Hillary Clinton’s decisive Pennsylvania primary win last week may have reinvigorated her campaign, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to the Republican party. The National Republican Congressional Committee has purchased $500,000 in anti-Barack Obama ads for use in two upcoming special House elections. The Republican National Committee is flooding reporters with anti-Obama emails. Presumptive nominee John McCain and GOP surrogates have seized on new remarks by Obama’s controversial former pastor. From top to bottom, from McCain down to the youthful campaign and party staffers who work nearly around the clock to get him elected, the working assumption seems to be that the Democratic contest is over and Obama has won. Even when Clinton attacks McCain, President Bush or GOP policies, the response is either outright silence or snarky, dismissive ridicule about a failed campaign barely relevant enough to merit a response. “With ads like that, it’s more likely the call at 3 a.m. is ‘Senator, you just lost another superdelegate,’” quipped McCain adviser Steve Schmidt earlier this month when Clinton aired a version of her “3 a.m.” ad attacking McCain on the economy. In one revealing glimpse into Republican thinking, when McCain quickly hit back with an ad of his own parroting the genre, he incorporated Barack Obama’s name into the response and spent little money airing it. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9964.html
The GOP is playing this perfectly, to be honest. When Hillary was the frontrunner, they were propping up Obama. When Obama is the frontrunner, they are propping up Hillary. They have done an excellent job keeping the race close and helping extend it. There's no reason to beat on Hillary right now, because she's still an extreme underdog.
