Obama on the Attack

Barack Obama has certainly been more forceful lately about the difference between himself and Hillary Clinton. Here he is in a Newsweek interview:

Look, watch the videotape. She said that she was for the [New York Gov. Eliot] Spitzer plan and in the span of two minutes said she wasn't for the Spitzer plan. That wasn't something that was prompted by me or anybody else but it was characteristic of her answers on Social Security and her answers on the papers from the Clinton years. Look, I actually recognize that this sort of straddling is oftentimes considered politically savvy in Washington … It's been rewarded. Her ability to finesse her vote to authorize the war during the course of this campaign is something that she has been complimented for on the front page of The New York Times as being politically deft. So I understand where it arises from. The perception is that if you don't allow yourself to be pinned down, then you're making yourself a smaller target in the general election. That's the conventional wisdom. I think it is the wrong way to govern. I think it is not what we need right now.

Is it enough though? He has been taking a lot of flak in the press for not attacking her enough and he is lagging in national polls. Personally, I have found it very refreshing that he is not running a campaign of demonizing her or any of his other opponents. Is that what the country wants? Sure the media says Obama needs to be "getting tough," but I'm not sure whether or not the typical voter wants that. I don't know enough people who are even paying attention to the race, yet, to get a feel for how they are feeling. I don't know.

I do know that putting Clinton in office is a vote for keeping the same divisive politics we have had for awhile now. It would be nice to see something different.