Bumble Bee Soft Blog

James William Smith asked:


Hillary Clinton had run a disciplined, mistake-free campaign for the first nine months of 2007. She had been able to portray herself as an experienced candidate for change. By contrast, the Obama campaign had an anemic nine months on the campaign trail without a clear message or momentum. Mrs. Clinton had Obama in a tough political spot.

To remain competitive in the race, Barack Obama needed to attack Mrs. Clinton as a candidate. The attack ads and negative campaigning would have left Obama open to criticism of abandoning his campaign’s primary theme of hope. It would challenge his assertion that he was a different kind of politician and it would appear to the voting public as a cynical attempt by him to get back in the race. Obama would look desperate and Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination would be inevitable.

However, Obama never had to go “negative” because Mrs. Clinton started making a series of unforced mistakes. Her political mistakes from late September through early December have allowed the Obama campaign to surge into the lead in the first voting state of Iowa. In addition Obama has moved back into contention in the state primary in New Hampshire.

Clinton started her parade of mistakes in the debate of September 26, 2007. Her handling of a hypothetical question on terrorist torture from moderator Tim Russert was inconsistent with answers she has given on that same question posed to her in the past.

The mistakes continued for Hillary in the Democratic debate of October 30, 2007. Her answer to a debate question concerning granting illegal aliens drivers licenses was incoherent. She appeared to take a position on both sides of the issue within about sixty seconds. Her performance validated her Democratic opponent’s claim that she was trying to parse her position on issues and have it both ways.

Next, Bill Clinton showed up stumping for votes for Hillary in Iowa to remind us how slick and parsing he can be. In Iowa, it was all about Bill and little about Hillary on the campaign trail. Bill even tried to convince us that he was against the Iraq war from the beginning, which is clearly not true. It sounded like Bill Clinton was running again and reminded the voting public about the fact that in electing Hillary, we would get Team Clinton back for President in the White House. This back to the future Clinton reminder to the voting public did not go over well.

Then, the voters got to see a Hillary Clinton interview with Katie Couric. This interview should have been a positive thing for Hillary. However, her poll numbers continued to drop after her appearance. In this interview, Hillary told Katie Couric that she has never contemplated losing this election. That she had not even considered the possibility that she would lose. The manner which she handle that question appeared presumptious to many voters. In fact, it fed into the negative image many people have of Hillary’s need and hunger for power. It was a continuation of the impression that she would say anything to win.

These mistakes from the Hillary Clinton campaign have helped to tighten the Democratic race for the 2008 Presidential nomination just weeks before the first vote is to be cast in Iowa. Barrack Obama clearly has the momentum in the race. Now it will be Hillary Clinton who will have to go negative to try and slow his campaign down.

For Obama to win the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, he must win Iowa in a decisive fashion. He also must win in New Hampshire or Hillary Clinton will absorb the Iowa defeat and move on. If Obama wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton would be reeling and John Edwards would be out of the race. The Edwards vote would probably move to Obama and he would have a chance to defeat Clinton, one-on-one in the subsequent primaries. Democratic voters would certainly be questioning Hillary’s prospects as a candidate against the Republican Presidential nominee in the general election in 2008. A primary election battle between Clinton and Obama could go unresolved for weeks since Obama has the campaign war chest to contest Clinton in every primary state.

An Obama victory against Hillary Clinton is still a long shot. However, a series of unforced Hillary Clinton mistakes since September 26, 2007 have allowed Obama to remain competitive. Indeed, the result of her political mistakes have, at the very least, given Barack Obama’s campaign of hope a prayer.



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david singer asked:


 

Senator Barack Obama visited Jordan and Israel last week and endorsed President Bush’s fundamentally flawed and totally failed plan - the so called “two state solution” - designed to create a new Arab State between Jordan and Israel - where none has ever existed before.

 

 Hailed as the shining light for change on America’s political horizon Mr Obama showed himself to be completely bereft of any new ideas to end the territorial conflict between Jews and Arabs over the West Bank - a tiny piece of land the size of Delaware.

 This was clearly evident as he told a press conference in Amman:



“I do believe that an ultimate resolution is going to involve two states standing side by side in peace and security, and that the Israelis and the Palestinians are going to both have to make compromises in order to arrive at that two-state solution.”

 

What Mr Obama ignores is the fact that 5 years of the most intense diplomatic pressure by America, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - the Quartet - has failed to bring even the slightest hint of any breakthrough in realising the Bush solution that Mr Obama still so seriously espouses.

