It seems to me that with the Clinton campaign in circular firing squad mode, a lot of the things Hillary is saying on the campaign trail just make her look bad. For example, there’s her boast that the

Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Monday she’ll press on with the campaign after Tuesday’s crucial primaries, arguing that momentum is on her side despite 11 straight losses to rival Sen. Barack Obama.

“I’m just getting warmed up,” Clinton told reporters, looking ahead to a busy day of campaign events in Ohio and Texas where polls show a close race ahead of Tuesday’s primaries.

Two months after the Iowa caucuses, I’d think campaigns should be well past their “getting warmed up” phases. That might explain why Obama was won the last 11 contests.

Worse yet, Clinton seems to have made the mistake of actually believing her talking points and, in the process, is doing the GOP’s work for them.

Hillary Clinton told reporters that both she and the presumtive Republican nominee John McCain offer the experience to be ready to tackle any crisis facing the country under their watch, but Barack Obama simply offers more rhetoric. “I think you’ll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say,” she said. “He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.” Clinton was referring to Obama’s anti-war speech he delivered in Chicago before entering the United States Senate.

Clinton may think this line of attack serves her well in the primary, but it’ll kill her in the general (which is probably why she polls worse against McCain than Obama). The problem is that Clinton’s must-vaunted “experience” is trumped by McCain’s. Or, to put this in bumper sticker terms, here’s what Hillary’s talking points look like when applied to the general election :

Which is why Obama’s strategy is just better all around. All the experience in the world doesn’t matter if you need to make a crucial decision (like whether or not to invade Iraq) and you’re completely wrong. Which means, at least as far as the Iraq war is concerned, the talking points would look more like this :



A much better place to be for the Democrats this November, I’d think.