Clinton raises serious questions
This post is about a pet peeve: the Clinton campaign’s love affair with the phrase “raises serious questions.”
According to Clinton or her surrogates, the following things raise serious questions about Obama: Austan Goolsbee, General McPeak, Obama referencing Geraldine Ferraro, a 1996 voter questionnaire, even Pennsylvania polls.
Just once, I’d like a reporter to respond:
You’ve told us such and such raises serious questions. What questions? How are they serious? And why all the serious questions from the ’solutions’ candidate?
Some of you may feel it’s just semantics, one of those silly expressions, like the way in polite company you preface an argument that somebody is an idiot with the phrase, “with all due respect.” But it’s worse than that. It’s an attempt to absolve her campaign from stupid or offensive statements, and it’s hurting the Democratic party.
Let me take you back to a serious-question-raising campaign moment from two weeks ago. In a conference call with reporters, Mark Penn forgot the campaign doublespeak and made this statement:
If Barack Obama can’t win [in Pennsylvania], how could he win the general election? . . . Senator Obama really can’t win the general election.
A few minutes later, a reporter asked about it, and Howard Wolfson jumped in to claim that Mark Penn hadn’t said it (although apparently people record these telephone conferences). So Mark Penn clarified. In the revised and sanitized version, he said this:
If [Obama] can’t win Pennsylvania it raises serious questions about whether he can win a general election.
By converting it from a conclusion to an innuendo, the speaker is absolved of the political accountability that comes with saying something stupid. That’s the theory, anyway.
Clinton tells us that she’s not doing any harm to the Democratic party by staying in the race. She assures us that anyone who dislikes Obama as a result of these attacks will return. If Obama gets the nomination, she’ll persuade the voters back. Imagine that speech:
Hey remember the time I told you I’ve passed the commander-in-chief threshold, Sen. McCain has done that, and “you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy”? Well I asked him, and it turns out, he passed!
And remember the time, Bill Clinton told you that it’d be great if I ran against McCain because then we’d have “two people who loved this country” running? You’ll be glad to hear, turns out, Obama loves this country too! Isn’t that neat?
Oh, and remember the time I mentioned that Obama wasn’t a Muslim “as far as I know“? Not that there’s anything wrong with being Muslim, but I looked into it, and it turns out he’s not Islamic after all! Score one for Jesus!
Innuendo by innuendo, serious question by serious question, Clinton has persuaded some voters to dislike Obama who will not return.
The only serious question left for Clinton’s candidacy is when will it stop?
5 Responses to “Clinton raises serious questions”
http://lots-o-thoughts.blogspot.com/
Statement #1: “[insert trivial issue here] raises serious questions about Barack Obama”
Statement #2: “The media is too hard on me and too easy on Barack Obama”
Statement #3: “Hey guys, did you see that funny SNL skit that reinforces statement #2? You should check that out.”
When you put all these together, I definitely get the impression that Clinton is trying to shame the press corps and talk show hosts into gossiping about all these trivial non-issues about Obama. They’re surprisingly sensitive to accusations of bias (maybe they don’t want to lose access to a candidate who is whining about unfairness?), and surprisingly quick to make hay out of completely irrelevant personality-driven non-policy issues. If they think people are going to accuse them of bias (and possibly tune out), it’s much more likely that they’ll ratchet up the non-substantive negative story lines on Obama than they’ll actually correct their soap opera style coverage.
http://www.luros.org
This raises serious questions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5jyTc6rnbI
http://overbreadth.com
As does this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o
http://www.luros.org
Well, as you are well aware, the presence of sigmoid refractance in a low-dingle arm environment mandates increased n-depletable coefficient turbo encabulators.
http://overbreadth.com
Consider last night’s appearance on the Tonight Show:
Hahaha.. Oh wait. Should you really be joking about that? I mean, it’s fair game for Jay, but aren’t you still running for president?
I know that movie. That’s the one about a bloody protracted fight that ends in a split decision in which Rocky loses to a black man.
You’ve gotta stop calling me? That’s the 3 a.m. answer? Does anybody really think she’s still running for president and not just raising money to repay campaign debt?
Discussion