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Edited on Sat Dec-15-07 10:43 AM by Armstead
This stuff that the Clinton campaign has been using about how she's the most electable because she's been thoroughly "vetted" and she has nothing to hide misses the point, IMO. It's not about whether Obama used drugs when he was young, or whether Biden plagerized a college term paper, or whether Edwards is rich and vain or any of that other distracting nonsense. People who hold that stuff against a Democratic candidate are not going to vote for a Democrat no matter what.
Unless a candidate has been found to have a long-running relationship with a sheep, or has been selling crack to Congressional pages, a voter is going to give the benefit of the doubt to whichever candidate best reflects their own views of what they believe in.
Take the Swift Boat thing, for example. It wasn't that reasonable voters leaning to Kerry were suddenly convinced that a war hero was actually a coward. The reason that caught on was 1)Because it reinforced the bad image held by militaristic right-wing voters who already didn't like Kerry or Democrats and 2)Kerry's weak response reinforced the image among more moderate voters that he is not really human or passionate or forceful. For Obama, the idea of his youthful drug-use may lose some voters. Some puritanical voters who think taking aspirin is a sin will hold it against Obama. Some right wingers will not vote for Obama simply because he is a Democrat. Some bigots will say "See? That just proves that those nigras aren't fit to hold office."
But since Obama himself already mentioned it on his own and doesn't shrink from admitting it, the vast majority of voters who might be inclined to give him a chance will look at the whole picture. If the GOp smear machine tried to make it an issue, those voters will say "Yawn.We know that."
The bottom line is that GOP smears are going to be as effective or ineffective against Hillary as any other democratic candidate. The fact that the GOP memes are already known just allows them to trot them out again without as much "seeding of the ground" because they are already known. People who don't like her, will buy it. People who like her will give her the benefit of the doubt....Same as any otehr Democratic candidate.
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