Hillary not invulnerable

The Democrats are finally mixing it up. The MSNBC debate was of course more feisty, starting off with Obama who got the first crack. He flunked, in my view. He said he was going to get more negative in the NY Times piece I mentioned earlier, and the first question was about that. He was not an effective communicator in that answer. He bumbled, misspoke (saying "war" when he meant "vote" at one point). He started with a little joke about being Rocky Balboa. It was funny, but then he laughed nervously after it. He seemed like he was trying to remember his talking points, and it did not come off as smooth.

What does this mean? It means his heart's not in it. He's not passionate about attacking Hillary. Perhaps that's the plan. It would not be a bad one, as long as he's going to ratchet up the attacks. Start slowly and dispassionately, and gradually raise the temperature. That would be a good strategy. We'll see. But he's got to get comfortable with it. He's got to get passionate about it. There was a big contrast to Edwards, who did attack Hillary with passion, and it was more effective than Obama.

It's the classic primary vs. general election trap that Obama's in right now. A dispassionate appeal to people's reason is a general election strategy. Motivating primary voters is a matter of firing people up. Is the fire gone from the Obama campaign? The inside-the-beltway buzz is that Obama blew an opportunity this summer, and may have already peaked. I don't think so. There's nothing some hard-core campaigning can't turn around.

And Hillary's not invulnerable. A lot of her strength I think is that she's a Clinton, and they have the war room (she invented it) and are effective campaigners who won't slip up. But this is not necessarily true. Hillary's political instincts are infamous for being bad. She was the one who didn't want to settle with Paula Jones, and wanted it to go to court. Jay Cost had an op-ed two years ago in which he warned about overestimating Hillary.

Hillary could very easily screw up. If you don't believe it, just watch this video. At that point it could be Obama who benefits. (I'm still down on Edwards.)