Is Clinton Losing Message Control?
By Chase on Oct 29, 2007 in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Iowa Caucuses
Two weeks ago, it was Iran. Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards started attacking Sen. Hillary Clinton very directly on her vote in favor of a resolution classifying Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. The Clinton campaign, perhaps sensing that the attacks were catching on, sent an uncharacteristically defensive mailing to Iowa voters explaining her vote. Seeing blood in the water, Obama brought the issue up again in a mailing a few days later.
Over the weekend, the new issue has become social security. Obama came out first on the issue in a speech in Des Moines, criticizing Clinton for failing to have an “honest conversation” about how to fix it. Sunday, he launched a TV ad on the subject emphasizing his attack on Clinton in thinly veiled terms, in which he says, “I don’t want to just put my finger out to the wind and see what the polls say. I want to bring the country together to solve a problem.” (This caused controversy in the intellectual left about the problems of alarmist social security politics, with many noting that social security is actually in a lot less trouble than a lot of other critical government programs. But from a strategic perspective, it works.)
Today, the Clinton campaign launched an ad targeting elderly voters to air in Iowa and New Hampshire that opens with a mention of her record on … social security. The ad, entitled “There for You,” highlights a law she created “to ease the burden on family caregivers” and her efforts to “stop long term care insurance scams that prey on the elderly” before concluding, “These days, it seems like every candidate on earth is coming here for you. But which candidate has been there for you all along?”
I suppose it is possible that the Obama campaign got wind of Clinton’s plans to highlight her record on seniors this week and made a quick decision to preempt her last week, but the more likely possibility is that quite suddenly, Clinton has lost control of her message. An inevitable frontrunner would continue to campaign on her own terms, ignoring moves by the other candidates to reshape the issues of the race. So what’s going on with the Clinton campaign?
Clinton’s new ad is below:
Chase Martyn observes and analyzes politics from Des Moines, IA, capital of 2008's first caucus state. He is also Managing Editor of the 
How, exactly, is social security an alarmist issue? Why isn’t it in that much trouble?
Geraldine | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
Geraldine,
Check out this URL for a Krugman column in the NY Times from December 2004: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6823
And this is a YouTube of Krugman playing down the “social security” crisis last Sunday: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ta7vZzNZuJc
Progressive bloggers were also in an uproar, but I don’t have any links off the top of my head.
Chase Martyn | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
While Krugman may be accepted into the liberal intelligencia, he certainly is no longer considered a serious economist. While S.S. may be funded better than most programs now, future projections indicate a crisis far larger than most people expect. Again I ask: why is it alarmist?
Geraldine | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
… more specifically, why is it inappropriate to demand that Hillary convey her ideas/position on social security? Have democrats embraced that idea that social security can live on in perpetuity (a theory poorly implied by Krugman)so much that suggestions for reform are viewed as inappropriate (or even conservative) concerns?
Geraldine | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
Medicare is in more dire fiscal straights than social security, but its long-term viability is rarely discussed. That’s because Republicans found a way to make Medicare a corporate trough (part D expansion) — and when a program can reward wealth, our nation’s long-term ability to pay for it is suddenly no longer a concern. Republicans want us to pay attention to social security and its problems more than medicare (or the problems we will have paying for this god awful war) because social security does not currently enrich corporate interests and the hyper-wealthy. They propose privatization and marketization of the program, so that social security can become a boon for Wall Street.
Look, social security will need to be reformed at some point. But it is only one among many programs that will need new sources of funding or expenditure adjustments. Democrats should not play into Republican social security scare-mongering. When Republicans ask how we hope to pay for benefits over the long term, we should ask how they plan to pay for the war in Iraq.
BillRichardson4President | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply