More Obama "Concern Trolling" For BoBo

David Brooks presents the following today (re: the resurgence of Hillary Clinton and how he thinks Barack Obama should respond, here)…

The Obama people seem to have persuaded themselves they can go on the attack, but in the right way. They can be tough and keep their virginity, too. But there are more than five long months between now and the convention.

Unless they consciously reject conventional politics, the accusations will build on each other. The BlackBerries will buzz. The passions will rise. The Obama forces will see hints of Clinton corruption all around, and they’ll accuse and accuse again. The war will begin to take control, and once you’re halfway through you can’t suddenly surrender because it’s become too rough.

And the Clinton people will draw them every step of the way. Clinton can’t compete on personality, but a knife fight is her only real hope of victory. She has nothing to lose because she never promised to purify America. Her campaign doesn’t depend on the enthusiasm of upper-middle-class goo-goos. On Thursday, a Clinton aide likened Obama to Ken Starr just to badger them on.

I’ll be honest – I didn’t know what the hell Brooks was talking about for a minute, but it turns out that the term “goo-goos” has a history, as noted here, and I’m sure he meant it to be used as pejoratively as possible (implying either that Obama’s supporters were elitists or that Clinton’s supporters were stupid, to go along with more pundit name calling towards Obama; Gerson called him “a pleading, panting joke” here, and now Brooks calls him a “wimp” – I was always taught that that sort of thing was the last refuge for small minded people).

I grudgingly admit, though, that Brooks has a point about the tactics primarily of the Clinton campaign; I agree with Markos Moulitsas who admires Hillary personally but utterly despises the people surrounding her, so much so that I should tell you that I honestly don’t know how I’m going to vote in a few weeks.

Aside from that, there’s really no other reason to take Brooks seriously; he blames Obama for not spelling out how his campaign will “produce bread-and-butter benefits to people in places like Youngstown and Altoona” (as if anybody else from either party has done that). And I don’t buy Brooks’ assertion that Clinton has a national edge in the Latino vote; if that were true, then how come Obama is poised to win the Texas caucus after Hillary won the election (I thought this was a good article about this issue).

Also, I thought this post by Daily Kos blogger DHinMI was a much better analysis of what Obama needs to do at this point to secure the Democratic nomination for president, noting that he has a less difficult road to go here than Hillary does.

In the meantime, I’m sure we can count on BoBo to bring us all of the latest developments concerning that pivotal “goo-goo” voting bloc.