Hillary Clinton's Best Week

by Joel Thompson

Hillary Clinton scored the primary season’s first political advertising victory last week. Her “Invisible” ad (1:00 video below), which began running in Iowa last Monday, strikes at the Bush administration’s treatment of those in difficult social circumstances.



Specifically, Clinton mentions families without health care, single mothers struggling with day care, and soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as groups that the current administration mistreats as “invisible.” The advertisement concludes with Clinton at a Town Hall style meeting saying, “but they’re not invisible to me, and they won’t be invisible to the next President of the United States.”

While the first two sets mentioned should come as no surprise – health care is a bedrock issue for several Democratic candidates – Clinton’s very public attack on Bush’s treatment of veterans likely ruffled the most White House feathers.

Bush’s Deputy Press Secretary, Dana Perino, called the ad “outrageous” and went on to mention the administration’s advocacy of lower prescription drug costs for seniors, an issue not mentioned in the “Invisible” message.

But Perino saved her strongest words for the returning troops:
"And as to whether or not our troops are invisible to this President, I think that that is absurd, and that is unconscionable that a member of Congress would say such a thing."

The strong rebuke from the White House helps reinforce one of Clinton’s strongest campaign messages: that she has the know-how and the political will to defeat the Republican political machine. That message certainly strikes a chord with voters still reeling from John Kerry’s dismantling at the hands of Karl Rove and co. in 2004.

Following the week of reaction to the campaign ad, Karl Rove made the Sunday morning television rounds and Clinton was again the focus. On NBC’s Meet the Press, Rove played on many Democrats’ concerns over Clinton’s “electability:"

"She enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup poll. It just says people have made an opinion about her. It's hard to change opinions once you've been a high-profile person in the public eye, as she has for 16 or 17 years."

While some pundits believe that the Republicans are focusing their barbs on Clinton because they believe she will be easier to defeat than John Edwards or Barack Obama in a general election, I believe the opposite is true.

Rove deliberately focused on Clinton’s electability, not on the key aspects of her platform. That tactic is designed not to rally the Democratic base around Clinton, but to give it further pause about her ability to win key swing states.

All of the attention provided Clinton with a perfect segue into Sunday night’s Iowa Debate, where she suggested that Rove “is obsessed” her. Clinton also noted that she has been, “fighting against these people for longer than anybody else up here, and I’ve taken them on, and we’ve beaten them.”



From the release of the “Invisible” ad through the Iowa debate, Clinton enjoyed her best week of the campaign season. She looked the part of the front-runner, and enters the Fall with momentum. Whether that momentum will turn into a boost in polling and a regaining of some ground recently lost to Edwards and Obama remains to be seen.