Politics as usual?

Until recently everyone has raved about Senator Clinton’s disciplined, efficient, well-run campaign. Now the campaign is seemingly scrambling to win in Iowa and handle “unauthorized” statements by Bill Shaheen. Senator Clinton has since apologized to Obama. However, following apologies from the Clinton camp and the firing of Shaheen, Mark Penn, Clinton’s chief strategist, tried to subtly connect Obama to Cocaine on MSNBC’s “Hardaball.” – “The issue related to cocaine use is not something the campaign is in any way raising.” This is politics as usual

It’s become increasingly obvious that Shaheen’s statement was a calculated move, perhaps not approved by Hillary herself, but nonetheless done to connect Obama to cocaine and all off its negative connotations in voters’ minds. To add, this story has legs and successfully replaced the positive stories about Obama’s surge in the polls and the Oprah.

This is what Pat Buchanan had to say about Shaheen, "Look, this is an experienced man. His wife has been governor of New Hampshire. He's an able fellow. And to go to the Washington Post and say, ask about selling drugs. ... Nobody thinks that up. Somebody fed that to him. I don't know where it came from. But you use the term even in the open, drug dealer. That is a killer" ("Tucker," MSNBC, 12/13).

While I do not hold Buchanan to have the most brilliant political mind out there, nor do I know anything about Shaheen, his statement echoes my own thoughts of why Shaheen would say such a thing and also why it won’t necessarily hurt Clinton as much as it will hurt Obama by planting another seed of doubt in voters’ minds.