Or he could turn it around...

...this has actually been one part of the Obama campaign that I've loved to watch. They do a good job of turning the conventional political knowledge on its head. The candidacy in itself is politically counterintuitive: black guy with Kenyan-Muslim background, name sounds like Osama, middle name Hussein, first term senator, no real political machine underneath/behind him going up against wife of successful-if-flawed previous president. Y'know, the unlikelihood of it all. But they do a good job of turning the political status quo around. Now the black guy with the funny terr'st name is the frontrunner.

So these "gaffes"... the gaffe over talking to enemies, the gaffe over striking targets in Pakistan, usw... they turn them around by sticking to the original point and not backing down. BarryHussein says something, well, politically incorrect. The mainstream media and the political establishment hoot and cry YOU CAN'T DO THAT ON TELEVISION and everybody says it's a gaffe. BHO and the Hopefuls stand their ground, refine what they've said so it comes across better, and wait. And, eventually, people start to come around... or events prove him to be on the right track. Thus, people start to see the silliness of not talking to people and expecting things to change. Thus, it comes out that we already engage in targeted strikes against Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

"Bittergate" is the same. Hillary's overplayed her hand by jumping on it so fiercely. She looks desperate and flat out ugly. But, here's the lovely thing, BHOs finding a way to turn it to his advantage.



He's turned it around. Like he very well should. Don't run from something just because you said it wrong initially. Refine it, find what's true, and come back twice as hard with it. The hard core of truth in the original "gaffe" is "people are angry at their government and don't feel like anybody's looking out for them, so they vote smaller issues because they don't believe the bigger issues will change." Here, we see this more refined, almost to the point where it's packageable as a campaign ad.

Here's the thing: I really like the learning curve on this campaign. I'd like it more if they worked a little bit faster, but they seem to learn from mistakes and address them as best possible. I think "Bittergate" is the culmination of Obama really being rather unused to the frontrunner status. When he first took a real lead and it looked like HillyClint was on her way out, he turned toward McCain without having fully vanquished his rival. The backlash stunned him and he's stumbled since. It's taken him quite a while, but I think we could be seeing the beginning of a fuller realization of their status on the part of the Obama campaign and the candidate himself. It's about damned time. They'll need to put Clinton away and work on accelerating their learning curve for the general election.