Obama had his first Hollywood fund raiser a couple of days ago. William Gaffen, who was one of the people who hosted the gala said in an interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times that Bill Clinton was reckless and that Sen Clinton would be the easiest for the republicans to defeat. This Hollywood mogul had rubbed elbows with the Clintons in the final year of Bill’s presidency regarding a pardon for a friend who was accused of killing two FBI agents. Bill Clinton in good judgment did not grant the pardon and their relationship went sour. He is presently throwing his support for Obama. He was a big time fund raiser for Clinton in the 90’s and was often hosted in the white house. This guy does not like the Clintons now, and he has his reasons. He said unsavory things about the Clintons, both Bill and Hilary, and it is perfectly justified for Sen Clinton and her camp to be angry at him. Instead the Clinton camp was up in arms against Barack Obama and said that he was practicing the politics of personal destruction. It was a wild over reaction. The campaign went all out issuing statements to the press and calling on Obama to apologize or disavow Gaffen. They did not consider that this guy is a donor and not a part of the Obama campaign. Watching the extent to which they pounced on this makes them look desperate. Clearly, they are jealous of the support he is able to garner after just two years in national politics.

The weakness of Hilary as a candidate is that she appears cold and calculating. Retaliating on Obama for what Gaffen said makes Sen Clinton look petty and less appealing. I was watching HARDBALL on MSNBC and when this topic was discussed Margret Carlson of Bloomberg News said “We all know Hilary is tough, we want to know if she is human.” Humanizing her must be the primary objective of her campaign. If they continue to pick unnecessary fights with other candidates in the field it makes her look mean and further reinforce the cold and calculating aspect of her personality.

Sen Clinton’s husband was after all a two term president and the campaign must understand that he will be target whether they like it or not. Sen Clinton always refers to the positives in her husband’s two terms as president on the campaign trail. Therefore they must be ready to take the heat when the negative criticism comes their way. Many people say she is very affable in person but appears stiff on camera. Unfortunately most of the people get to see her only on TV and she has to work on becoming personable in this medium. This spat with Obama elevated Obama and made her look insecure.

Obama in contrast with Sen Clinton is all personality. He is charming, eloquent and warm. Beating up on this extremely affable personality for what Gaffen said does not board well even amongst people who are considering to vote for her. Obama comes out a winner in this no matter how you look at it. Howard Wolfson of the Clinton campaign came on HARDBALL and was totally outwitted by Chris’s tough questions. He could not argue his case rationally. He was visibly upset at Gaffen’s remarks which he ought to be but directing their anger on Obama and his campaign is totally misguided. According to Mr Wolfson’s own rules he has to screen all of Sen Clinton’s campaign donors to ascertain that they have not made any unsavory statements about the other democratic candidates before accepting money. Does anybody think he is going to do that? I don’t think so.

The reality is that the presidential campaign has begun. People are going to criticize candidates both personally and on policy. The Clinton camp needs to retaliate appropriately to the right person and not on a person they see as a threat for their candidacy. In case of Mr Gaffen’s rant, they must have expressed displeasure at him and not on Obama.

In this whole saga Obama who was already a rock star looks even better. The Clinton camp elevated Obama’s stature even further. Three cheers for Obama and Hurray to Hollywood for supporting him.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 24th, 2007 at 10:58 am and is filed under Politics, 2008 Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.