circumstances, to make history by nominating and then electing the woman. (We might also note that, besides being a buffoon, Bill Richardson's status as a potential "first Latino" president never gained any traction since it was crowded out by the history-making potential of the Clinton and Obama candidacies).

Obama's candidacy also destroyed much of Clinton's attractiveness. Yes, selecting a woman would be a historic moment. But selecting a black politician would be even more significant. The idea of a symbolic reconciliation or of some imagined historical make-up call acknowledging America's original sin even as it sought to move, at long last, beyond it etc etc... all that makes choosing a woman pretty small beer. For the Clinton's it must have been as though they went all-in pre-flop holding a pair of Kings only to find a call from the last player to speak who, shockingly, happened to be holding Aces. (Of course, the analogy breaks down a little in as much as Hillary was still the front-runner. But in the Sex vs Colour stakes, she trails.)

A black man was the only candidate who could make a stronger argument for "Change"  - and for embodying change - than Clinton. (A black woman would, I think, have been seen as just, well, going too far). I think it's reasonable to suppose that a white Obama would not have been able to make a case for "the fierce urgency of now" but, as we've seen, the real Obama can and has.

Think too of the voters from whom Obama has won support. His initial support came from highly educated and wealthy Democrats and from younger voters in the 18-30 age group. Suffice it to say that these are the two demographics most likely to be most acutely aware of the symbolic power and appeal of Obama's candidacy. The kids these days, after all, are raised and taught in school that Malcolm Luther King and Rosa Parks are the greatest Americans of all, while upscale voters are more likely than other liberals to be attracted to the idea of a black man as President.

Of course Obama has expanded his electoral appeal beyond these voters, but that's where he began and where, I think, he had certain advantages that would have been denied a white, first-term Senator. No-one can feel good about themselves for supporting a wealthy white man, but backing the man who might be the first black President allows folk to praise themselves for their own broad-minded generosity and sense of historical significance.

There are, to be sure, plenty of less cynical reasons to support Obama but Obama's been more successful than Jesse Jackson at least partly because a) he doesn't terrify upscale whites and b) they can imagine having dinner with him. It may sound cynical to say this, but Obama's black enough to be different and significant while also being white enough to be reassuring. For all that the United States has, as they say, "moved on", this is still part of the reason for Obama's rise. He offers just the right blend of exoticism and familiarity.

In other words, Geraldine Ferraro is correct. Obama's campaign represents a near perfect alliance between man, moment and, last but not least, opponent. The stars have aligned for him and I don't really see what's so terrible about pointing that out. Good luck to him.

UPDATE: Of course, skin colour isn't the only reason for Obama's success. Far from it. There is, after all, as commenter Gabriel suggests, more to him than just that. After all, a less gifted politician would not have been able to overhaul Clinton, regardless of their colour. Nonetheless, his blackness has certainly - in some respects at least -  made Hillary Clinton's task more difficult.

Eating their own

Good grief. Here's Kevin Drum:

Hillary said today that presidential candidates need to pass a "commander-in-chief threshold." And who's done that? "I believe that I've done that," she said. "Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you'll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy." Bingo! Instant TV material for McCain this fall.

Kevin asks:

Now, there's no question that this stuff sucks. Hillary sucks more on this score since her team has been doing more of it than Obama's team, but they should both knock it off.

That said, though, I have a question. It occurred to me today that primary opponents attack each other all the time, and yet I don't remember ever seeing a general election ad taking advantage of that. Once the general election starts, nobody seems to think it's worthwhile trying to make hay out of old attacks.

That may be the case. But that was before YouTube. And there's another key distinction that makes Hillary Clinton's behaviour quite remarkable. It's one thing for her to suggest that she's a better candidate and would make a better President than Barack Obama, it's surely quite another to argue that John McCain has better credentials* for the Presidency than a man who might end up being your party's nominee. That's a large and important difference.

Perhaps this has happened before, but I can't recall seeing a serious, credible candidate dismiss their party's other serious, credible candidate in this fashion. Perhaps readers can enlighten me.

*Of course, it's quite possible that Hillary does think McCain would be a better President than Obama.

Hillary is "a monster"? What, like Freddie Krueger?

Samantha Power is currently in the UK, promoting her new book. Somehow I don't think this is quite the sort of message the Obama campaign is likely to find especially helpful:

Ms Power told The Scotsman Mrs Clinton was stopping at nothing to try to seize the lead from Mr Obama.

"We f***** up in Ohio," she admitted. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win.

"She is a monster, too – that is off the record* – she is stooping to anything," Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark...

"Interestingly, the people in her innermost circle seem to not mind her; I think they really love her."

But she added: "There is this middle circle – they are really on the warpath. But the truth is she has proved herself really willing to stoop."

In recent TV appearances Mrs Clinton had looked desperate and on the back foot.

Ms Power agreed, and said: "Here [ie, in the UK], it looks like desperation. I hope it looks like desperation there too.

"You just look at her and think: ergh. But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive."

*The paper says Power's interview was understood to be on the record  - and not on background - since she was promoting her book. Gerri Peev's a good reporter too, so I don't for a second doubt the accuracy of the quotes.

UPDATE: Jake Tapper reports this statement from Samantha Power:

These comments do not reflect my feelings about Sen. Clinton, whose leadership and public service I have long admired. I should not have made these comments and I deeply regret them. It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms.  I apologize to Sen. Clinton and to Sen. Obama, who has made very clear that these kinds of expressions should have no place in American politics.

Clinton and Katyn

It's an election,  of course, so no card must be left un-played. Nonetheless, there's something a little unseemly about trying to exploit war crimes and massacres for personal, political gain. In fact it's grotesque. I assume this press release* was supposed to appeal to Polish-Americans in Ohio.

Statement from Senator Hillary Clinton

“We will soon mark the 68th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre of Polish prisoners during World War II.

“This is a time to remember the victims of the Katyn massacre and also to reflect on the importance of remembrance itself.  Only by preserving the memory of past inhumanities can we hope to avoid inhumanity in the future. Only by seeking the truth about the past can we be confident about our pursuit of peace and justice today.

“On March 5, 1940, Stalin's Politburo gave the order for the Soviet secret police to execute more than 22,000 Polish POWs in cold blood.  This horrific mass murder was covered up by the Soviet authorities and denied for decades until Mikhail Gorbachev finally admitted the truth and Boris Yeltsin aided the international investigations by opening the Russian archives.

“I am concerned that the pace of Russian cooperation has slowed drastically under President Putin.  The Russian government, which had promised to hand over personal records of the victims and other information about Katyn, has been dragging its feet and has reclassified many of the files.  All the relevant archives should be opened up in the interest of establishing the full truth about Katyn.

“The crimes were committed long ago, but we cannot and we shall not forget.

“I believe that it is highly fitting that a historical film about the massacre titled "Katyn" and created by the acclaimed Polish director Andrej Wajda was nominated for an Academy Award as best foreign film in 2008.  Mr. Wajda's father was himself a victim of the Katyn massacre.

“I have profound respect for the Polish nation and for all the peoples of Eastern Europe who have emerged from the darkness of the 20th century.  I am proud that in our time the United States has been their partner and ally.”

I mean, really, what does Hillary Clinton know about Katyn? Does anyone really believe this release oozes sincerity? It's cheap and it's exploitative.

It's also stupid. Does Clinton not realise that the Russians aren't the only people who covered-up the massacres?  On at least three occasions the United States denied Soviet guilt, attributing the killings to the Nazis. Of course, there were plenty of good, even unstoppable, reasons for holding to that line. But we knew the truth as early as 1943 and continued to deny it for years. At least Churchill had the grace to feel guilty about this.

As much as any other event in the war, Katyn reminds us that, contrary to the feel-good depictions of the "Greatest Generation" and all the rest of it, the Second World War was not anything like as clear-cut a moral case of Good vs Evil as we like to remember. Germany needed to be defeated, but the price paid to defeat Nazism included sacrificing Poland - the very country whose independence we (Britain, that is) had gone to war to defend in the first place. This irony was not lost on British officers in Germany in 1945. That there were few, if any, alternatives to this gruesome outcome does nothing to diminish the Faustian pact we made with the Soviet Union.

However justifiably - in the pitiless frame of reference sanctioned by the war -  the United States was not Poland's "partner and ally" in 1945. I'm not quite sure why Hillary Clinton wants to remind Polish-Americans of this.

So, there you have it: a stupid and an unseemly campaign, trying to cash in on the memory of some of the grimmest events of the War. Classy stuff..

(If Obama issued a press release of this sort, I haven't seen it.)

