Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

One of the themes Obama has been pushing is that his campaign is about “hope, not fear.”  This is supposed to be a contrast with the Republican message, especially Bush in 2004 and Giuiliani these days.  Perhaps unexpectedly, Clinton has started working the same sort of “the world is a scary place, vote Clinton!” meme that Rudy or McCain would surely use against Obama.  Here’s an AFSCME mailer sent out in support of Clinton:

While it’s not as egregious as Rudy or McCain’s most recent campaign ads, its still using the same formula.  It puts forward  scary sounding scenarios and just implies that for some assumed, unspoken reason, Clinton is the best to deal with them. This type of campaigning appeals to the worst in voters, while Obama has emphasized appealing to our “higher selves.”  These really are GOP campaign tactics and it just shows how desperate Clinton is and her failure to articulate a postive justification for her candidacy.

Oh yeah, and it’s worth noting that this mailer was sent out by the Municipal Employees Union. What exactly does Clinton based fear mongering have to do with the issues that municipal employees are supposed to be concerned about?  This is just another example of how unions shouldn’t be an infallible part of the Democratic base.  Why, exactly, shouldn’t labor unions not be considered a special interest like everyone else when they promote their favored candidates in this way.  When Krugman and Stoller bashed Obama for calling into question Edwards’ acceptance of labor-backed 527 support, they said Obama was criticizing and demeaning a key part of the base.  Is AFSCME a key part of a progressive coalition that should be immune from criticism?  If so, they sure aren’t acting like it.