Clinton mailing attacks Obama on guns

By Ben Smith

Hillary Clinton has re-opened her sharp attack on Barack Obama's position on guns, with a mailer in Indiana that seeks to raise questions about him with both supporters and opponents of gun rights.

The mailing -- perhaps the sharpest-edged of Clinton's five negative mail pieces in Indiana -- casts him as a typical politician, saying different things to different audiences. It also revives his damaging comments in San Francisco that small town people cling to guns.

Then, making the harsh case more broadly, the mailer asks: "What does Barack Obama really believe?"

The piece is particularly striking coming from Clinton, who has been seen for most of her career as a firm advocate of gun control, but more recently has emerged -- without dramatically shifting her stance on specific issues -- as a defender of the Second Amendment who fondly recalled being taught to shoot by her grandfather in Scranton.

Ben Smith is a columnist at www.politico.com
e-mail: bsmith@politico. com