Hi bentontheworld,

I always enjoy reading your posts. Read my take on the flyer flap in my "Hillary Hypocrisy" post above. It adds another dangerous and potentially deadly angle to this controversy: that Hillary will be branded a hypocrite.

I think results are mixed on the negativity issue. According to the TrailHead folks, Obama's Wisconsin numbers dropped from their high level among voters who made up their minds less than a month before the election (66%) to voters who made up their minds less than a week before the election, after the negative ads began running (55%). Now, the Texas Xerox Massacre would seem to indicate that negativity isn't working, but maybe she's still holding out hope that it will. OR...maybe she's hoping that, by painting OBAMA as the negative candidate, HIS numbers will drop.

The constant shifts in tactics, though, remind me of Anthony Bourdain's profile in KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL of a restaurant that's failing: the owner tries all kinds of fixes (changes in menu, new price specials, live music, a new chef) to entice people, not realizing that every new twist only alienates the customers one already has. "Experience" didn't work, so we switched through, "Change," "Hope plus experience," "Ready on Day One," to the current "Best Defense is a Good Offense."

The "boon" thing is interesting, because I gather the quote appeared once, in a Newsday article, and nobody else has run it. Of course, Clinton's mailer cites an AP report about Obama from Sept. '04 that I can find NO RECORD OF, even in the AP database.

Hey, wait a second: something just occurred to me. In the flyer I got from Clinton on Friday, she mentions a blog saying that Obama's claims on her NAFTA stances were "bogus" (in truth, the blog says the claim is "really fairly bogus"). She complained about his flyers on Saturday, so, clearly, she MUST have known about the NAFTA claims earlier. Perhaps it's just the presentation she disliked?