But as an attack dog ... all you need there are sharp steel-capped teeth.
_________UPDATE_________
The above was posted without actually finishing the entire article.
As to each side's game playing, playing with fire, playing chicken, and as to attack dog; from the same item:
One of the breakout moments for Fiorina at last week’s debate was her impassioned [sounding] riff against Planned Parenthood — "If we do not stand up and force President Obama to veto [funding], shame on us," she said – and Clinton allies see that answer, particularly coming from the only woman in the GOP field, as major ammunition against her party.
After the debate, Clinton’s camp focused on Republicans’ plan to turn the Planned Parenthood funding squabble into a government shutdown fight, and Fiorina’s comments were front and center.
“Those 25 seconds where she made that emotional plea for a shutdown moved the whole debate over,” explained the strategist close to the Clinton camp. “The likelihood of a shutdown and the pressure on Republican candidates to endorse a shutdown is a very good thing for Democrats in general, for the Clinton campaign, for everybody.”
Still, while the campaign itself has not attacked Fiorina, two of her allies – Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List – have both started going after her more intensely.[...] not because they see her as a dangerous candidate in her own right.
While Fiorina is unlikely to be the nominee, many Democrats expect her to eventually reprise her summertime role as Clinton’s main antagonist when she becomes an attack dog for the eventual Republican standard-bearer — so there’s value in getting ready to rough her up.
“She can still play an effective role as a surrogate in the general,” said one Washington Democrat who predicts the party’s machinery will eventually ramp up against her.
“At some point Fiorina was going to feel the heat. This just happens to be her moment in the sun.”
Fiorina's campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Nary a woof from the Fiorina camp? Oh, my.
Worse thing, all that shutdown posturing, brinkmanship, whatever you call it; real people can get hurt in the course of politics as it has become usual.
A whole bunch of people need to grow up, fast.