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  Open Season: Democrats Resort to Harsh Words in Pennsylvania

Open Season Democrats Resort to Harsh Words in Pennsylvania

By Marc Pitzke in Philadelphia

Part 2: Clinton Looking Desperate?

She's begun to look desperate -- at least as far as she's hurt her own poll numbers with a fake anecdote about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire in 1996, or with snide denunciations of MoveOn.org, the grassroots movement which has been a crucial source of support for Democrats in the last two elections. She claims MoveOn has intimidated her own supporters in early caucuses and primaries.

Her latest campaign ad claims, "Obama voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill that put $6 billion dollars in the pockets of big oil." There's no mention of the fact that the bill, which was supported by many Democrats in Congress, actually raised taxes for oil companies and promoted investment in renewable energies.

Chop, Falsify, Spin

Clinton is following a game plan that Republicans brought to perfection in campaigns against her (in her run for the Senate) and her husband Bill (during his time as president) -- chop, falsify and spin, until something falls apart.

The latest example is Bill Ayers. In the '70s he belonged to a left-wing radical group, the Weather Underground. In those days Obama was just a child. Now Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois, and in 1996 he threw a fundraising dinner for Obama's state senate campaign. The Clinton campaign has thrown the connection to a "radical" back in Obama's face.

She has also accused him of "elitism" -- a label that sank John Kerry in 2004 -- after Obama said it was no surprise that after eight years of Bill Clinton, and eight years of George W. Bush (and 25 years of Rust-Belt unemployment), some "bitter" small-town Americans "cling" to religion and guns. At the same time, she made sure to be photographed downing beer and shots of whiskey in various places around Pennsylvania -- as if she were a woman of the people and not a multimillionaire.

And it's worked: Obama, who has long seemed untouchable, is losing his shine. He no longer seems like a carefree redeemer, but like a man on the defensive, retreating to academic arguments and giving speeches that lack his earlier fire. He's committed the cardinal sin of a political campaigner: He's allowed his opponent to define him.

His reactions in the last few days have grown ever more humorless and sharp. He's allowed himself to go on the counterattack with biting speeches and campaign ads, which his campaign can buy for a few stray million dollars apiece. (Obama has more campaign cash than Hillary by a wide margin.) "There have been times where you know if you get elbowed enough," he told a crowd at Reading High School, northwest of Philadelphia, on Sunday, "eventually you start elbowing back."

He attacks Clinton's plans for health reform; he accuses her of "last-minute smear tactics"; and one of his confidantes, former General Walter Stewart, said Clinton lacked the "moral authority" to lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery, where American soldiers are buried. This is a serious departure from the soft tones Obama once used, saying he wanted to transcend the usual "cynical politics" in Washington -- a high ground he nevertheless was still trying to claim recently in Philadelphia.

He has, in other words, fallen for the trap. Now Clinton can accuse him of "negative campaigning" -- which she hasn't neglected to do, day after day.

A Narrow Victory?

That she's also managed to drive off a growing number of former loyalists no longer seems to bother her. One big-name Democrat after another has defected from the Clinton camp to declare support for Obama, sometimes with harsh words in public. The latest example is Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's former labor secretary.

All this amounts to ammunition for the Republicans. John McCain is assumed to be taking notes on the Democrats' internecine warfare; last weekend he even started to exploit Obama's supposed links to the former radical Bill Ayers.

Columnist Bob Herbert writes in the New York Times: "The Democrats are doing everything they can to blow this presidential election." The prominent left-wing columnist and blogger Arianna Huffington charges that Clinton is "burning down the village to save it -- or to prove that she would make the best fire chief."

Approval ratings of both candidates are sinking. Only a bitter Clinton defeat in Pennsylvania will put a quick end to this calamity; but few believe it will happen.

"There won't be a breakthrough," says Clinton's Pennsylvania campaign director, Nick Clemons, soft-pedaling expectations for his candidate without declaring defeat. "We're expecting a narrow victory."

Which should be enough to ensure that the saga will continue.

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