Sen. Clinton Beefs Up the Competition

In a sign of confidence befitting her status as front-runner, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., today began airing what her aides are calling “extremely vicious attack ads about herself.”

The ads, running in such key early states as New Hampshire and Iowa, take Clinton to task for everything from her position on Iraq to her failed health care proposals of the 1990s to what aides characterized as her “whiny voice and annoying cackle.”

With Clinton showing double-digit leads in many polls and steamrolling her rivals in recent debates, aides said that spending precious campaign funds to attack herself sends a message to voters that the New York senator “feels good about how the campaign is going.”

While negative ads have become commonplace in political campaigns, Sen. Clinton’s bruising ads are believed to be the first time a political candidate has spent her own money to attack herself.

“The American people want a leader,” said Clinton campaign spokesperson Carol Foyler. “And if her rivals won’t come out and attack her, Sen. Clinton is going to show leadership by attacking herself.”

Perhaps in a bid to blunt the effect of Sen. Clinton’s self-attacking ad campaign, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., today began airing what his aides are calling “his politest ads to date.”

In the ads, a soft-spoken Obama looks into the camera and says, “Sen. Clinton, I am asking you nicely to please stop winning by so much.”

Elsewhere, in his first major proposal on global warming, President Bush today declared war on the sun.

Award-winning humorist, television personality and film actor Andy Borowitz is author of “The Republican Playbook.”

© 2007 Creators Syndicate Inc.