Jesse Jackson, Jr. is national co-chair of Barack Obama‘s campaign. When he speaks about Obama’s campaign using the word “we”, the presumption is that he is officially speaking for the campaign.

That being the case, the Obama campaign is up to some pretty puzzling stuff. What Jesse Jackson, Jr. said on MSNBC yesterday about Hillary Clinton‘s tearing-up moment during a campaign stop in Portsmouth, N.H. on Monday, comes across as not only stupid and offensive — regardless of who you support in the Democratic race — it is also seems to be criminally inept in political terms.

…those tears also have to be analyzed. They have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs. Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina where 45% of African-Americans who participate in the Democratic contest, and they see real hope in Barack Obama.
[...]
We saw something very clever in the last week of this campaign coming out of Iowa, going into New Hampshire, we saw a sensitivity factor. Something that Mrs. Clinton has not been able to do with voters that she tried in New Hampshire.

Not in response to voters — not in response to Katrina, not in response to other issues that have devastated the American people, the war in Iraq, we saw tears in response to her appearance. So her appearance brought her to tears, but not hurricane Katrina.

It may not be clear yet exactly what factors conspired in what way to produce the surprise last-minute surge that carried Hillary Clinton to a 3 point victory over Obama in New Hampshire. However, the notion that Clinton benefited from clumsy and misguided attempts to hit her over the head with her teary-eyed moment (most notably by Edwards, to his eternal shame) certainly has some credibility. So it makes absolutely no sense for the Obama campaign to mount an even more clumsy and blunt-force attempt to hit her over the head. And yet that’s what they have chosen to do.

I really don’t see how this helps Obama. At best, they look churlish and ungracious. At worst, they lose votes to Clinton.