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McCain Campaign Finds Hillary's Anti-Obama Playbook Helpful

July 15, 2008 4:07 PM

Once again Republicans have stolen a page out of Hillary Clinton’s anti-Obama campaign playbook.

In a letter sent to Sen. Barrack Obama D-Ill. today, Sen. Jim DeMint R- SC -- the ranking Republican on a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that Obama chairs -- tweaked Obama for not having held any hearings on the subject of NATO's role in Afghanistan.

“With oversight of NATO relations and its role in Afghanistan, I believe it is time for us to focus closely on these issues,” DeMint wrote, suggesting a meeting of the subcommittee upon Obama’s return from a much anticipated trip abroad. 

The letter was clearly a shot at the fact that Obama -- chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs -- has only held three hearings. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., told Meet the Press that "the reason Obama didn't hold a hearing on NATO, I chair the committee. Every one of those committee hearings are held at full committee."

Either way, it's not a new shot.

During a debate last February, Clinton said, “I also have heard Senator Obama refer continually to Afghanistan, and he references being on the Foreign Relations Committee. He chairs the Subcommittee on Europe. It has jurisdiction over NATO. NATO is critical to our mission in Afghanistan. He’s held not one substantive hearing to do oversight, to figure out what we can do to actually have a stronger presence with NATO in Afghanistan."

(Our friends at Politifact said this was a clean hit.)

McCain has also recently been attacking Obama for refusing to debate him, another favorite line of attack from Clinton, and for having voted "present" quite often as an Illinois state senator, also a classic Clinton golden oldie.

How soon before McCain starts challenging Obama to meet him in Ohio?

- jpt

July 15, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (56)

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chris mistakenly wrote:
not to mention the apparent disenfranchisement of the votes of florida's and michigan's voters in the democratic race, will likely be one of many factors contributing to his increasingly inevitable failure to win the general election...
**********
I am from MI, my friend. And I can tell you that Obama will win MI. No one feels "disenfranchised" here. Everyone I know saw Clinton's ploy for what it was. Disgusting.

McCain keeps pounding the NAFTA drum. Trust me, that doesn't go well with the folks in the UAW.

Posted by: Jane Hussein | Jul 15, 2008 6:31:49 PM

The "selected" candidate will not win in November. They picked the wrong one again, that is why I am disgusted with the democrats.

Posted by: J | Jul 15, 2008 6:27:48 PM

That's not a very good response by Biden. It sounds like Obama isn't even allowed to run the subcommittee which he chairs, and here is wanting to run our country.

The training wheels should have come off by now.

Posted by: MayBee | Jul 15, 2008 6:08:32 PM

I lost faith in the democratic party because of barack Hussein obama.

Posted by: brigitte | Jul 15, 2008 6:04:35 PM

obama's got a lot more sources for special interest groups like swift boat vets to use against him than john kerry ever did, and kerry was a vietnam veteran going up against an incompetent, ignorant commander in chief that most intelligent people could surmise would be a destructive force on America.....how do you think obama will fare against a former POW who has a history of working across the aisle, is already polling stronger on national security and the commander in chief title, and has shown to be a strong contender for the votes of independents?

Posted by: chris | Jul 15, 2008 6:00:19 PM

dl....in case your sense of history only goes back as far as last week, let me educate you......Al Gore received over 500,000 more votes than dubya in 2000, yet dubya "won" the election....how can this be? because electoral votes matter more, regardless of national polling numbers (which would indicate the popular vote %).....

Posted by: chris | Jul 15, 2008 5:54:31 PM

chris pull up the local state polls if you want to compare numbers...

yours are wrong.

oy.

atleast get your info straight ugh.

obama's numbers are better overall...
you and the primary numbers that MEAN NOTHING in a general.

just like national polls unless they are blowouts.
oy

Posted by: dl | Jul 15, 2008 5:43:50 PM

jane....if you were at all familiar with recent election trends, election history and Senator Clinton's character and history, and especially polling data at the time, you would reasonably come up with very favorable odds that Senator Clinton would win those states (michigan, florida, pennsylvania, west virginia, ohio, etc.) that she would need to win the White House in November....obama's poor judgment in WITHDRAWING his name from michigan's primaries, not to mention the apparent disenfranchisement of the votes of florida's and michigan's voters in the democratic race, will likely be one of many factors contributing to his increasingly inevitable failure to win the general election....he won the nomination largely because of those red states he beat her in....however, she won the more traditional Democratic states and a number of swing states as well, some by wide margins......any reasonable person would ascertain that she would have had a better chance of winning the White House than he, especially given the tenacity and seemingly invulnerable qualities her and her husband somehow possessed against republican and conservative attack campaigns....

