Reply #24: Politico: "Clinton plans mix of sharp and soft" (trying to avoid backlash)

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Clinton campaign to alternate attacks with showing Hillary's "softer side'.

Clinton plans mix of sharp and soft By: John F. Harris and Mike Allen
Feb 23, 2008 07:41 PM EST

Aides wrestle with strategy dilemma on how sharply HRC should make case that Obama is unprepared.
Photo: AP

...As her campaign makes what could be its last stand, aides are wrestling with a strategy dilemma centering on how sharply Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) should make the case that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is unprepared to be commander in chief in an age of urgent national security challenges.

Mark Penn, the campaign’s chief strategist, has argued that Clinton should press this line aggressively, emphasizing substantive contrasts, according to Democrats with long ties to the Clintons.

Other advisers fret that Clinton — facing an uphill climb at best — should not advance arguments that would give the likely Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, ammunition in a general election if Obama winds up as the Democratic nominee.


...The stakes for the Clintons, immediately and for the long term, are high. If Hillary Clinton attempts to disembowel Obama and fails, there might be a backlash that could reduce her stature in the Senate and Bill Clinton’s reputation as an elder statesman.

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