Hillary Nixon?

The battle is on and the Clintons are doing their best to win, even if it means plays straight out of the Karl Rove textbook -- undermine his strength. Per one of Andrew Sullivan's astute readers:

Many of your recent posts on the Obama-Clinton contest are missing the forest for the trees. They are focusing on small annoyances from Camp Clinton. The big story of the last week is that the Clintons are trying to strip Obama of his rightful advantage on the Iraq war "judgment" issue and carry out the tactic from the Rove playbook that says, "Attack your opponent's perceived strength." If that strength is merely "perceived" and not real, it's a legitimate tactic, but Rove attacks even when the perception is justified, and the Clintons are now doing the same.

Bill did this in New Hampshire when he contended that Obama was not really a consistent war opponent. Hillary put this tactic way out front on Meet the Press today. She said that Obama's campaign is premised entirely on his October 2002 speech, and she said that Obama did nothing after that speech. This is just an out and out lie; there are no shades of gray here.

An equally astute reader of Talking Points Memo has the goods on the very subtle race-baiting from the Clinton side:

Cuomo didn't utter the phrase "shuck and jive"without forethought; nor did Clinton bring up LBJ and MLK on the spur of the moment. Both are experienced street-fighting politicians who don't say that kind of thing to the press without thinking it through. Such comments are a provocation, waving a red cloak in front of the Obama people. When they respond angrily with charges of racism, suddenly they look like Jessie Jackson redux...just the kind of angry, militant black folks who scare white people (btw I think black anger and militancy are completely understandable...this is just a point about how much of the white public reads such charges of racism). Then the Clintons deny responsibility.

The whole point was to get the Obama people to respond angrily, which they did. Clintons win.

Who's Hillary Clinton using to bolster her (previously impressive) credentials with African-Americans? The first African-American billionaire estate-tax enemy and Bush Social Security destruction enabler, Robert L. Johnson, founder of BET. The inflammatory quote seems to hint again at Obama's acknowledged teenage drug use:

"I am frankly insulted," Johnson declared, "that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood -­ and I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in the book -­ when they have been involved."

At least Johnson's ex-wife and BET co-founder, who divorced him in 2002, is a confirmed Obama supporter.

On the legal front, Hillary and company just opened up with a lawsuit to try and quell caucusing in Nevada by the type of workers who's union just endorsed Obama. Republican-style voter disenfranchisement?

And is she starting to overplay the type of voice-breaking emotional moment that's credited by many with contributing to her win in New Hampshire?

Look, there's no doubt in my mind that the GOP will try to trash Obama in exactly the same ways, if not worse, if not more nefarious, should he win the Democratic nomination. It's just that should Hillary end up winning, I'd prefer that I not think of her, her husband and her entire campaign apparatus as evil.

As to the horse race, over at MyDD you have Todd Beeton making a strong case for how Hillary is starting to gain traction in the "heart" area, while Obama needs to get some momentum in winning "minds." Meanwhile, Josh Marshall points out how Obama is winning some incredible endorsements at a time when there's considerable risk to those Dem politicians now that Clinton has won New Hampshire.

But the two most interesting observations I found were from hardcore Obama supporters Andrew Sullivan and Byron Williams, backers ostensibly from opposite sides of the political spectrum.

Sullivan has the clip of Hillary on today's Meet the Press and declares that the kinder, gentler Hillary is gone and the operator is back:

I just watched the whole thing. I'd say this: the old pre-New Hampshire Clinton was back...

If you want yet another president who cannot say he or she made a mistake, who can never cop to errors, and who uses everything as a political tool against his or her opponents, you have your candidate. And she is ready on Day One. Oh, so ready.

Then there's Oakland pastor Williams, who claims it's all gutter politics to win on the part of the Clinton campaign, going so far as to write:

Maybe Nixon's 1968 playbook is the answer for the 2008 Clinton campaign. You don't have to be liked, just be tough, formidable, smart, and divisive enough to carve out a majority of the electorate to secure the nomination in the summer and 270 electoral votes in the fall.

I guess we'll get a taste of her "Southern strategy" in South Carolina soon. But I'm wondering how it'll all be seen by the Democratic electorate. Will Obama's campaign of "hope" survive the Clinton campaign of "fear?" Will he end up appearing tough enough or wily enough to beat her at this game?

Just like in the last most powerfully idealistic year in U.S. Presidential politics, 1968, will we somehow end up with a Republican President at the end of the year?