Hillary Needs to Get Her Groove Back

Barack Obama pulled a cute little trick on presumptive frontrunner Hillary Clinton with his online presidential announcement yesterday while Hillary was out of the country. However, her handlers realize that they better fight back quickly, and so almost as quickly as she could get off the airplane she was on the morning shows:

Obama's announcement is seen as a direct challenge to Clinton. So much so that her staff is scrambling to reclaim the political initiative.

Fresh back from a trip to the Middle East, Clinton appeared on the major talk shows Wednesday morning, amid speculation that she would push forward the date of her announcement for president.

On one early morning broadcast, Clinton called the road to the Democratic nomination "the beginning of a long process" She dodged questions about her own plans to enter the race for the nomination.

She was more outspoken about the war in Iraq, however.

"The Bush administration has frankly failed to put any leverage on this government," Clinton said on CBS' "The Early Show." She did not say whether she would vote to block funding for Bush's troop increase.

Hillary's going to be walking tightrope for awhile. Every move she makes will be compared to what Obama is doing, and the her job will be to point out Obama's relative inexperience. She's going to have to take on some tough questions about her opponent, and so far, she's dodging according to Drudge:

DODGES OBAMA QUESTION ON NBC: Is qualified to be Commander in Chief in your opinion? 'I will let those decisions be sorted out by voters'...

I guarantee you that if Obama starts beating her in the polls, she won't be quite so coy about his qualifications. USA Today had this to say, and I expect to hear things like this from Hillary's camp quite often:

USA Today: "Two years in the U.S. Senate. Seven years in the Illinois Senate. One loss in a primary election for the U.S. House of Representatives. One stirring keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. Two best-selling books. That's Barack Obama's political resume. Is it enough to qualify him to be president?"