COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 27 — Senator Barack Obama says he will start confronting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton more forcefully, disputing and challenging her views on key policy issues. Mr. Obama’s offensive comes just over two months before the first votes are cast for the Democratic nomination, and amidst concern by his aides, donors and other supporters that he has not exhibited the aggressiveness demanded by presidential politics, and that his lack of aggresiveness has allowed Mrs. Clinton to expand her lead in the presidential race.
* Obama the change candidate, as the JFK/Camelot 2 candidate, is fading fast. For one, he is having trouble sustaining the "safe" message (the "safe message" is vital to hold as it is the core of his popular appeal) as well as the charismatic change message a la John F. Kennedy did to a new generation of a modern, post WWII/Depression era young people? Today's young and anti-war crowd is really not one that has survived a real economic or political turmoil conflict, unless you just came over recently from a few places, or you count Paris Hilton's 47 hours in jail (HORRIFIC!) - yehm they just haven't been through it. It's a long race for him to sustain his message. But it's also a long race for him in experience. He's never run or been on a presidential campaign before, running all around the country, knowing the key stops. The stamina involved. The experience with the machine/apparatus/system of modern political campaigns. HIllary, as first lady, is uniquely above virtually all of them in experience with campaigns, save for Edwards, McCain and Kusinich. Richardson has national and international experience which gives him experience with a cross-country campaign schedule. The rest don't have experience running in a presidential campaign.
For months, Democrats, including some within Mr. Obama’s campaign, have questioned whether his promise to pursue a brand of politics that transcended partisanship had so handcuffed him that he could not compete in the most partisan of arenas.
Alan D. Solomont, a former contributor to both Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton who is now raising money for Mr. Obama in Boston, said there was a growing consensus that Mr. Obama had to ratchet up his intensity and draw sharper distinctions with Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and other rivals. “The only way that he’s going to be able to be clear with the American people,” Mr. Solomont said in an interview, “is to draw a distinction between his candidacy and his ideas about change and those of other candidates.”
In the interview, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, acknowledged that he had held back until now, though he asserted it was a calculated decision to introduce himself in early voting states before engaging opponents. But Mr. Obama said the plan had always been for him to take on Mrs. Clinton more directly in the fall. He glared and said no when asked if he lacked the stomach for confrontational politics. He'll get his first big test of his stomach this Tuesday night, when the Democrats meet for a nationally televised debate in Philadelphia.
There are growing signs that Mr. Obama is looking for a fresh start for his campaign after 9 months in which his aides said they were startled by the effectiveness of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, and worried that her support was not as brittle as they had once believed. Donors and other supporters are asking why Mr. Obama was not challenging Mrs. Clinton more forcefully and warning that he could cede the role of the main anti-Clinton candidate to former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who is running an aggressive campaign in this area. Typically, one aide said, the supporter asks some version of the same question: “What happened to the Obama we saw at the 2004 Democratic convention?”
* what happened is simple. this brotha tryin' to stay alive! he don't need nor want to get out there too aggressive. he knows and we all know that a carbine will be pointed (if not one is already always pointed) at the back of his head somewhere below the ear lobe and temple, ready to take our this squire of America, this Black Man our savior, who would save you and be your champion against the robber-barons, someone who would, as McCain has now capitalized on phrasically, give us "Straight Talk" about what's really going on and how we're going to solve and deal with our people's real and immediate problems, who would find peace on earth of which we could be a part. But that is not to be. By the powers that run us, we need someone who will Caeserize the world in the name of democracy and freedom, and keep the system of America going. so that very few will make very many dollars. Until there's a collapse. The powers that be know this, and that's why they can't have an Obama in the White House too long. I assume Obama, at 45 and with a young child, wants to live and enjoy life for a while, a couple of decades at least, without worrying about meeting his fate while serving his country.
But here's Obama's turn of the heel...
Though Mr. Obama’s criticisms of Mrs. Clinton are getting sharper, they were still somewhat restrained, certainly when compared with the criticisms that have been voiced of Mrs. Clinton by Mr. Edwards and much of the Republican field. Mr. Obama rejected the suggestion that he had been constrained in taking on Mrs. Clinton more forcefully because of his promise, at the start of the campaign, to avoid the bitter partisanship of past campaigns. “I’ve been amused by seeing some of the commentary out of the Clinton camp, where every time we point out a difference between me and her, they say, ‘What happened to the politics of hope?’ which is just silly,” he said, laughing. Asked why it was silly, he responded: “The notion that somehow changing the tone means simply . . . . that we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is obviously not what I had in mind and not how I function. And anybody who thinks I have hasn’t been paying attention.”
* Ouuuoohh! is that a threat? hope so. Obama needs to get up there and bitchslap her, cuss her out, call her a liar or link her to one of the GOP lies about her, jump on top of her and tell her you'll have wild estacy-laced axphysiatic sex with her until she chokes & passes out and stays out until after January 4, the Iowa Caucus. That is, if he has the fuckin' balls for it. I have my doubts.....
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