Here is an article from the Washington Post about how some in the Democratic Party are queasy about the campaign that is being waged for the Democratic nomination. The article states that people are upset with the Clintons because they fear that the campaign could divide Democrats in November. (Ironically one of the people supposedly concerned is Ted Kennedy, who divided the Party in 1980 by challenging Jimmy Carter, but that's a whole another story.) Although both sides have accused each other of misrepresenting their candidate's respective positions, the article's thrust is aimed at the Clintons.
Look, we are concerned about the increasingly bitter tone of this contest. We undertand that when there is little difference between the candidates on issues, each side is going to look for an edge, no matter how small. We also understand that the Clintons are upset that African-American voters who stood behind Bill Clinton in his presidential campaigns are abandoning the 2008 Clinton campaign for Obama. We also understand that supporters of Barack Obama are so impressed by his personality that they can't understand why the Democratic Party just doesn't give him the nomination by acclamation. But, here's our question: If Barack Obama can't take the heat from the Clintons, how is he going to stand up to the Republicans this fall?
Does anyone really think that the Republicans aren't going to attempt to divide Americans along racial lines if he is the Democratic nominee? Come on, this is the Party who has been winning elections since 1968 because of white Southerners leaving the Democratic Party after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This party practically invented dividing Americans along racial lines.
And it is not only race that they will use. We understand that Obama's supporters believe that his drug use as a young man should be off limits, especially since the media gave Bubble-Boy a free pass on his alleged drug use in college and beyond. But do his supporters really think that the Republicans are going to play fair in the fall?
The Clintons can take a punch and they can deliver a punch. What Democrats need to know is whether Obama can do the same. This campaign will tell us what Obama is made of and how he reacts under pressure. It is important to know that because Democrats who think that the Clinton campaign against Obama is like Karl Rove's either suffer from amnesia or are terribly naive.
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2 comments:
TM - I believe you're wrong: the Clinton's are doing their right best to top Rove.
As for the R's in the fall, um, yeah, that's expected. I'd also expect Hillary to use the viciousness she's up to now in the fall. Still, that doesn't excuse it now.
To say that we should have our candidates bash each other with lies b/c, hey, that's what the Rs will do, is callow.
If that's our only goal in the primaries, to campaign against each other in preparation for the R fuselage, then lets bestow the nomination by acclamation and be done with this mess b/c it serves no one [except to prematurely drive up negatives].
Senator Obama has been defended by Oprah, his wife Michelle, and then when it got really serious...Senator Ted Kennedy. It does seem as though he is too much Kubaya to stand up for himself. I think all of this has to do with his inexperience and then his opinion that Washington needs to change...although he seems to be putting everyone of them he can onto his ENDORSEMENT train. Yup, John McCain may fight like a gentleman in the Fall, but the rest of those Republicans will eat him up.
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