'Angry Hillary' Being Hurt by GOP Charges

Ken Mehlman took a lot of wind out of Hillary Clinton when he commented about her 'angry' appearance, and how Americans don't like to vote for angry candidates. Dick Morris (who formerly worked for Hill and Bill) thinks this charge by Mehlman will really throw Hillary off her game:

THE most effective at tacks in politics are those that stop your opponent from campaigning in his or her usual style.

When Democrats called Richard Nixon "negative" in the runup to the 1960 presidential, it made it much more difficult for him to wage the type of slash-and-burn campaign that had animated his past races. When Republicans called Bill Clinton a "flip-flopper" during his first term, it made it harder for him to reach out to all constituencies and reach across ideological barriers as he instinctually always wanted to do.

Now, Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, has pinned the "angry" moniker on Hillary Clinton — a label that will increasingly stop her from venting her partisanship as she must to get nominated.

The genius of the Mehlman charge (doubtless drawn from focus group or survey research) is that it rings so true among those who follow Sen. Clinton closely that it seems self-evident.

When Hillary denounces the deficit or wiretapping or drug prices or the administration's inaction on global climate change, she sounds, looks, and acts angry. And the reason is that she is angry.

Morris defends her passion, but that doesn't change the fact that when Hill gets wound up, she sounds like everyone's first, second and third ex-wives all rolled into one. That's not a recipe for election.