A Tale of Two Hillary Clintons in Two Days

Trying to track Hillary Clinton's current campaign strategy over the past week has been a bit of a challenge, given the range of tactics she used between the debate in Texas Thursday night and the press conference she gave Saturday morning in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In terms of how she performed at the debate, she was, for the most part, considered civil and well-prepared. She listed parts of her impressive career accomplishments and compared them to Barack's relatively light resume. And although she did try to continue the narrative of plagiarism that her campaign had been playing up against Obama during the previous week, this attack fell flat with the audience and showed how careful she was going to have to be if she wanted to balance the positive with occasional attempts to go negative. You could tell she viewed this debate, overall, as a chance to defy expectations of her coming in with mud-slinging desperation and instead take the high road and show her superiority over Obama on the issues themselves. During a brief moment in which she went on the attack, however, she allowed herself to appear nitpicky and eager to land a blow on Obama, as the issue of whether or not he had plagiarized parts of his speeches was beginning to seem old and insignificant by this point. For the most part, however, her debate performance was well coordinated, comforting, and full of substance. The moment that capped it all off was, of course, the answer Senator Clinton gave to the question of what she would consider the moment that had tested her the most. After alluding to her husband's affair, she wrapped up by stating that "no matter what happens in this contest, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama." The moment, which felt electric and genuine to many, showed how compassionate Hillary could be once again. It also showed how such a high-road strategy might pay off for her.

The downside to her closing comments? Many viewers and pundits considered her gracious words of friendship and hope for the country to be a sign that she was realizing that the end of her campaign was near and that she would step aside soon. This "valedictorian" claim was repeated quite often in the post-debate analysis, as she seemed to be publicly acknowledging the state of her own campaign and the need to unite behind Barack once she had left the race. In addition, bloggers even managed to find comments John Edwards had made that echoed, or "plagiarized," many of her sentiments from, what her campaign would refer to as, "the moment."

If this was meant to be another New Hampshire-style emotional moment that made Hillary seem real and vulnerable to voters, her strong words against Senator Obama the day after were designed to do just the opposite. It seems that her campaign realized the need to stop all of the talk about her dropping out and go on the offensive with harsh attacks. She did so in response to fliers the Obama campaign had been producing that called into question her record and positions on health care and trade agreements. Hillary's campaign had previously spoken out against such claims and tactics, but Hillary took this as an opportunity to blast Senator Obama herself in public and create a media-friendly sound bite. Therefore, she exclaimed, "Shame on you, Barack Obama." This moment changed her image from friendly to furious in just over one day's time. It was interesting to watch both tactics being used, and even more interesting to note that her positive, hopeful message had resonated more with voters and seemed to benefit her image more. Maybe she had finally picked something up from her Democratic rival, at least for the moment.