NYT: 2008 candidates following 'Soviet playbook' and carefully editing their pasts RAW STORY

Published: Wednesday May 16, 2007 Print This Email This "Taking a page from the Soviet playbook, the current crop of presidential candidates has taken to eliminating whole chapters of their histories," the New York Times reports. Hillary Clinton has managed to side-step her husband's impeachment and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. John McCain ignores the campaign finance reform bill he passed with Russ Fiengold that "is loathed by many of the conservatives" he is trying to court. Mitt Romney refers to the state where he was governor (Massachusetts) as "a very difficult state." John Edwards almost never mentions the Vice Presidential run he made with Democratic party black sheep, John Kerry. "It's no revelation that campaigns conspicuously omit things. There are always unpleasant facts, episodes or viewpoints that run counter to the public self a candidate is marketing," writes the Times. "But one of the striking features of the 2008 campaigns is the pungency of the various elephants in the various rooms. Candidates are strenuously de-emphasizing or ignoring altogether experiences that are defining and, in many cases, extremely well known." Excerpts follow: # "There's always a tension between what can be said, what should be said and what must be said," said Edward Widmer, a historian at Brown University who worked as a speechwriter for President Bill Clinton. "The first candidate to calibrate this tension may move to the head of the pack." In recent days, Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, has spoken forcefully of his pro-choice position on abortion, something that placed him at odds with many conservatives in his party, and something he spoke little about until recently. Still unspoken, for the most part: Giuliani's delicate family situation. His campaign Web site includes nothing about his two children, with whom he has had strained relations. They are, in effect, airbrushed from "Rudy's Story" (the heading of the biographical section on the Web site) # READ THE FULL NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE HERE



