Arizona Republic Op-Ed: Clinton Crossfire

A mystified Obama recently said he doesn't know which Clinton he is running against, what with Bill on an anti-Obama rampage through Las Vegas casinos and across the South Carolina countryside.

Some clarification is in order. At the moment, Obama is running against Bill, the once-and-perhaps-future co-president. On Saturday's South Carolina ballot, he will be running against the senator from New York.

Let's face it: Obama's confusion on this issue is the nation's confusion. In his full-throated campaign attacks, Bill Clinton has deconstructed whatever was left of the traditional role of a former president. He is in full campaign mode, a la 1992. Galvanizing attention, bewildering (if no longer enchanting) reporters, and hogging the mike. He is on the stump, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern whether it is on Hillary's behalf or his own - a distinction that very well may be without a difference.

Both Hillary Clinton and Obama are campaigning on platforms of change. The current wave of invective between their two camps has clarified, however, that each views "change" quite differently.

For the Clintons, "change" means the end of Republican dominion in the White House. The end of the Bush era.

Among Democrats, certainly, that would be change enough. But for Obama, "change" means sweeping away the residue of a longer era - one that includes a uniquely political (and uniquely polarizing) power couple that has been much in the news of late. Obama's formerly obscure "politics of hope" suddenly have some concrete meaning.

Small wonder the once-and-perhaps-future co-president has been so red-faced.

It's not just George Bush's name on Obama's broom handle. It's Hillary's. And his.