To Smear or Not to Smear, That is the Question

As I analyzed the editorial pages of the major newspapers and watched the political pundits, I could not help but notice a major division amongst so-called experts. Reflecting on the advice given to Senator Obama after his losses in Texas and Ohio, it appears to me that he is at a significant crossroad in his campaign: will he turn "negative" and attack Senator Clinton with the intensity that she has (apparently successfully) attacked him? I am reminded of Hamlet's famous words, which could be adapted:

To smear, or not to smear: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the campaign to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous attacks,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? 

Let me begin this section of the blog post by giving you an idea about how divided pundits are. In a March 9 op-ed in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd wrote:

After losing Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and his mojo, and getting whipsawed around by Hillary and his own chuckleheaded coterie of advisers, he will now have to come to grips with something he has always skittered away from: You can’t be elected president unless you prove you’re tough.

However, in a March 8 op-ed in the New York Times, David Brooks wrote:

Barack Obama had a theory. It was that the voters are tired of the partisan paralysis of the past 20 years. The theory was that if Obama could inspire a grass-roots movement with a new kind of leadership, he could ride it to the White House and end gridlock in Washington.
...

Now, the Obama campaign is facing another test. There are a few ways to interpret the losses in Texas and Ohio. One is demographic. He didn’t carry the groups he often has trouble with — white women, Latinos, the less educated. The other is tactical. Clinton attacked him, and the attacks worked.

The consultants, needless to say, gravitate toward the tactical interpretation. And once again the cry has gone up for Obama to get tough. This advice gets wrapped in metaphors. Obama has to start “throwing punches” or “taking the gloves off.”

Beneath the euphemisms, what the advice really means is that Obama has to start accusing Clinton of things.

This time, Obama, whose competitive juices are flowing, has apparently accepted the advice. The Obama campaign is now making a big issue of Hillary Clinton’s tax returns and dropping hints about donations to President Clinton’s library and her secret White House papers. It’s willing to launch an ethics assault. “If Senator Clinton wants to take the debate to various places, we’ll join that debate,” the Obama strategist David Axelrod told reporters the other day.

...

In short, a candidate should never betray the core theory of his campaign, or head down a road that leads to that betrayal. Barack Obama doesn’t have an impressive record of experience or a unique policy profile. New politics is all he’s got. He loses that, and he loses everything. Every day that he looks conventional is a bad day for him.

Besides, the real softness of the campaign is not that Obama is a wimp. It’s that he has never explained how this new politics would actually produce bread-and-butter benefits to people in places like Youngstown and Altoona.

If he can’t explain that, he’s going to lose at some point anyway.

So, what strategy would be more persuasive? Personally, I feel that Brooks' argument is far more persuasive. Although I have previously argued that attack are effective--a position I still hold--Barack Obama cannot damage his most valuable asset, which is his claim that he will bring a new kind of politics to America. Nonetheless, I do not believe that this is an either/or decision. By using surrogates, the Obama campaign can effectively cast doubt on Senator Clinton. Moreover, Senator Obama is still strongly in the lead, so why dirty himself attacking someone who will eventually be defeated anyway? Brooks hit the nail on the head when he said, "In short, a candidate should never betray the core theory of his campaign, or head down a road that leads to that betrayal. Barack Obama doesn’t have an impressive record of experience or a unique policy profile. New politics is all he’s got. He loses that, and he loses everything."