Mr Obama sought to explain away the failure to achieve this “ultimate resolution” by asserting to the assembled media:



“Now, one of the difficulties that we have right now is that in order to make those compromises you have to have strong support from your people, and the Israeli government right now is unsettled. You know, the Palestinians are divided between Fatah and Hamas. And so it’s difficult for either side to make the bold move that would bring about peace the way, for example, the peace between Israel and Egypt was brought about. Those leaders were in a much stronger position to initiate that kind of peace.”

 

This statement is a complete furphy for three major reasons:

1. Israel’s Government is not unsettled - unless you call threats to flee the coalition unsettling, which is a constant fact of life in all democracies. Whilst Israel’s Prime Minister is almost out on his knees, the democratically elected Government continues to maintain a parliamentary majority and the confidence of the Knesset to ensure that any compromises an Israeli Government makes will be honoured and enforced.

This was dramatically illustrated last week when the Israeli Government released the Arab terrorist murderer of a 4 years old Jewish girl and her father - in order to secure the release of the bodies of two of its soldiers.

Senator Obama is obviously sadly lacking in his understanding of the workings - and strength - of Israel’s political system in the face of such a heart wrenching compromise as this.  

2. The objectives of Fatah and Hamas are identical - the elimination of the existence of Israel as the Jewish State - as both their constitutions frankly and openly declare. Hamas says this can only be achieved by armed struggle whilst Fatah thinks it can happen via the diplomatic route.

No matter which of these terrorist groups the Palestinians choose - or even if they reconcile and reunite to form a government of national unity - how then can there ever be any bold move for peace whilst this joint mind set persists and what is the point of any further negotiations with either of them until such racist ideology is first removed from their respective platforms? 

3. The peace between Israel and Egypt concerned sovereign territory that belonged to Egypt prior to its loss to Israel in 1967. This then became a far easier conflict to resolve than the West Bank and Gaza - territory in which sovereignty has remained undetermined since 1920 but to which Israel claims superior title over any other claimants under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, article 80 of the United Nations Charter and Security Council resolutions 242 and 337.  

Mr Obama cannot be that ignorant, naïve or poorly advised to be unaware of these basic contradictions to his statement to the media. He himself has given Hamas and Fatah notice of his stance on their policy to eliminate Israel telling a meeting of the American and Israel Public Affairs Committee just last month :



“[A]ny agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.”

  

In doing so Mr Obama has given his wholehearted endorsement to a similar statement made by President Bush to Israel in 2004 - sounding the death knell then - as it still does now - for President Bush’s vision ever coming to fruition.

This is the ultimate deal breaker that neither Hamas nor Fatah will ever be prepared to relinquish and which both President Bush and now Senator Obama reject outright and find totally abhorrent.

Mr Obama also affirmed to the Jerusalem Post in an interview last week that there will have to be some “give and take” in the West Bank - knowing full well that the Palestinian Authority has refused to give up even one square metre for the last five years. He also made it clear in the same interview that Israel cannot be expected to return to the armistice lines that existed prior to the Six Day War in June 1967. 

So why is Mr Obama still endorsing President Bush’s two state solution when he knows it can never eventuate?

Is this how he seeks to establish his leadership and foreign policy credentials - by continuing to engage in a process dreamt up by the incumbent American President that has been a total diplomatic disaster since it was first articulated?  

Why would Mr Obama want to be associated with this clear policy failure by - and humiliation of - the world’s only superpower to resolve a dispute over a tiny piece of real estate?

In continuing to endorse Mr Bush’s failed vision, Mr Obama has made it clear that he is more interested in not rocking the American political boat by giving his opponents any sniff that he might contemplate a different direction in resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute.

In doing so he has aligned himself with a failed President - obviously deciding this is less of a political risk than formulating any own bold move of his own for trying to achieve what so many past American Presidents have wanted to do - but also failed to achieve. 

That might be smart politics - but it has merely confirmed that on this issue he lacks the sincerity and conviction to be the architect for change and to break the unbridgeable deadlock that has spelt doom for the current negotiations and will continue to plague them until they are finally disbanded.

Meanwhile the killing and carnage will continue followed by the usual condemnations and recriminations. 

Mr Obama’s visit to the Middle East last week has shown he is just your ordinary politician after all - putting his own political interests first before the humanitarian interests of the people for whom he professes concern.  

That spells continuing darkness - not light at the end of the tunnel - for any Arab claim to the West Bank.



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