Didn't Need This Response

Obama puts out a response ad to Hillary's "It's 3 AM" ad.



Fair enough, but I wish the response ad was simply "I won't run a campaign based on fear," as he said earlier. This "judgment" frame is nice and all, but it's just fearmongering from a different angle. When you combine this with Obama's right-wing dog-whistling to editorial boards like The Cincinnati Enquirer, it's hard to conclude anything other than that Obama is generally a cautious centrist who is unlikely to be a transformative progressive figure. My hopes lie with the fact that the movement Obama is generating and inspiring is quite a bit more liberal than he is, and that they will have the tools and the means to hold him accountable and push him in a more progressive direction once in office. Of course, that's going to be tested by the long general election campaign, where both sides will naturally move toward the middle in the hunt for votes.

UPDATE: None of this really reflects well on Clinton, of course, nor does their campaign being dumbfounded when asked to name one time when she has been tested in a crisis.

...also, I know this is a response ad, and a rapid response at that. All of that is well and good. Obama's team could have hit back in a different way.

UPDATE II: There's a YouTube of that conference call audio.



The point here is that nobody's really ready for these decisions. There is no Presidential training school. Judgment is a factor, experience is a factor, but you can't credibly say that one person will react better than another. I'd rather assess candidates on their policies, not this amorphous "Who will keep you safe" nonsense.