Earlier this week after watching Hillary vilify the President of the United States while speaking in front of a podium covered by a placard reading “Solutions for America,” I wondered if that placard represented the campaign she wanted to have run. Instead of being on the warpath attacking, she attend forums offering solutions.

It seems (to me at least) she had planned on emerging as the Democratic frontrunner with a clear and unimpeded path to the nomination by SuperDuperTuesday at which point, she’d run the kind of campaign John McCain is now running, holding townhall meetings across the country. But, she would begin each of these meetings offering specific policy proposals, her “solutions,” perhaps even introducing bills in the Senate to enact those proposals into law.

These meetings would serve to help her overcome her high negatives, showing that instead of being a shrill partisan, eager to attack her adversaries, she was instead a thoughtful legislator with ideas to improve America.

Given how poll-driven the Clinton campaigns have been, her team must be aware that her negatives have long hovered in the mid to high 40s. Knowing how politically damaging such numbers can be, they must have spent a great deal of time developing strategies to reduce them.

My theory is that the “Solutions for America” campaign is one such strategy.

But, Obama’s victories in February dashed the plans they had so carefully laid last fall when they assumed a Clinton “coronation” in the Democratic primaries and cauci.

Instead of running as the leader above the fray, announcing her agenda in anticipation of her election, Hillary has been forced to get into the down-and-dirty of politics, attacking her opponent and engaging in tactics which have defined her husband’s political career.

As a result, instead of reducing her negatives, the campaign for the Democratic nomination has solidified them. Indeed, it seems to have increased them in some circles as shown in this piece by a man who only last month was “elected a Clinton delegate in the neighborhood-level caucuses” in Washington State.

It seems the reality of the 2008 election has foiled yet another Clinton plan.

Upon learning that Hillary Fundraiser Dickie Scruggs pled guilty “to conspiring to bribe a judge for a favorable rulingin a case involving legal fees from a post-Hurricane Katrina lawsuit.” I wondered if the Clinton campaign (perhaps a phone call from Bill himself) had persuaded the trial lawyer to reach this decision. (Walter Olson (via Glenn) has more here.)

After all, with the Rezko trial underway in Chicago, a handful of media outlets are focusing on the shenanigans of that Obama fundraiser. Better to keep the shady dealings of Hillary supporters out of the news. With a guilty plea, there won’t be a trial, thus nothing to write about (after today). (It may be tough to keep felonious Clinton fundraisers out of the news I just read another one “is back in court.”)

Note how the plea comes on a Friday. It has long been a Clinton tactic to deliver bad news on a Friday when people are thinking less of politics and more of the weekend. I daresay this plea won’t get much media attention (outside Missisippi-and hey, their primary was earlier this week.)

It’s been Clinton practice to pardon those who help them out. Maybe Bill promised Dickie a pardon should Hillary win the White House.

This past weekend, while at a baby shower, I overhead one of the guests, an Obama supporter, talking about the prospect of Ms. Hillary winning the Democratic nomination. While he would not be eager to vote for the former First Lady, he would do so because John McCain was so corrupt.

I guess this guy gets his news from the New York Times.

In the past few weeks, that once-respected paper has run a number of articles suggesting that the Republican nominee has offered favors to campaign contributors and fetching female lobbyists. Given the paucity of evidence to support their charges, people (including Democrats) have been more critical of the newspaper’s political judgment than the Arizona Senator’s legislative actions.

Well, that is, except for some diehard left-wingers, eager to believe anything published in their favorite newspapers (or posted on their favorite sites) which reinforces their views on the venality of Republicans.

They may have liked John McCain in the past, largely because he often parted ways with their nemesis, George W. Bush, even attempting to thwart some of the president’s policy initiatives, but now that that courageous veteran is the GOP standard bearer, he must be destroyed.

It seems that just like they believed anything critical of Bush, they now believe anything critical of McCain, not because it’s true, but because they want it to be true.  Their main interest afterall is not painting an honest picture of Republicans, but defeating them.

And let’s hope that the Republican presidential nominee and his team are aware of their desire to demonize any Republican who has a chance at victory, so they can respond accordingly and expose the malicious intent and partisan rancor of their adversaries in the media, old as well as new.