As Todd alluded to, it may take a bit of time for folks to recover from the late nights, early mornings and near-constant action of the 2007 Yearly Kos convention, but I as I've begun to digest some of what I saw, I'd like to lay out a few thoughts over the coming days in addition to my normal blogging on other topics.
To begin, I'd like to take a look at what Hillary Clinton had to say when pressed about her decision to accept campaign contributions from federal lobbyists -- a choice that puts her at odds with her two leading rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama and John Edwards. Clinton has caught a lot of flak for having said in defense of her position on this matter that "a lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans." I'd like to come back to that in a moment. But before then, I'd like to speak to an earlier statement she made that was, in a sense, even more telling.
In response to a query about her stance on accepting contributions from federal lobbyists, particularly in comparison with Edwards' stance, Clinton said, "I think it's a position that John has certainly taken" -- a statement that was met with laughter by the audience. This initial response to a question from debate moderator Matt Bai seemed to indicate that it was a question that Clinton was totally unprepared for, one that she had to eat up 10-15 seconds thinking about by throwing out an asinine truism. For a candidate who is not seemingly caught off guard often, it was interesting to find her unable to immediately grasp a strong retort. I don't know if she was unprepared to take this question or just couldn't remember her talking points on this particular issue. But it seemed to undercut the notion that she is a perfectly prepared candidate who is almost impossible to vanquish during a debate (an expectation that is perhaps unfairly high but one that many had seemed to hold).
In a sense, it seems that the failure to quickly respond in a meaningful way is more problematic for Clinton than her seeming defense of lobbyists (even if that defense will be used subsequently in television ads and direct mail pieces). For one, while she doesn't outright say it, the contributions made by lobbyists, themselves, wield less influence than the 10 or 20 or 100 accompanying checks that the lobbyists bundle together for candidates. What's more, Clinton is right that there are some lobbyists who are indeed working on behalf of good causes, and as such it is perhaps not inappropriate to accept contributions from them. Certainly this is not an answer that works particularly well on a political level, but it is one that at least has a basis in logic (and suggests at least some level of thought). Merely throwing out words like "I think it's a position that John has certainly taken" -- and in doing so at least suggesting that you haven't fully thought about an issue that is clearly on the radar in the presidential race -- does not. And as a result, at least some of the Clinton's luster, particularly that she is a candidate who may not always excite but will rarely if ever let down, may have been lost this weekend.
Just to add a couple of thoughts... In the comments there seem to be people taking exception with my contention that this was a flub, that instead it was a joke and people were laughing with her, not at her. As Matt Yglesias put it yesterday, "I promise you it was totally clear that the audience (myself included) was laughing with her" (emphasis original). I don't think it was "totally clear that the audience... was laughing with her" -- I got the sense from talking with others in the audience (of which I, too, was a part) that at least some were laughing at her instead, indicating the entire audience did not, in fact, take it to be a joke. That said, clearly the entire audience didn't take it to be serious, either, so there's more room for interpretation. The words above represent my take on how things played out, but feel free to read the moment another way if you'd like.
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