Up is Down and Down is Up for Hillary

Up is down and down is up - and this is a good thing.

There have been a lot of comparisons so far this season regarding comparisons between the 2008 election year and others, notably 1968, 1972, and 1992.

I'm sure this won't be the last.

If you don't remember a popular refrain from the 1992 campaign issued by Clinton and Gore many times, I'll repeat it.

"Unemployment is up, New housing starts are down, Poverty is up, Income is down, Bankruptcies are up, Consumer confidence is down. Everything that is up should be down, they've got it upside down, and we want to turn it right side up again."

We have the same phenomenon right now in the Democratic primary fights, the difference is that upside down this time is a good thing.

Let me elaborate.

When this campaign between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton started to heat up this fall, the Clinton Group wanted to make the choice about "Experience" vs. "Naivete".

Barack Obama has turned this around, by highlighting Clinton's war and Iran votes, by making it about "Judgement". He had the judgment to oppose the war from the beginning and this trumps all the experience in the world. He also reminds voters that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had more experience than anyone - and look where that has gotten us.

Hillary Clinton chooses now to accentuate the fact that she is "tested and ready", and by comparison Barack Obama is untested and - as her husband would say "a roll of the dice". But look who is looking like an amateur on the campaign stage? Look who is changing her message day to day to appear: soft, strong; likable, tough; experienced, open to change? It is Hillary Clinton that is looking over-handled, and shaky when it comes to defining a consistent message about who she is and where she will take the country.

Now lets turn to electability...
This is the real kicker.
Since spring Hillary Clinton has been claiming that she is more electable than any other Democrat in the race. This is despite the high negatives she has and the obvious fact that Republicans are chomping at the bit to run against her. In fact, as it has been said by David Ignatius and others that Hillary Clinton is that last thing that has a hope of actually uniting the fractured Republican party.

To further prove this point, lets look at some recent NBC polls on the issue.

Clinton 46% - Giuliani 43%
Clinton 46% - Huckabee 44%

A close race by any measure, and even more striking when one considers that a generic Democrat wins 46%/36% over a generic Republican (Rasmussen Dec 14). The data unmistakably shows that more Republicans are energized to vote AGAINST Hillary Clinton than they would if facing a generic Democrat.

By contrast, here are the Barack Obama numbers from the same poll.

Obama 49% - Giuliani 40%
Obama 48% - Huckabee 36%

These numbers show a rout by comparison. Obama does better than a generic Democrat and Guiliani and Huckabee remain near the baseline for the generic Republican candidate.

My larger point is that everything Hillary Clinton is running on is a falsehood. She is NOT the most tested candidate - Obama has more elected experience than her. She is NOT the candidate with better judgment. She is NOT the one that knows better how to fight the Republicans.

If the reader has any doubt on this issue, I refer them to a brilliant article by Mark Schmitt on the nuts and bolts of Obama's political genius: "The theory of Change Primary"
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_theory_of_change_primary

To complete my blog, I will return briefly to the issue of the Reagan Democrats.

My assertion of yesterday was confirmed on Meet the Press this morning by John Harwood when he recounted a story: "I was with an old school friend recently, classic Reagan Democrat, works in the auto body business, had a copy of the Lou Dobbs book 'War on the Middle Class' on his kitchen table. And he said 'You know, I've been voting Republican for years but I've decide that they're for the rich, I'm sick of the Republicans. And I said 'oh, so you're prepared to vote for Hillary Clinton? And he said 'Never'. There are millions of people like that - how they decide this could impact whats going to happen in the general election".

This is a very telling quote because it confirms my feeling, talking to my friends, and what I have learned by talking to voters in California and Nevada.

Barack Obama is the obvious electable choice against any generic Republican.