The ongoing duel to win the Democratic nomination for president between senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton flared up a notch over the week-end when Clinton blasted Obama for sending out misleading mailers about her healthcare plan.
"I have to express my deep disappointment that he is continuing to send false and discredited mailings with information that is not true to the voters of Ohio," she said after a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio. Clinton was visibly angry. "He says one thing in speeches, and then he turns around, and does this.
" … he continues to spend millions of dollars perpetuating falsehoods. That is not the new politics that the speeches are about. It is not hopeful — it is destructive, particularly for a Democrat to be discrediting universal healthcare, to be waging a false campaign against my plan."
Political junkies quickly posted footage of the speech on YouTube:
Tellingly, Clinton’s campaign did not –perhaps aware of the effect anger has on the electorate’s perception of political candidates.
Instead, the campaign posted several detailed rebuttals on its Fact Hub web site. The rebuttals contained links to pundits’ opinions that bolstered Clinton’s case, and chastised Obama’s campaign tactic, as well as to healthcare policy experts’ assessements of the two plans.
Obama was asked to respond to the outburst on the campaign trail:
But that wasn’t the end to the rhetorical fencing match between the two Democrats this weekend.
Campaigning in Providence, Rhode Island, Clinton again shed her usually steely composure, and started mocking Obama:
The commentary seemed like a defiant, delayed response to Obama’s point during last Thursday’s CNN/Univision debate about bringing people together:
I posted all of these videos in succession simply because I think the clips effectively highlight a fundamental difference in style between the two candidates — and it is this last message from Obama that voters have been buying in the past few weeks:
Ironically, it was this message of hope that sold Bill Clinton’s campaign all those years ago, as the author of the Jed Report notes in this poignant, and powerful double entendre of a mash-up:
