GOP weighs Clinton v. Obama race

Kimberly Strassel:

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- The Clinton upside: Republicans have experience with this dynasty. They know what kind of campaign she'll run, what advice she'll receive, what sort of tactics she'll employ. Her long years under the national klieg lights have given the GOP an intricate sense of her weaknesses. At the top of the list is that "that not even Democratic voters trust her," says one Republican National Committee official. They'll pound on this theme, pointing out discrepancies in Ms. Clinton war positions, in her promises to keep the nation safe while voting against terrorist surveillance, in her vows to protect the economy while plotting massive new spending and tax hikes.

What makes them most confident is that Mrs. Clinton starts a general election with national disapproval ratings in the mid-to-high 40s. That's huge: John Kerry's was 45% in the days leading up the election; Al Gore's about 42%. Ms. Clinton's problem, too, is that she has little ability to push down those figures; they stem from a public that already knows her, and is unlikely to change its mind. Republicans meanwhile believe that with just a little negative advertising (say, oh, $100 million or so), they could push the numbers even higher.

- The Clinton downside: Republicans have experience with this dynasty. They know what kind of campaign she'll run, what advice she'll receive, what sort of tactics she'll employ. The Clinton machine earned its reputation, and it will utilize every union, 527, green group and devotee to raise a financial war chest that they will use to then scrape, claw and grind toward a victory.

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- The Obama downside: He's an unknown, a change, a mental shift, for Republicans who'd been gearing up for Mrs. Clinton. He's skillfully tapped into a bitterness with the status quo, and his optimistic message of hope is tough to counter (just ask the tearful Mrs. Clinton). Is Obama-mania at its start, or its peak? The great fear of Republicans is that it's the former.

Mrs. Clinton has a ceiling on her support. No matter how great a race she runs, any victory will be unlikely to result in significant Washington realignment. But Mr. Obama? If he really has tapped into something deep in the American soul, and if he can keep tapping until November, it's conceivable he could bring with him a new wash of Democratic seats that could reshape the Washington political landscape for years to come. That's a big gamble.

- The Obama upside: Mr. Obama is flying high right now, but he owes some of that altitude to what has been a remarkably polite Democratic race (he has yet to face a negative ad), and a charmed press corps. Don't expect Mrs. Clinton to continue placing party unity above her own shot at the White House. Just yesterday, the press teed up some unflattering Obama stories, one about a curious real-estate deal he'd done with a man now facing federal corruption charges; another about highly controversial abortion votes in the Illinois senate. Even if the Clinton campaign wasn't the inspiration for these pieces, you can trust it'll run with them.

The hope among Republicans rooting for Mr. Obama is that there's more to come, only after the nomination and after his party is stuck with him. They're confident they can get traction out of a liberal Illinois and Washington voting record. And he's a rookie who has already committed some foreign-policy flubs; any future ones, under the intense general-election media glare, could prove campaign-wreckers.

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You beat Obama by getting to the specifics of his policy positions. When you do, it exposes his liberalism that is hiding behind his rhetoric. It also exposes his profound ignorance of warfare and his situational awareness of what is actually happening in Iraq. His answer in the last debate on the Anbar awakening was embarrassingly wrong and yet he has largely gotten a pass on it so far. At some point the public will also become aware that "change" is just campaign spin to cover a lack of experience.

Hillary would probably be the Democrats strongest candidate. While she is also wrong on Iraq and one has to suspend disbelief to follow her position on the surge, she is smarter than Obama on the issue and can do a better job of reconciling the anti war left's position with the reality of our national security interests. She will be vulnerable on many specifics of her previous rfecord and as the post below points out her record on education in Arkansas is a dismal failure compared to Mike Huckabee's.