Obama Prediction

2007-12-14 14:24:00

Recent news has made me think back to one of the predictions I made at the first of the year (Jan 9). It reads as follows:

"Barack Obama will seem to be headed for the Democrat nomination, but Hilary Clinton will work behind the scenes to sabotage him. Watch for dirt surfacing on him - even so he still has a good chance of success."

Until recently it appeared that Hilary was headed for the nomination, but now the tables are reversed.

There is a lot of evidence that the Clintons are doing their darndest to dig up dirt on Obama though. This started several weeks after I made the prediction when it began to surface that Obama was raised by a Muslim father and went to Muslim grade school. The rumor circulated that the school was a radical one called a "madrassa." It turned out to be a moderate public school with Muslim leanings, but not a radical one.

The story did plant doubts in the minds of many about Obama - was a really a Muslim disguised as a Christian?

When the story surfaced Hilary spokespeople called it "an obvious right-wing hit job" and Obama on the surface seemed to accept that.

Insight Magazine though claimed the information was leaked to them from the Clinton camp including the false rumor that the school was a radical madrassa.

At this point Obama probably gave the Clintons the benefit of the doubt, but that may have changed by now.

Then on November 19 Robert Novak in his column said:

"Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.

"Now whether there is any such scandalous information, I don't know, but what I know is I'm confident in my sources, who I trust. We're told this by Clinton people that there was such information out.

So the warning was leaked to Obama: "We've got some stuff on you and if you put up too much of a fight we will destroy you."

It is then interesting that a few days later Obama released information on some youthful indiscretions, such as drug use, seemingly in an attempt to defuse a future attack.

In response, Bill Shaheen, the Clinton campaign's New Hampshire co-chair said, the confession would "open the door to further queries on the matter. It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

Again, the Clinton campaign tried to shift blame to the Republicans, but this time Obama didn't buy it. His campaign manager called the remarks "desperate."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3992371&page=1

The Republican blame did not stick and as outrage surfaced Mrs. Clinton was forced to apologize to Obama adding the caveat that Shaheen was not authorized to make such remarks.

The thing that probably hurt Hillary's believability more than anything else though was her attack on him as being deceptive. Obama said in the campaign that he was "not running to fulfill some long held plans."

This time the attack was not released through an operative, but accused Obama of lying by starkly publishing this on the Clinton web site as follows:

"In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want To Be a President.' His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga asked her class to write an essay titled 'My dream: What I want to be in the future.' Senator Obama wrote 'I want to be a President,' she said."

This statement did not seem to hurt Obama but it caused a Tsunami for Clinton. People began to ask themselves:

"What is this? If she is going all the way back to the third grade to find dirt on Obama then what else is she doing? Maybe some of the stuff she blamed on the Republicans is her own doing."

So things are heating up and the invulnerable Hillary has a dent in her armor. The problem is that the public now seems on to her tactics and any future under-the-radar attack could backfire.

Pundits are now asking what she will do if she looses the nomination. Some feel she is so driven that she may run as a third party candidate.

The plot thickens.