Playing Not to Lose Isn't a Winning Strategy

Caution has never been a Clinton hallmark, so why is her campaign thus far so close-to-the-vest and buttoned-up?
Does her brain trust really think all those campaign dollars and name-recognition chips will be enough to outlast Obama over the next year and a half?

Squeeze the smart-ass out of Dana Milbank’s recent Washington Post column, “Embracing the Trite and the True,” and you’re left with a few grains of truth about Senator Clinton bringing the “sensibility of Hallmark greeting cards to the 2008 race.”

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Martin Nolan reminds her that “Democrats don’t cotton to campaigns based on a foregone conclusion” and suggests she has been “overcoached by consultants.”

To help us recover from the damage of the Bush years, clichés just won’t cut it. Tell James Carville and the boys to go back to their smoke-filled rooms, and start showing us the sense and straight talk that qualify you to be our next President.

It isn't enough just not to be George Bush. You have to give us some idea of how you would clean up the diplomatic and Constitutional mess he is going to leave behind.