Posted by: chris | Jul 15, 2008 5:40:31 PM

yeah I guess mcCain hasn't seen MSNBC's vp poll

this playbook isn't even helping Hillary for VP...never mind against Obama for Pres.

and she had the wright scandal and all the rest of the garbage to throw...

McCain's got a lot less.

Posted by: dl | Jul 15, 2008 5:36:52 PM

Chris,

FYI - Just because she won them in the Primary doesn't guarantee she will take them in the GE.

Posted by: Jane Hussein | Jul 15, 2008 5:32:13 PM

the fact remains that only Senator Clinton was capable of being the best President that our children, our troops and our country desperately need right now....stop trying to disguise your guilt for supporting a lesser candidate (mccain and obama) by blaming the inadequacies of your party nominees on her justifiable concerns about them....

Posted by: chris | Jul 15, 2008 5:32:13 PM

No surprise here. Obama will use the same complaints made against McCain by Romney. That's just standard post-primary campaigning. Both sides collect the issues that worked against the nominee in the primaries, then amplify them in the GE. That is why the DNC was so panicked by the Clinton juggernaut post-Super Tuesday. She had discovered how to beat him and was doing it until the DNC jiggered the superdelegates and the count in Michigan and Florida.

Obama was the weaker nominee. The pundits said so and the party knew it. Obama was 'selected'. Now they have to live with it and blaming Clinton is how they intend to cover their own prodigious posteriors post-election.

Politics: the art of making the unacceptable believable.

Posted by: len | Jul 15, 2008 5:28:56 PM

what happened, barack? it didn't take you very long to abandon your church of 20 years once you realized it would be politically beneficial for you (which is the same reason why you JOINED)....didn't you realize it would also be in your political interest to do something as a senate chairman when you had the chance?....

Posted by: chris | Jul 15, 2008 5:28:23 PM

obama beat Hillary because he had a better strategy to win the nomination.....however, only Senator Clinton could have beaten mccain because she had a better plan to win the White House (winning the states that will decide the election)....in case you obama lemmings forgot, electoral votes will be the only ones that matter in November and only Senator Clinton would have won enough....

Posted by: chris | Jul 15, 2008 5:24:05 PM

Jane what would you tell the workers. Why were the jobs eliminated. GM is fighting for it life and more jobs will be lost. Way to expensive to build cars in the US with union load and prior employees.

Posted by: William Moore Plano Texas | Jul 15, 2008 5:22:49 PM

michelle.....yeah, because obama can beat mccain in Alaska, oklahoma, nebraska, and other democratic strongholds that he beat Clinton in...

Posted by: chris | Jul 15, 2008 5:21:29 PM

What's the news? Wasn't Hillary and McCain campaigning together from the beginning? Trust me, Hillary shared any bit of information she got from her opposition trash pickers. She had a pact with the conservatives that she would help them destroy Obama, if they left her alone.
So far they have failed, but we can count on the subbmissive personalities to keep on repeating what ever they are told to.

Posted by: Truth Matters | Jul 15, 2008 5:19:25 PM

Not holding hearings should be a real indication for us on how he will run the White House. Experience and the desire to defeat Hillary and now McCain at any cost.

Posted by: William Moore Plano Texas | Jul 15, 2008 5:19:02 PM

Yes, let Obama meet him in Ohio and have McCain keep repeating how great NAFTA is in front of laid-off auto workers! LOL!

McCain in clueless!

Posted by: Jane Hussein | Jul 15, 2008 5:11:04 PM

McCain go ahead and use Hillary's playbook against Obama.

Hillary lost.

Posted by: Michelle | Jul 15, 2008 5:11:00 PM

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