Obama diminishes Clinton’s first lady experience at his own peril

POSTED BY Alexandra Steigrad, 11 March 2008

The Obama/Clinton campaign back and forth is getting heated, as the Obama camp released a memo calling into question Hillary Clinton’s experience.

The memo reads:

"When your entire campaign is based upon a claim of experience, it is important that you have evidence to support that claim. Hillary Clinton’s argument that she has passed 'the Commander- in-Chief test' is simply not supported by her record."

The first half of that sounded a lot like Clinton’s line about how Obama’s candidacy is based on a speech.

As expected, the Clinton camp quickly fired back:

"Once again, Senator Obama is proving the point that his campaign is about 'just words. Despite making hard end-dates a centerpiece of his campaign, Senator Obama's top foreign policy adviser said those plans are not anything he'll rely on as president. Despite repeated denials and five different parsed statements by his campaign that have been called misleading by media reports, his top economic adviser did in fact dismiss Senator Obama's NAFTA criticism to the Canadian government as just political rhetoric."

As the Pennsylvania primary nears, Clinton will probably reassert her experience claim and detail what exactly she has accomplished. But it would be foolish for anyone to believe that she had legislative power as first lady for obvious reasons, and Obama is slyly trying to capitalize on that.

Obama:

"What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama asked mockingly. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

Tom Daschle, who is an Obama campaign co-chair, chimed in on Meet the Press on Sunday:

“Look, Hillary Clinton was a great first lady. I worked with her. I know what a good first lady she was.” He continued, “But I don't think anyone can look at her experience as first lady and say for some reason that qualifies her to run for president of the United States.”

Questioning what Clinton did as first lady is fair game, but if the Obama camp is going to question Clinton’s first lady experience and make it seem like she is running on it, the Obama campaign will be making a major misstep.

Not only does this claim have a misogynistic tinge to it, but it is also demeaning, and will probably not play well with women.

When Clinton tried to knock Obama on his ability to be a change agent, an element central to his candidacy, she faltered. She did succeed in driving home the point that a female president would be change, but the idea of her specifically being a revolutionary figure didn’t really take. Obama is trying to do the same thing by diminishing her experience, notably her national security experience.

But the problem is, he doesn’t really have any, and as a result, he runs the risk of weakening his position as being a candidate who will be able to beat John McCain in the general.