Obama steps it up

James Forsyth 8:10pm

Barack Obama is finally going to take the gloves off against Hillary Clinton. Under pressure from donors who are disappointed by the fact that Hillary is maintaining her  dominant lead in national polls, the Obama campaign has decided that they have to make their criticisms of the frontrunner clear if they are going to stand a chance. In an interview with The New York Times to launch this new strategy, Obama is far more direct in his criticism of Hillary than he has been to date. This exchange, gives a sense of the change in tone:  

Q: Has she been truthful to voters about what she would do as president?

A. “No.
“I don’t think people know what her agenda exactly is. On Social Security, in the last debate, she was very explicit about not wanting to disclose how she would approach it. On Iraq and Iran, I think there has been a tendency to go back and forth in her positions. Now, it’s been very deft politically, but one of the things that I firmly believe is that we’ve got to be clear with the American people right now about the important choices that we’re going to need to make in order to get a mandate for change, not to try to obfuscate and avoid being a target in the general election and then find yourself governing without any support for any bold propositions.”

The challenge for Obama is that the lead-off state of Iowa, which he must win to have a realistic shot at the nomination, traditionally punishes negative campaigning. So Obama is going to have to find a way of undercutting Hillary which doesn’t turn voters off.  This interview suggests that he is going to do that by playing up the idea that Hillary isn’t giving voters enough information, trying to draw Hillary out and persuade voters that he is not bashing her for the sake of it but because he wants them to know what she would do before they make up their minds.