How Bill Clinton May Have Hurt the Obama Campaign

[BlueStateSaint]

Is there any doubt that Bill Clinton meant this all along?

How Bill Clinton May Have Hurt the Obama Campaign

By MATT BAI

October 24, 2012, 1:45 pm  500 Comments

When the histories of the 2012 campaign are written, much will be made of Bill Clinton’s re-emergence. His convention speech may well have marked the finest moment of President Obama’s re-election campaign, and his ads on the president’s behalf were memorable.

But there is one crucial way in which the 42nd president may not have served the 44th quite as well. In these final weeks before the election, Mr. Clinton’s expert advice about how to beat Mitt Romney is starting to look suspect.

You may recall that last spring, just after Mr. Romney locked up the Republican nomination, Mr. Obama’s team abruptly switched its strategy for how to define him. Up to then, the White House had been portraying Mr. Romney much as George W. Bush had gone after John Kerry in 2004 – as inauthentic and inconstant, a soulless climber who would say anything to get the job.

But it was Mr. Clinton who forcefully argued to Mr. Obama’s aides that the campaign had it wrong. The best way to go after Mr. Romney, the former president said, was to publicly grant that he was the “severe conservative” he claimed to be, and then hang that unpopular ideology around his neck.

In other words, Mr. Clinton counseled that independent voters might forgive Mr. Romney for having said whatever he had to say to win his party’s nomination, but they would be far more reluctant to vote for him if they thought they were getting the third term of George W. Bush. Ever since, the Obama campaign has been hammering Mr. Romney as too conservative, while essentially giving him a pass for having traveled a tortured path on issues like health care reform, abortion and gay rights.

And Bill gets his revenge.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/how-bill-clinton-may-have-hurt-the-obama-campaign/?hp

ETA:  Joe Miller says the same thing.

http://joemiller.us/2012/10/bill-clinton-pushing-hillary-to-release-benghazi-documents-that-would-destroy-obamas-reelection-hopes-video/?utm_source=JoeMiller.US+List&utm_campaign=0016ab42da-10_25_1210_25_2012&utm_medium=email

[Eupher]

Well, there's no doubt that Slick and Barry just don't get along and that Slick is vindictive enough to torpedo his own credibility as a strategist in recommending the course correction in Barry's campaign in how to define Romney.

This definitely seems plausible and perhaps even likely.

One of the great mysteries, however, is Hillary's undying love affair with the Dhimmi-rat party. That keeps her, according to this analysis, from spilling the beans about her approval to upgrade security, to have it disapproved by Barry and His Merry Band of Thugs, and then willingly diving under the bus.

All indications are and have been, it's all about her and what SHE wants. The party comes in second, and Bill a distant fourth place. Chelsea's gotta be in there somewhere -- maybe a distant third.

[DumbAss Tanker]

W was a 'severe conservative...?'