Perhaps Hillary Clinton feels threatened as Obama has pulled up to become her equal in New Hampshire polls (state that has long been seen as a "Clinton stronghold"). The co-chairman of her campaign, Billy Shaheen, has brought to the public's attention Obama's drug usage when he was younger.
"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," said Shaheen.
Shaheen also stated that this "scandal" would blow up into a whole new realm.
"It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."
What do you guys think? Does Shaheen have a valid point in dinging Obama about this?
Personally, I find this annoying. Everybody makes mistakes when they are younger, and just because he made a bad decision when he was younger does not mean he does not has the smarts, ability, and ethics to be a leader.
I feel like Shaheen is just making this a big deal for the sake of publicity and it seems like a bunch of side-fluff not related to the main issues of campaigning, the presidency, and public policy. Thus, I feel this strategy will backfire on the Clinton campaign. What do you think?
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7 comments:
I could see Clinton attacking Obama on this issue for the fact that Obama took a strike at Hilary in a previous debate on her issues. Hilary is going to try to catch Obama off guard with this attack, but I think Obama going to be well prepare for it. In the case of presidential elections it isn't always about who has the best policies, but it's also about pointing out your opponents weaknesses and showing the voters how much worse your opponents policies are. As Mr. Silton says, "People sometimes vote on who they HATE the LEAST."
Maybe Obama can get some tips from bill clinton on how to deal with this.
Because there are so many people set in their beliefs, by bringing this up, Clinton will be able to reinforce the beliefs and view points of people that are extremely conservative and anti-drugs. However, I think that Obama has consistantly performed well throughout the campaign and does not have any current drama or controversy, unlike many other candidates. So, most of the electorate that are already voting for him or are on the edge will probably not be swayed by this attack.
Yeah, this seems crazy to me too. I mean yeah he was young, and perhaps stupid, but now hes running for President. How stupid can he still be? Take note, however, that I am COMPLETELY biast, being as youthful as I am. Of course I want everyone to go easy on him. He made a mistake. Lord knows Clinton is not perfect. No one can just get anthing good on her yet. Not that the Democrats should continue this shameful spiral of mudslinging and...just plain drama. He obviously isnt a user now. If only we could all see Hilary in her teen years...
It's okay to dig up stuff about politicans. When I took a "Law and Society" class last year, Mr. Corti said that when people chose to put themselves in the spotlight (actors, politicans, etc.) they're giving tacit permission for people to expose their lives. So, I think it's fine for all this dirty laundry to be out in the open. People (voters) don't have to let this stuff affect their judegment too much, because, yeah, people get a little more leniency when they're young, but they should also be using their brains and figuring out what kind of guy Obama is now.
Since George W. Bush got a free pass from the media about his presumptive cocaine use, it seems a bit unfair for it potentially to hurt Obama more than it would an upper-class white man. I'm not sure it will, and I don't believe that that this wasn't a planned line of attack that happened to backfire on Clinton, given several Bob Novak columns in recent months indicating that people in the Clinton camp were spreading the word that they had access to scandalous information on Obama the Republicans would surely use eventually.
Dangling the "drug dealer" thing was low blow innuendo (pun intended). It is the sort of speculation that could be flat out untrue (and thus really dirty politics) or superficially true (which is still dirty in my book).
It would be easy to portray a drug user making a drug buy on behalf of a group of friends as a "seller" if he/she didn't gift all the drugs purchased, i.e. someone collecting $ from their group and goes to buy is not really any different from someone who buys and then gets the group to chip in later. Most users sell from time to time and so long as that was within a group of friends it isn't what people think of when they think of a drug seller or drug dealer.
To me the whole thing is a non-issue; you'd have to be a moron to take Obama's life story as some kind of validation or green light to use drugs, the kind of moron that would going to find an excuse to get themselves into trouble in any case. The people who raise this as a political issue saying that it sets a bad example are intentionally spreading the bad example and thus are equally if not more guilty of "harming" the supposedly impressionable youth than the person who would have let the thing fade away into the past, or would have left their regrets as the last word.
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