I'm a bit conflicted over this Paul Waldman column. On the one hand, Hillary Clinton is running a bare-knuckled, often unfair campaign, and pundits should mention that. On the other, the sort of attacks she's levying -- misrepresenting Obama's payroll tax plan, or exaggerating his comments about Reagan -- are pretty much par for the course. We're not hitting some sort of new low in politics, here. And the overarching theme of Waldman's column -- that Clinton is "running like a Republican" -- almost pushes me to her side on the issue. The winner of the Democratic primary, after all, will have to run against a Republican. This seems like good practice for Obama, who needs to prove that he can do precisely that. And, so far, it looks to me like Clinton is getting the better of this one: Obama and his folks are spending a lot of time clarifying statements and categorizing attacks as unfair, while Clinton keeps throwing more punches and controlling the conversation. While I can name a half-dozen open attacks Clinton has on Obama right now, I'm not really sure what line his campaign is taking against Clinton. This is what folks feared with Obama: That he'd be too high-minded to stand up to the smear machine. And distasteful as some of Clinton's hits are, they're nothing compared to what he'll face as the nominee. Indeed, as John Harris and Jim VandeHei point out in today's Politico, the surprising -- and possibly telling -- part of the primary is not how rough Clinton is, but how rough Obama, at this point, isn't.