*Thanks to reader MC for the tip.

The Limbaugh Effect

Did Rush Limbaugh win Texas for Clinton? Dave Weigel crunches the numbers and finds that he quite possibly did. Hilarious.

The morning after

So a good night for Hillary Clinton last night but a better one for John McCain. Here's what Obama had to say this morning:

"I hope people start asking is what exactly is this foreign experience she is claiming," he said. "Was she handling crises during this period of time? I haven’t seen any evidence that she is more equipped to handle a crisis.

"She made the experience argument and her ability to handle a crisis, so I think it is important to examine that claim and not just allow her to assert it," he added. "She has made the argument that she is thoroughly vetted. If the suggestion is somehow that on issue of ethics or disclosure or transparency that she is somehow going to have a better record than I have or could (better) withstand Republican attack, then that should be tested."

This is, I think, a tacit admission that the (absurd!) "3am" ad hurt Obama. For the first time he's really been hit and his chin isn't quite as strong as his supporters must have hoped. Now, however, is the time to strike back. And god knows there's no shortage of material. As a friend says "enough of the audacity of hope, I want to see if this guy can punch".

Overall, however, talk of Clinton as th e"Comeback Gal" is nonsense. As the Texas caucus results come in she's unlikely to have made a net gain of more than ten delegates. That's not nearly enough. Nor has she overhauled Obama's lead in the popular vote (including Florida). Unless she can somehow win either the popular vote or a majority of pledged delegates I still don't see how she can beat him, barring a collapse in Obamamania.

Also: when there's all this talk about a joint ticket, Obama needs to say that hes not sure Clinton would be happy to be Veep. At the moment it's being framed as though he should be the Number 2. He needs to stamp on that pronto.

Obama on trade: still not as grim as Clinton?

More on trade. Jagdish Bhagwati says that Obama's better  - or, rather "a less disturbing prospect" - on trade than Clinton. He gives five reasons:

First, Mrs Clinton, in an infamous interview with the Financial Times, responded to a question on support for the Doha round with the need for a pause, whereas Mr Obama has not done so. Second, whereas Mr Obama’s economist is Austan Goolsbee, a brilliant Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD at Chicago Business School and a valuable source of free-trade advice over almost a decade, Mrs Clinton’s campaign boasts of no professional economist of high repute. Instead, her trade advisers are reputed to be largely from the pro-union, anti-globalisation Economic Policy Institute and the AFL-CIO union federation.

Third, Mr Obama’s main union support comes from the Service Employees International Union and the Teamsters, neither of which is protectionist: the SEIU’s membership is in the non-traded sector and, except on the issue of Mexican trucks coming into the US, Teamsters do well as trade expands. By contrast, Mrs Clinton’s support comes heavily from the AFL-CIO, which holds strong anti-trade views. This matters because the IOUs you sign during campaigns provide a straitjacket that can restrict your policy options.

Fourth, while Mr Obama’s anti-Nafta rhetoric is disturbingly protectionist, as is Mrs Clinton’s, remember that this is also strategic. If both are anti-Nafta in the campaign now, her opposition is reinforced because she carries the burden of having supported her husband in backing it.

Fifth, Mr Obama has smartly seized John Kerry’s proposal to remove the incentive to invest abroad and has gone further by proposing that those who invest at home will be given a tax incentive. It is dubious that this proposal will survive challenges from existing bilateral and World Trade Organisation agreements, or can achieve much when other countries can do the same. It is exactly the sort of policy that a constituency fearful of losing jobs demands but, by meeting that demand, President Obama would be left free to abandon the anti-trade rhetoric and embrace the multilateral free trade that has served the American and the world interest so well.

Not great, but better than it might be...

The Democrats' War on Canada

Megan McArdle suggested last year that one way to choose a candidate was to look at their economic advisers and pick the candidate with the smartest team. That being so, she lauded the University of Chicago's Austan Goolsbee, an advisor to Barack Obama. This week Goolsbee's in trouble for suggesting that the grotesque nonsense on trade being peddled by the Obama campaign was largely political posturing in advance of tomorrow's Ohio primary. Let us trust that he's right.

According to a memo written by a Canadian diplomat at the Chicago Consulate:

"Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign. He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."

