HALPERIN’S TAKE: The Dangers Which Might Await Obama If He Makes Negative Attacks Central To His Campaign

In the last few days, Obama and his senior staff have been open about their intention to raise all sorts of personal issues against the Clintons. They have even started that process by, for instance, calling for the Clintons to release their tax returns immediately, before the April 15 date Clinton’s campaign has promised. He is also bringing up his rival’s policy and biographical background in a negative way as well.

It is understandable why the Obama team wants to go negative, even while such a tactic conflicts with the senator’s frequent statements that he planned to run a different kind of campaign. Clinton’s recent hammering of Obama’s personal missteps and professional weaknesses (national security readiness, the flap over Obama’s top economic adviser talking to Canadian officials about NAFTA, the criminal trial of former Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko) seems to have helped her win primaries in Ohio and Texas. Those victories have at least temporarily staunched the tide of Obama Inevitability, much to the dismay of his staff and supporters, who have become cozily accustomed to success.

Team Obama wants to react quickly and with maximum force: his top political and communications advisers are from the you-pull-a-knife-I’ll-pull-a-gun school of campaign response. Furthermore, based on watching Obama interact with New York Times’ columnist Maureen Dowd on his campaign plane last week, he did not appreciate her once famously calling him “Obambi.”

After his first truly bad week since January (Clinton’s New Hampshire win notwithstanding), Obama has fretted that the press has decided to be tougher on him — and perhaps softer on Clinton. This might bode ill for a significant change in strategy and tone, even though in the past, many in the media cheered when Obama took steps to go negative against his New York rival. His campaign already has produced plenty of disparaging material about Clinton (radio ads, voter phone calls, e-mails, direct mail) without reproach.

But now it appears the campaign wants to make negative attacks, including those launched directly from the candidate himself, a more central part of its message.

Here’s why that is politically dangerous:

1. It takes him off his principal message of change, hope, and inspiration.

2. It could conflict with his message of rejecting the “old” politics of negativity and polarization, which clearly has appealed to many voters.

3. He might not be as adept at negative politics on the national stage as he thinks he is.

4. When you wrestle in the mud of negative campaigning, you get dirty.

5. Early on, Obama pledged to fire anyone on his staff who engaged in the kind of personal attacks his senior advisers are now openly launching on a daily basis.

6 As John Kerry learned in 2004 against George W. Bush, negative information about the lesser-known candidate tends to have a bigger impact on voters—it represents a higher percentage of the total information voters have about a candidate who is still introducing himself to the country — as compared to an incumbent or, like Clinton, a “quasi-incumbent” whose image has already been formed.

7. It could politically free up Clinton to engage in even more negative attacks, either on national security credentials or of a personal nature (and that Clinton machine is ruthless and ready).

8. Clinton usually does well when she’s perceived as a victim of a bullying man (both in terms of private resolve and public sympathy).

9. By attacking Clinton during a period when he is particularly vulnerable on the Tony Rezko case, NAFTA, and other unseemly matters, Obama risks more unfavorable scrutiny directed at him (especially during a period when Clinton is on a roll, given her charming appearances on late-night comedy shows, her comeback kid excitement, and her refreshed media confidence).

10. It could look and feel desperate — already Obama’s affronted reaction to those newly tough, “like, eight questions” last week made him seem rather naive and peevish; add cutthroat to that image, and Obama could have a bigger problem than he is trying to solve by changing strategies.

Watch more from Halperin on Obama’s risk below: