My commenters is smarter than I--stealing Ezra's post-titles since 2007

Underneath this post about the coverage of last night's debate, commenter JMC makes a couple of elegant points. To recap, the authors of this Times piece watched the contenders take a mallet to Hillary Clinton and concluded:

Even as they scrimmaged, the leading candidates took stronger aim at one Democratic candidate: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. In addition to helping them score points with Republican voters, their attacks on Mrs. Clinton may have the side effect of helping her score points with Democrats.

JMC:

I really don't understand this logic, because every time "Hillary" was mentioned, it was followed with "destroy America". For the people who perk up only at the sound of proper nouns, sure - this is some free publicity. For anyone who listens to complete sentences, this was a bad thing for Clinton and a good thing for the GOP.

It's obvious that the GOP are focusing on Clinton's flaws in order rally their base. However, maybe the NYtimes is right. I mean, we all remember how the repeated attacks on John Kerry's record rocketed him into the White House.

JMC redux:

I really think that we should go for Occam's razor when it comes to electoral politics. It's always possible to find some counterintuitive result. Perhaps smearing McCain in South Carolina is so distasteful that he'll win. Perhaps the Swift Boat ads will backfire because they'll highlight Bush's inexperience during Nam. Perhaps, as Hillary's advisers repeat, the GOP are trashing her because they know in their heart of hearts that she is the only one who can beat them.

Or maybe the simplest answer is the right one.

John McCain lost in SC because of the smears, and so did Kerry in 2004. I really think that the GOP is attacking Hillary to rile up the party because this stuff is not rocket science: Republican voters don't like Hillary Clinton and will vote against her en masse.

Amen.