Of course foreign governments know that there are some things that candidates say on the campaign trail that are for purely domestic political consumption. Yet at the same time, when Obama promises to bring "the hammer" down on "unfair" deals* such as  NAFTA and when he joins Clinton in saying it's time to "opt out" of the treaty it's not unreasonable to take note of this. Political sophisticates are supposed to wink at this and remember that each candidate is simply throwing a bone to the poor, deluded rubes who think NAFTA is the source of all America's woes, but this sort of campaign rhetoric stores up trouble for the future. At some point the rubes are going to demand satisfaction and it will be harder

Jay Newton-Small and Noam Scheiber wonder why the Canadians are leaking this (Noam calls it a "shocking" and "egregious" breach of protocol, suggesting, like Bob Shrum, that it's "more like a dirty trick by an operative in a conservative government than anything else"). To which one must say: come off it. If Democratic presidential candidates are threatening Canada, the Canadians have every right to warn that such threats are a) unfriendly and b) have consequences - including on oil supplies (and Canada, not Saudi Arabia, is the largest supplier of energy to the United States).

I'm firmly in the Dan Drezner camp:

Democrats cannot simultaneously talk about improving America's standing abroad while acting like a belligerent unilateralist when it comes to trade policy.

Does it really need to be said that threatening your friends is poor policy? Apparently so.

UPDATE: Noam thinks the Clintons are gaining traction with this and that the stramash is causing Obama problems. Well, they're of his own making.

*Free trade is, of course, a moral good, but happily it's also good economically. Dan Griswold gave a useful summary of NAFTA's successes in 2004.

Nowhere were the predictions about NAFTA more apocalyptic than in regard to manufacturing. H. Ross Perot accused NAFTA of "deindustrializing our country," and Rep. David Bonior, the soon to be ex-congressman and Democratic Whip from Michigan, predicted flatly that NAFTA "will destroy the auto industry."

In the eight years since the implementation of NAFTA, those predictions have become laughable. Between 1993 and 2001, manufacturing output in the United States, as measured by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, rose by one-third. Output of motor vehicles and parts rose by 30 percent. In fact, in the first eight years of NAFTA, manufacturing output in the United States rose at an annual average rate of 3.7 percent, 50 percent faster than during the eight years before enactment of NAFTA. (See figure.) Of course, this is not an argument that NAFTA was the primary cause of the acceleration in manufacturing output, but it does knock the wind out of the myth that NAFTA has somehow caused the "deindustrialization" of America.

Manufacturing employment has fallen in the past few years, but that cannot in any plausible way be blamed on NAFTA. In fact, the number of Americans employed in manufacturing grew by 706,000 in the first four years of NAFTA, from January 1994 to January 1998. The decline in manufacturing jobs since 1998 has not occurred because those jobs have gone to Mexico; it has occurred because of (1) collapsing demand for our exports due to the East Asian financial meltdown in 1997-98, (2) our own domestic slowdown in demand due to the 2001 recession, and (3) the ongoing dramatic improvement in manufacturing productivity--fueled by information technology and increased global competition--that has allowed American factories to produce more and better widgets with fewer workers.

That was true four years ago and it's still true today.

The Same Old Way

It would be something of a stretch to compare Hillary Clinton to Napoleon Bonaparte and Barack Obama to the Duke of Wellington. Nonetheless, as this campaign has progressed and Hillary has struggled to find an effective counter to Obama's organisation and tenacity (to, er, say nothing of the hopes of millions of democrats who hope he can finally topple the tyrant, thus liberating a continent), one of the Iron Duke's famous lines from Waterloo seems to sum up the plodding uselessness of the Clinton campaign.

To wit: They came on in the same old way and we sent them back in the same old way.

I think this is the light in which to see Hillary's now-infamous (and somewhat unconvincing) "3am" ad: the last, desperate recourse of a failing campaign bereft of ideas, imagination or options. Even the old Imperial Guard can't save her now.

Department of Counting

Mike Crowley tracks Hillary's latest desperate cry for help:

"Democrats, the majority of whom have favored Hillary in the primary contests held to date..."

Mike wonders how she can claim this given that Obama has won more votes than Clinton so far: but of course caucus states don't count.

Besides "primary" of course, the key word here is "Democrats" because obviously independents voting in Democratic primaries don't count either since, naturally, none of them are going to vote for Obama in November whereas they will all magically gravitate to the candidate they have already rejected. Especially since Hillary is* going to be up against a Republican whom independents famously dislike...

