by Lanae Celeste

Created on: June 04, 2008   Last Updated: June 07, 2008

Of all the characteristics that have been attributed to Barack Obama over the last several months in both punditry circles and coffee shops, there is one that seems to fit his campaigning style best: the jujitsu candidate. For those not familiar with jujitsu, it is a martial art form developed by Japanese samurai for situations when one is fighting against a better armed, heavily armored opponent. Since it is difficult to use direct force against such an opponent, the essential philosophy of jujitsu is to use the opponent's strengths against him or her. It is an art of skill and technique instead of brute force and speed.

Sound familiar? Undoubtedly, Obama rose to prominence on the strengths of his soaring oratory skills and message of hope and change that directly tapped into the national psyche. But he would not have clinched the Democratic nomination for President if he had not developed an excellent strategy for weathering the combined attacks of both the Clinton political machine and Republican strategists.

Hillary Clinton started out in the Democratic primaries as the unbeatable candidate. She had the furthest reaching name recognition, her husband is the former President, and she had a vast network of donors to contribute funds to her campaign war chest. Obama had no chance of beating her by fighting directly against these strengths. He and his campaign managers knew that it would be a mistake to act exactly as expected according to the much celebrated Clinton Political Playbook.

Every time an attack was leveled against Obama, whether overt or underhanded, he knew exactly when to stand still, when to step aside, and when to roll out of the way only to come up into an unexpected stance. When Clinton staffers pulled traditional dirty political moves, like releasing pictures of Obama in African garb from one of his trips to that continent, he rose above the silliness rather than becoming defensive. In politics, it is imperative to be the one calling the shots as opposed to the one defending against them; Clinton thought she had this rule down to a science, but Obama proved to be the better student.

Even the Rev. Wright fiasco failed to knock him down. Obama wisely chose not to rise to the bait with petty counterattacks which would have effectively negated his claim to a new kind of politics. Nor did he simply ignore the attacks - the strategy used by John Kerry that added the word "swiftboating" to the national lexicon. Rather, he took the tremendous power

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