Edwards First To Go Negative On Oprah, Will Hillary Follow?

 Edwards campaign goes negative on Oprah in South Carolina.  Can Hillary be far behind.  The Oprah factor may put Obama in the lead in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina with the very voters Hillary says she has a lock on, namely Democratic women, black women in particular.  Well, it might not work out that way.  It appears Hillary is sending Bill Clinton to South Carolina to maintain support from black women, who Hillary fears will go over to Obama, once they hear from Oprah.  Will the Edwards camp force Oprah to address any real political issues?  Probably not.  Political Night Train will keep close tabs on the Oprah Effect.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The coming Oprah phenomenon on behalf of Senator Barack Obama is already having a ripple effect on rival campaigns.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is sending Bill Clinton here to South Carolina on Saturday, the day before Oprah Winfrey arrives. The former president has spoken here often on behalf of his wife and has proved enormously popular with South Carolina voters.

And on a conference call today, supporters of former Senator John Edwards expressed dissatisfaction with Ms. Winfrey for coming here but not addressing issues like education, health care or poor conditions facing senior citizens.

“If you can build a school in South Africa, build one in South Carolina,” Linda Dogan, a member of the City Council in Spartanburg, said on the conference call, which was organized by the Edwards campaign.

The stated purpose of the call was for several prominent African-Americans who support Mr. Edwards to discuss the candidate’s “plan for opportunity.” They said that Mr. Edwards was emphasizing issues like poverty and education, that he was paying attention to rural areas and to the criminal justice system, that he had a “Southern strategy” and that he could win.

One reporter questioned whether the call was timed because of Ms. Winfrey’s campaigning for Mr. Obama. She is to appear in Iowa Saturday, comes to South Carolina Sunday and ends in Manchester, N.H., that night.

Ms. Dogan said that as a black woman, Ms. Winfrey’s visit “doesn’t mean anything to me” if she is not going to deal with local issues. “It makes me a little ill,” she said, noting that Ms. Winfrey is extremely wealthy. “Oprah coming here means absolutely nothing to me unless she’s going to do something for South Carolina,” she said.

John Moylan, Mr. Edwards’s South Carolina director, said that the call was not about Ms. Winfrey but about opportunity.

Tyrone Freeman, president of the United Long Term Care Workers West, of the Service Employees International Union, suggested that Ms. Winfrey was the only way to get the attention of the news media, which, he said, had been “unjust” by not covering the important issues that Mr. Edwards is raising. “All of us would do this call every week,” he said. “It’s only now because of Oprah we can get your attention.”

Another Hillary Clinton Plant-gate Story

Another Hillary Plant Sneaks In Under the MSM Radar As wily and wary as we have come to know the media to be, the many members of Team Clinton just keep out-Foxing them (apologies for the mention of the Hellish network). In a great many of the media’s post-game analyses of the Thursday, December 6^th Mitt Romney religion speech, including that of the Associated Press, we are treated to the negative reactions thereto of one Costas Panagopoulos, who is rightly (if only partially) identified as “a political science professor at Fordham University”.Amongst his many analytical stylings on Romney’s effort:“The Romney strategy with the speech appeared to be to try to kill two birds with one stone – to placate voters who are apprehensive about him as a Mormon or as a flip-flopper.  But I am not convinced he was successful in doing either.  At the end of the day, it is very difficult to change voters’ pre-existing beliefs, and it would probably take a much more powerful speech than the one Romney delivered today.”“Make no mistake about it, this was a political speech.  Romney sounded like he is running for pastor-in-chief rather than commander in chief.”And on Tuesday, December 4^th, in an Agence France-Presse story entitled “Caustic Clinton gets tough on Obama”, we have him offering his view on Hillary beginning to bare her fangs in the Donkey primary.  He is most approving of her so doing:“As the polls have been tightening it seems to be it is a reasonable strategy to pursue, especially when you are not far and away the front-runner, as she has been in other places and in national polls.”There is only one little problem with going to this guy for his thoughts on all things either Romney, Republican or Rodham: he is an ex-Hillary Clinton staffer.  How do we know this?  How did we ferret out this subterranean knowledge?  We checked his website’s biography.  Second paragraph, first sentence.We are positively exhausted after the extensive, laborious effort to track down this tidbit.—Seton Motley is Director of Communications for the Media Research Center.http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-motley/2007/12/07/another-hillary-plant-sneaks-under-msm-radar

Larry Flynt Endorses . . . . ?

It is official, Larry Flynt has stated, “I support Dennis Kucinich because not only have I been a friend of his for 40 years, but I believe he offers an essential, viable and exciting option to the candidates that are more popular.”

How Hillary Beats Obama in Iowa, New Hampshire, & South Carolina

Hillary is running behind Obama in the polls in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.  With the “Oprah Effect” to kick in soon, Hillary runs the risk of coming in 3rd in Iowa and 2nd in New Hampshire and South Carolina.  Some polling data is showing that every time Bill Clinton speaks about himself, Hillary’s numbers go down.  But Hillary’s campaign managers, some of which loath Bill, can’t shut him up.  Bill operates as a totally independent person, outside the constraints of Hillary’s campaign.  Senior campaign managers have been highly successful in cleaning Hillary up, getting her to dress properly, makeup, hair.  They have her highly scripted, to the point that recently Chris Matthews made a special issue of pointing out how when critizing Obama, Hillary constantly looked down to read from prepared text.

So, how does Hillary beat Obama in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina?

Hillary must go extremely negative on Edwards, now, this weekend.  If Hillary stays negative on Obama, she runs the risk of going, or seeming to go negative on Oprah, and if that happens, the bottom falls out of Hillary’s election hopes.  Hillary will have to avoid any comment on any of Oprah’s talking points, least she is accused of a cat fight.  Oprah on the other hand can say most anything she wants as she is running for nothing.  Watch Oprah carefully, she won’t criticize Hillary directly, but will agree with those who do, or will support issues that directly conflict Hillary’s positions.

By going extreme negative on Edwards, Hillary may hope to draw off some of his support to herself.  Hillary will also have to out “liberal” Edwards, which means flipping on some of her earlier positions.

Will a loss of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina be the end of Hillary?  No, she can still win the nomination, but it will tarnish her image of front runner.  In fact, she won’t be able to say others are tough on her because she is the front runner, because she won’t be.

Hear Hillary Scream, “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh NO! It’s Oprah!”

With poll numbers dropping in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, this is NOT what Hillary wants, the “Oprah Effect”.  Political Night Train predicts Hillary loss in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina as Oprah sucks up all the oxygen, and the attention of Democratic white women.

Obama is locked in close contests in the three early states with the Democratic front-runner, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, and Winfrey, 53, is already having an effect.

Demand in South Carolina forced organizers to move her appearance from an arena that could accommodate 18,000 people to the University of South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, which seats up to 80,250 people.