Blogging on Meds

It was the eve of Super Tuesday, and I was standing in line with about 17,000 other people in Hartford, CT to see Barack Obama speak. My friends and I began speaking to the fifty-something year old, well to do, women from Weston (CT home of Kieth Richards) who are standing in front of us in line.

They were both sporting expensive jewelry and Obama pins so I asked what made them Obama supporters. One of the women looked at me and said, “I was watching Hardball and heard Howard Wolfson say the word coke three times, that was it for me.”

She was referring to the Clinton campaigns earlier attempts to use Obama’s admitted drug use against him, which included BET founder Robert Johnson brining it up at a Clinton campaign rally.

Yesterday’s “major news” was a narrative that was crafted by the Clinton campaign and then delivered to the masses beautifully, by the media. Here is how the story line goes, Obama gave a speech in which he quoted Deval Patrick (D Gov. of Mass) with out giving him credit and because of that his entire campaign is a fraud.

The LA Times reports that Hillary told reporters on her campaign plane:

“If your whole candidacy is about words, they should be your own words,” she said. “That’s what I think.”

From the same article the story line is continued:

In response to a reporter’s question, Wolfson also pointed to the Obama campaign theme of “Yes, we can,” echoing the Spanish-language slogan that once was the rallying cry of Cesar Chavez: “Sí, se puede.”

For the rest of the day this drum was beat by the media. I flipped past FNC, CNN, MSNBC all where giving “Steroid/Clemens” like coverage to it. It was the major campaign story on CBS, NBC, and ABC evening newscasts. Not the economy, education, the war, health insurance, or poverty but petty high school he said she said crap.

Responding to these allegations Obama said (From LA Time):

“When Sen. Clinton says, ‘It’s time to turn the page’ in one of her stump speeches or says she’s ‘fired up and ready to go,’ I don’t think that anybody sort of suggests that somehow she’s not focused on the issues that she’s focused on.”

Obama did say that he “should have” credited Patrick

Look, Obama should have given Deval credit for the line. But when candidates are able to highjack the day’s storylines with cheap attack politics we all lose. Remember, in a race as close as Wisc. (Obama, Clinton each ahead in different Wisconsin polls) she does not have to win this argument just muddy the waters enough to cause doubt in the electorate.

I agree with those who would like a closer look at Obama’s policies. If Hillary Clinton thinks the same then her campaign should stop these “swiftboating” strategies and begin to point out “real” reasons why the Democrat voters of Wisconsin and the rest of the remaining states should not vote for Senator Obama.