Last night, as is customary, both the Obama and Clinton Campaigns sent out surrogates to appear on the various cable news channels. These men and women -- often elected officials or aides to the candidates -- are tasked with touting the strengths of their candidate, and with trying to frame the results of the latest contest in the most positive way possible for their candidate.
After Obama's shellacking of Clinton last night, one would think that the Clinton surrogates would have a far more difficult job in making lemonades out of the Wisconsin Primary lemons, and that anyone speaking on behalf of Obama would have no problem boosting the Illinois Senator. After all, it now appears almost certain that the Illinois Senator is headed for the Democratic Nomination. Perhaps, though, that's easier said than done (or easier said than said on national television)...take a look:
Wow. Painful to watch, wasn't it? Moving beyond the train-wreck entertainment value of this interview, however, the inability of Texas State Senator Kirk Watson -- an Obama surrogate dispatched to MSNBC last night -- to cite one single legislative accomplishment of Obama's not only indicates the need for a new surrogate, it also -- and more seriously -- points to a potential weakness for Obama in the weeks and months ahead.
Senator Watson basically personified the argument that Hillary Clinton has been trying to make in the last week: essentially that Obama is all talk and no action. The danger for the Obama Campaign, however, is that there may be some truth to that. His legislative record is, in fact, unimpressive, at least partially due to the fact that he is only four years into his first term in the Senate -- two years of which he has now spent campaigning for president.
Wasting no time, Hillary Clinton has already seized on the Watson interview in her campaign appearances this morning. And it won't stop there. I would expect the Clinton Campaign to produce a television ad including this clip very soon, and I would further expect John McCain's campaign to file the clip away for use in the General Election should Obama indeed become the Democratic Nominee. Either way, I suspect this will be just the first of many times we will see this clip between now and November.
Obama can't even dance.
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