Got that? The bankruptcy bill that passed, she opposed. She was in the hospital with the Bill the day of the vote itself, but she voted against cloture when progressives were filibustering - meaning, she supported with her vote the progressive position. She also made a public statement at the time of the vote that the bill was "bad law".

But I think the terms that it contained, and how it was negotiated under the Bush Administration and the failure to have any tough enforcement mechanism, like pollution on our border with Mexico, for example--

(Question)

But it was inherited. NAFTA was inherited by the Clinton  Administration. I believe in the general principles it represented, but what we have learned is that we have to drive a tougher bargain. Our market is the market that everybody wants to be in. We should quit giving it away so willy-nilly. I believe we need tougher enforcement of the trade agreements we already have. You look at the trade enforcement record between the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration, the Clinton  Administration brought more trade enforcement actions in one year than the Bush Administration brought in six years.

First off, John McCain didn't attack, Cindy McCain did. They did that on purpose. It's much harder for Obama to respond as you're suggesting. Criticizing Michelle Obama won't be viewed as nearly so unfair coming from Cindy McCain. That's a sad statement, but welcome to our gendered world.

Secondly, if he's going to respond to it strongly in any way, he needs to do that now. Not next week, but now, before the quote-unquote framing gets solidified. The story is making its rounds in the press, and his campaign either lets it fester or stomps it out. So far, it's festering.

I don't think it's just about "effete" intellectuals. I don't think it's just about elitism. Both of those are frameworks that worked because the right sensed they were good weak points and attacked there, and it worked so well that now even we repeat the lines. Of course that was an obvious choice of attack for, say, John Kerry; the point isn't that these things come from nowhere, it's that they become vastly exaggerated through campaigning and through a media that likes simple stories. Howard Dean or Wes Clark would've faced a completely different storyline, but believe me, it would have been built.

They'll find the weak points for Obama, which will be different, and they'll build the framework they need. That's IMO what they're testing now, is where to hit him.

What's at the base of your argument is more that we need to find a candidate without weak points like that. What I'm arguing is that we're better off finding strong ways to quickly counter the attacks, before they take any of the weak points that exist and blow them up until our candidate is a caricature of those weak points. Because every candidate has some of them. You're fighting the ones from John Kerry, but they'll find new ones for Barack Obama.

I can't tolerate going to echo chambers.  One of the reasons I came to TL to talk about the primaries is that it is a pro-Hillary site that has some intelligent discourse.  I don't need a bunch of people to agree with me to prop up my views.  I prefer people challenging my views.  That's why I post on RedState, except during election season.