Why Doesn't Sub-Zero Work For Hillary?

In the past it seems that negative political campaigns were a positive way to get elected. Why has Hillary Clinton’s negative campaign not been working? I don’t really know, since I never understood why negative campaigns have worked so well in the past. The Bush campaign smears against John Kerry, John McCain, and Max Cleland made me despise Bush even more than I did previously. These smears certainly did not make me want to vote for him. By the way, look at those three names again. All three are Vietnam War vets. How did Bush, the King of Chickenhawks, pull this off? Why did anyone vote for this despicable man? It still amazes me! So, has America changed, or is it all Hillary’s fault that her negativity isn’t pulling her through.

My guess is that it’s both. Barack Obama’s success is a sign that American’s are fed up with the status quo and want change. Some of us do want to live in a nicer world. It’s that simple. Can Barack Obama make the world a better place? No one knows the answer to that. He may, however, be able to inspire the rest of us to make it better. Hillary Clinton doesn’t see this because she is too full of herself, and that is part of her problem. It’s part of Bush’s problem too. America isn’t about a select few, it’s about all of us. It's about us working together, not about us working against one another. Hillary Clinton may have just picked the wrong time in our history to run a negative campaign. However, she also doesn’t do negative very well. Running a negative campaign against Barack Obama and not George W. Bush seems like a huge tactical error on her part. America hates George W. Bush and loves Barack Obama. So who does she choose to attack? Seems really dumb to me. Hillary going negative comes across as Hillary going ballistic. It emphasizes all the negative stereotypes that her detractors have been criticizing her about for years. I never used to believe all those stereotypes, but now, thanks to Hillary herself, I’m having second thoughts. To add to all of this, now she seems to truly be schizophrenic. One day praising Obama, the next criticizing him, the next mocking him… What the hell?

Frank Rich in his New York Times op-ed entitled The Audacity of Hopelessness seems to be trying too hard to look clever, but I did like this paragraph:

As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and — talk about bizarre — against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.

All of this may be bad for Hillary Clinton, but if it signifies an end to all future negative campaigning by all politicians, then it is a great thing for our country. One can only hope. And vote. For something positive. For a change.