Posted by Jed Lewison on Wed Dec 12, 2007 at 8:30 PM Pacific

Some unsolicited advice for Barack Obama: Hit back, and hit back hard

(Full disclosure: John Edwards is my first choice in the Democratic primary. Barack Obama is a close second, however.)

For a few days after Hillary's disastrous "Kindergate" moment, she dialed down her attacks on Barack Obama to a slow simmer. She'd crossed an obvious line, and her campaign risked becoming a parody of itself and imploding if she kept at it.

As anyone who has observed her political career should have expected, however, Hillary regrouped and returned to the attack trail, this time with more vigor and with renewed intensity. Most importantly, her campaign is attacking Obama with more savvy -- using surrogates to launch attacks on his character, giving her "plausible deniability" in the media's twisted version of reality.

It's absolutely clear that her latest attacks are part of a coordinated strategy, and they are more savage then ever, but the difference between this week and last is that while Clinton has changed her tactics, Obama hasn't. Just as he did ten days ago, Obama is now saying that Clinton's attacks are desperate, and that they are the sign of a campaign that is fading fast and panicking.

Last week, complaining that Hillary is being negative worked. This week, it isn't working. Last week, it looked like the front-runner (Hillary) was attacking the underdog (Obama). This week, it looks like the underdog (Hillary) is attacking the front-runner (Obama).

Instead of adopting a posture of strength by returning fire, Obama is clinging to the narrative of Hillary as attack dog. In so doing, Obama hopes to claim the high moral ground, but I fear that instead of sounding like a bold statesman, he sounds like a defensive whiner.

Hillary's campaign message is that she is the candidate of strength and experience. By failing to respond to Hillary's attacks with aggressive new attacks of his own, Obama, in a perverse way, is playing right into her hands. It makes him seem weak, and that is the kiss of death for any politician.

The good news for Obama is that we're only a day or two into this most recent phase of the campaign. There's still plenty of time for him to huddle with his team and open up a new front in the battle.

I'd suggest that he use the other meaning of the phrase "Hillary attacks" -- that she attacks countries, like Iraq and Iran. The path to war with Iran is her Achilles' heel. Her campaign momentum suffered its first serious setback after she voted for Kyl-Lieberman. At the height of her inevitability, she exhibited a pattern that progressive Democrats have feared most: her willingness to embrace right-wing policies when she thinks they are politically advantageous.

Today, I posted two web ads which demonstrate one way he could launch this attack. If he released similar videos, it would change the debate from one about Hillary's attacks on Obama to one about Hillary's attacks on the world.

These videos, of course, are but one of many potential approaches to the final weeks of the presidential campaign. Whatever Obama chooses to do, he must go on the offensive. If he continues to respond to Hillary's attacks with demands that she stop attacking him, he will not beat her.

In 1992, Hillary Clinton established the war room in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was the first rapid response centers of its kind in a presidential campaign. It's motto was speed kills, and it's credo was that if you get hit, you better hit back -- harder.

It's time for Obama to hit back.