Democratic rivals address the fear of GOP attacks
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Like the movie preacher with the word good painted on the knuckles of one hand and the word evil on the other, Barack Obama flashes the words hope and fear in the eyes of Democratic primary voters.
No candidate in recent memory has embodied the deepest hopes of so many Democrats. Yet it's hard for some to watch the Illinois senator without also thinking of their fears - the fear, frankly, that Obama is too vulnerable to Republican attacks to be a safe choice for his party's nomination.
Obama is clearly aware of this fear, and addresses it directly, both with humor (quipping that critics accuse him of being a "hopemonger") and a ripple of anger: He tells audiences that he's tired of Democrats who are driven by fear of what Republicans will say about them.
The latter, of course, is a reference to Hillary Clinton, whose reluctance to give the Republicans any ammunition has become both an impediment to her campaign - leading to charges that she's too vague - and an odd kind of selling point: She may, in fact, be smart to be doing this.
With many Democrats' hearts pinned to one candidate, and their brains perhaps leaning toward another one, the Clinton-Obama fight for this year's nomination will be no ordinary beauty contest. It will be an intense, ongoing struggle within the consciences of Democratic voters.
In Cedar Rapids last week, Obama took the stage to a blast of Aretha Franklin's "Think," launched into a sharp critique of the Bush administration (with its "Scooter Libby justice and Brownie competence"), gave a no-excuses promise of universal healthcare by the end of his first term ("You can take that to the bank"), and sent the audience home with an exhilarating anecdote about a little lady in rural South Carolina who implores people to get "fired up."
In between, he had some good moments and some sluggish ones. At some points, Democrats might have been excused for worrying whether GOP master strategist Karl Rove had some minion hiding in a corner taking notes.
For instance, when Obama thundered that if America could spend $12 billion a month on a war, it could spend $12 billion a month helping people at home, the audience seemed to accept that he was talking about principles, not policy. But they might have wondered whether a savvy political operative could turn that into "Obama promises $144 billion in new social spending."
Likewise, when he said "If I go speak to a Muslim leader I can say I've lived in a Muslim country," he was talking about the credibility he could bring to international diplomacy, referring his youthful years living in Indonesia. But might someone portray it as cozying up to America's enemies?
At one point a questioner told Obama she had heard that he refused to hold his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance, and he spoke about the sad reality of rumor-mongering in American politics.
Hillary Clinton has been the subject of so many rumors that some voters seem to think she's acquired an immunity, like taking a tetanus booster.
That's doubtful, but her campaign bears some signs of lessons learned the hard way. At events, she speaks in broad terms about her ambitious goals and offers her own version of how her election would change the face of politics. But she avoids Obama's rhetorical sweep on issues, preferring to be very precise in her promises.
Sometimes they tend to be small-bore: Her plan for boosting the rural economy includes advertising locally made products on
But her precision suggests competence and wariness in equal measure. Her husband, after all, came to power after a string of Republican victories against Democratic Boy Scouts named Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis. With his aggressive fund-raising and rapid-response campaign team, Bill Clinton seemed more like past GOP candidates than the Democrats of the '80s. He could take a punch and give it back.
Now, the Clinton campaign team is mildewed with the air of past scandals, but its ability to fight is undiminished.
After Obama and John Edwards leveled some fair-game attacks at Clinton in the last debate, she plunked down the gender card, saying the boys were ganging up on her. And Bill compared Obama and Edwards to the people who launched the swift-boat attacks on 2004 nominee John Kerry.
Many Democrats probably held their noses at the unfairness of it all. Many others secretly cheered.
Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond. 