Fighting Words

I expected Obama to reply with some variation of: "You had your chance for health care reform in 1994, with a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, and you blew it." But despite great pressure from his own backers, Obama has consistently refused to sock anyone. About the toughest thing he has said is that Clinton is running a "textbook Washington campaign" and has not provided "straight answers to tough questions," the latter assessment identical to Hillaryland's own review of her performance in the Philadelphia debate.

Instead, in Las Vegas, Obama chose to argue that Clinton's plan would force the uninsured to enroll when they couldn't afford it. His answer was muddled and interrupted by a heckler. But in the fortnight since, Hillary hasn't gotten much traction attacking Obama's position. That's because busy Democratic voters are bored and confused by talk of "mandates" and "universality" and have enough common sense to know that the differences among the Democratic candidates on health care are infinitesimal compared to the contrast with Republicans.

Because polls show voters trust Hillary more on health care, we can expect to see negative Clinton ads that press the argument that Obama doesn't really care about the uninsured. But that's a difficult case to make against any Democrat to the left of, say, Zell Miller. And Hillary's refusal to specify what kind of mandate she would impose gives Obama a decent rejoinder in upcoming debates. Even if she's right on the merits, it's awfully hard to argue for a mandate when you won't identify the penalty for not getting insurance (under the Massachusetts plan, it's about $1,000) until after the election.

Hillary "character" assault is centered on another issue that may be too complicated to penetrate the consciousness of voters-campaign finance. She says Obama is a hypocrite for claiming that he doesn't take money from lobbyists while still having something called a "Leadership PAC," a lobbyist-supported fund he started in 2006 that allows him to give money to local candidates (including several who support Clinton for president) as a way to build the party. Yes, Obama should shut this fund (which has only about $100,000 in it), just as Hillary did with a similar fund she started. But given that Obama has accepted far less money overall from lobbyists and can boast far more small donors to his campaign, this is an ethical quibble at best.

Hillary is now also trying to use Obama's ambition as an ethical issue. In his stump speech, the Illinois senator says he hasn't been planning his whole life to run for president (he didn't enter politics until his mid-30s), a veiled reference to a recent Clinton biography that claims that Bill and Hillary had a longstanding deal that she would one day run. In response, the Clinton campaign produced a quote from Obama's third-grade teacher that he wrote a paper at age 7 entitled, "I Want to Be President." Incredulous Obama staffers joked that they have a sworn affidavit from his fourth-grade teacher that he actually wanted to be an astronaut.

It's ironic that the Clinton campaign website is accusing Obama of using "Karl Rove's talking points." (Rove, an occasional Newsweek commentator, wrote a column this week for the Financial Times giving Obama advice on how to beat Clinton). Actually, it's Clinton who is taking a leaf from the Rove playbook by attacking her opponent on his strengths (integrity, freshness). That's the counter-intuitive way Rove ran campaigns from Texas to the White House. In 2004, for instance, Rove had Bush run directly at John Kerry's perceived strength as a Vietnam veteran.