The Obama Trap – Part 1

There is something very interesting playing out on the democratic side of the 2008 race. Obama is running very early, Hillary is doing what she can to stay in front and someone who should be running isn’t. There is more to this than meets the eye I think. Let me walk you through it.

Hillary didn’t want to announce early. She wanted to keep her powder dry and her money in the bank. The sooner the race would start the worse off she would be. The longer the race the more money she would have to raise and spend. The more people get to know her, the more they dislike her for various reasons. That is why she kept her profile low in the senate and tried very hard to walk the moderate line. She would have been happy to wait till October, but someone had other plans.

Out of the blue, here comes Barak Obama. Here is a senator with 2 yrs experience, some state government experience, but still a really green politician. He is gifted and charismatic. He announces early and the anti-war liberals as well as the democrats looking for a Clinton alternative latch on. The Media goes wild for Obama and sets him up as the second coming of Bill Clinton.

This makes Hillary have to jump in early to stay the front-runner and keep her base. She didn’t want too but the longer she waited to announce, the closer Obama got. If she’s not the front-runner, she cannot hold on and win. Obama is a threat to her nomination. She has to put a stop to Obama’s rise. How does she do it? How do the Clintons’ deal with political opponents? They use personal attacks, the politics of personal destruction.

Clinton team quietly releases information about how Obama was a Muslim and schooled in a madrassa as a child (read about this here). The media debunks this claim relatively quickly. This event is a warning to Obama. Clinton’s team had fired a shot across the bow. ‘Don’t mess with us or we will destroy you politically.’ Obama moves back and takes the high ground, shrugging of the claims. This created a stalemate between the two that will eventually have to be broken. If Hillary slips in the polls more, it will force her team to really play hardball and attack Obama directly.

That is exactly what the architect of the Obama Trap is waiting for.

RR