*Yeah, theoretically...

Canute for President!

New Hillary attack! "If speeches could create jobs, we wouldn't be facing a recession."

And as the old saw has it: "If ifs and ans were pots and pans, there'd be no call for tinkers."

Also: Does this mean Hillary Clinton thinks speeches should be able to create jobs? Or does she just regret the fact that hers can't? Would a mute President be best? (Well, yes, probably.)

(Granted, Obama is no better. He and Clinton both seem to be of the view that poor old King Canute's sycophants were right - the monarch really can turn back the waves. The oft-maligned Canute knew better of course and organised his famous demonstration to show the limits of his power. Would that any of the contenders for the Presidency of the United States could demonstrate such common-sense, humility and awareness of their limitations. Yeah, dream on...)

Gordon's Hillary Problem?

James Forsyth comes up with an(other) excellent reason for hoping Hillary loses: it will be bad for Gordon Brown. Key point:

the British political class are obsessed with the US elections and in most people’s minds Hillary Clinton is the Gordon Brown candidate. The failure of her campaign would lead to a slew of articles about how Gordon shares Hillary’s shortcomings.

True. Brown might complain that he's not really a Clintonite. Fair enough. Unfortunately, of course, his closest American strategist and confidante is, er, Bob Shrum - who now has an excellent chance of losing elections on each side of the Atlantic.

As James suggests, the parallels between Gordon and Hillary are, well, very entertaining:

a) Sense of entitlement. It's my ball and how dare you think you can play with it.

b) Genuine policy wonk with rather fewer achievements to their credit than you might (especially in Brown's case) expect*.

c) Control-freak.

d) Oft-cited (by friends) charm and sense of humour remains completely hidden from the general public.

e) Hillary's "Ready from Day One" blather likely to be no more convincing, post-honeymoon, than Gordon's. She must be envious that he was able to engineer a challenge-free succession and she was not.

f) Face a younger, more interesting, more eloquent, more charismatic - if comparatively inexperienced - opponent who is likely to beat them handsomely. Bottom line: When it's Tomorrow vs Yesterday, Yesterday rarely prevails.

Is this Hillary's "best" shot? Get Me Rewrite...

Marc Ambinder has quotes from what the Clinton campaign is billing as a "major contrast" speech she will give in Ohio tonight (I assume this is being leaked in an attempt to divert attention away from what seems likely to be a big win for Obama in Wisconsin tonight).

Anyway, among the "highlights":

…Tonight, I want to talk about the choice you have in this election – and why that choice matters….

…This election is not about me or my opponent.  It’s about you.  Your lives, your dreams, your future.

Right now, too many people are struggling. Working the day shift, the night shift, trying to get by without health care, just one paycheck away from losing their homes. They cannot afford four more years of a president who just doesn’t see or hear them.

They need a president ready on day one to be commander in chief. Ready to manage our economy. And ready to beat the Republicans this November.

I will be that president.

This is the choice we face:

...One of us is ready to be commander in chief in a dangerous world…

…One of us has a plan to provide health care for every single American – no one left out….

…Finally, one of us has faced serious Republican opposition in the past.  And one of us is ready to do it again...

Both Senator Obama and I would make history. But only one of us is ready on day one to be commander in chief, ready to manage our economy, and ready to defeat the Republicans. Only one of us has spent 35 years being a doer, a fighter and a champion for those who need a voice. That is what I would bring to the White House. That is the choice in this election.

…It’s about picking a president who relies not just on words – but on work, hard work, to get America back to work. Someone who’s not just in the speeches business – but will get America back in the solutions business…

Somehow, you know, I think she has to do a bit better than this. After all, she's been peddling this stuff for weeks now and it doesn't seem to be working. Is this really the best the Clintons can do or is she holding something better in reserve?

To make just one obvious point, when you hear a politician say that's what's needed is "Someone who’s not just in the speeches business – but will get America back in the solutions business" sentient voters may be tempted to think, Look at that! See how clever it is? Lovely repetition of business. Nice too that "speeches" and "solutions" both start (and end!) with the letter 'S'. Sweet. Why that's just the sort of hackneyed writing a politician uses when they're selling me a line. In fact, it's so obviously - and poorly - "crafted" that it could only be delivered by someone in the "speeches business". Hmm, wouldn't that undermine her point? Oh, never mind...