Saturday, May 17, 2008

Hillary turns fire on media

PORTLAND, Ore. – "Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is increasingly aiming its punches not at her front-running opponent Barack Obama, but at the media.

On the campaign trail, in a new ad and in her meetings with donors and superdelegates, she blasts the D.C. punditocracy for counting her out and urges anyone who’ll listen to ignore the hardening storyline that places Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee.

The goal is twofold. Clinton, a New York senator, wants to stanch the flow of uncommitted superdelegates to Obama, an Illinois senator, by convincing them she can still win the nomination. She also wants to generate a protest vote in the four states that have yet to hold primaries, as well as in Puerto Rico.

The Clinton camp believes a media backlash drove up turnout among her supporters in West Virginia, which last week delivered a landslide 67 percent to 26 percent victory for her.

“Because I believe that I am better prepared to be president and I am more likely to be able to win, I don’t care what the pundits say. I’m going to leave it up to the voters,” Clinton said Friday night at a televised town hall meeting at Portland’s NBC affiliate. She said pundits have been counting her out “since Iowa and the voters always prove them wrong. I mean, I’ve been declared dead so many times and luckily it’s been premature and I’m hoping it stays premature.”

Also on Friday, Clinton’s campaign began airing an ad in Oregon, which holds its primary Tuesday, that pits her against the Beltway media elites.

The ad, titled "What's Right," shows video snippets of a cadre of television show hosts who have dismissed or downplayed Clinton’s chances – NBC’s Tim Russert, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and MSNBC anchors Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.

Their voices are muted, and a narrator intones over their images: “In Washington, they talk about who's up and who's down. In Oregon, we care about what's right and what's wrong.”

The spot goes on to tout Clinton’s support for universal health care and her opposition to “No Child Left Behind” and the Bush administration energy plan."

So tell us, Hillary, how does it feel? How does it feel to have the media distort the truth, and this time around AGAINST rather than for you? But of course you detest the "no-child-passed -just-to graduate-failing-minorities-and-overlook-rotten-teachers" Act. The only energy plan you have is the promise to rob from the oil companies and screw with people's investments and pension plans and that's okay because you made YOUR money selling our secrets to the chinese and renting out the White House to all comers. All those "I Got Laid In The Lincoln Bedroom While Bill Watched Through A Peephole" tee-shirts coming home to roost?

Way back when, how many of us were saying that Hillary would be excoriated once the vetting process began? How many Bloggers were just itching for the process to begin so that the world could see the democrats in all their vainglory?

Shine a light on a cockroach and it flees for the nearest crack in the wall. No matter who becomes the next President, at least we've had the pleasure of witnessing the mighty Clinton dynasty sink like a stone under the tidal wave of rigorous attention. And the smart money says if McCain plays his cards right Hussein will be singing the same tune come November.

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