HRC takes a page from Karl Rove...

Yes Hillary Rodham Clinton won in Pennsylvania but even with the constantly shifting goal posts, she still is not making up any substantial ground against Barack Obama. Six weeks ago she needed to win by 15 to 20 points to catch up in the all important delegate count; she won by less than 10. Still the major media outlets like CNN are calling this a "big" win for Clinton, partly because they are clueless but mostly because they have a vested interest in dragging this sordid affair out.

How did she do it? By going positively Rovian with the Osama Bin Laden scorched earth attack ad. For the Clinton machine, politics is a blood sport. So she gains how many more delegates than Obama? Nine? Twelve? The fact is Obama still leads and ultimately that is what matters.

With this win, Clinton claims to have momentum. Of course she said the same thing after Texas and Obama actually won that state if the real prize was the number of delegates, rather than popular votes. Now she claims to be leading in the popular vote. In her own bizarre triangulation of the Michigan and Florida primaries, Clinton is the winner although she agreed NOT to campaign (though she did make four fund raising trips after she started losing) and to abide by the rules laid out by the DNC. In fact all the Democratic candidates agreed as well. Per his word, Obama did not campaign in Florida and in fact wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. So despite the fact there was no real contest and after losing 11 or 12 primaries in a row, HRC claimed a victory. That alone suggests the futility and desperation of her campaign.

What does it tell you about someone when they want to change the rules in the middle of the game? When Team Clinton went south and she started losing, HRC turned her back on her commitment that she, Obama and others made--the very first indication in this campaign that winning is the only thing that matters, regardless of how sleazy you are doing it. The stunning truth is her supporters seem to agree, jumping on the bandwagon arguing the voters are being disenfranchised. The real irony of this of course is that the only path to the nomination for HRC is to disenfranchise all the voters and leave it to the super delegates to somehow anoint her as the nominee. The utter hypocrisy of it aside, I guess principles don't really matter when they get in the way of self interest.

To recap, she has run a grossly incompetent and in my view despicable campaign and is behind in the delegate race, popular vote and states won. Yet her supporters somehow think she is a capable manager. There is not much to know from her senatorial career, despite her suggestions to the contrary. Though she has been in the senate longer, her record is comparable to his in terms of introducing legislation. And we certainly can't look at her health care initiative in 1994 because it never amounted to anything but a complete disaster marked by arrogance and hubris.

Despite her vociferous supporters' protests to the contrary, there is no question that the overall tone of the Clinton campaign is unduly negative. Even the NY Times--a HRC supporter--finally acknowledged this in an editorial on April 23: "Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election."

And "On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11."

Hillary Clinton began this campaign thinking it was a coronation. But in December Clinton's team noticed Obama closing in the Iowa polls. So they send her surrogates out to trash him, starting with Bill Shaheen who suggested that we did not know all about Obama's drug use. And then Iowa happened.

So Clinton and her handlers went even more negative, using other surrogates to attack Obama intimating drug use, inexperience, plagiarism, fluffing his resume (over calling himself a professor), the Rev. Wright issue, the Tony Rezko and William Ayers connections, the Geraldine Ferraro salvo, the "bitterness" tape, the flag pin affair and now the Rovian commercial featuring Osama Bin Laden.

Then add the whining (”I always get the first question”), crying moments (New Hampshire) and the moments of self righteous indignation (”How dare you Barack Obama?” when he was accurately pointing out that she was misrepresenting her work for NAFTA) and you begin to recognize a person who is completely unfit to be POTUS.

Yet some of Clinton's more delusional supporters claim it is Obama who is running a nasty campaign against her. What planet are these people living on? And to borrow from Ring Lardner, how can they possibly like themselves in the morning?

Her campaign imploded in part because it was mismanaged but also because HRC, like her husband, has a depraved indifference to the truth. The HRC credibility continued to crumble with misrepresentations of her NAFTA support, Northern Ireland, SCHIP and most famously, Bosnia. Though she repeated the embellished account THREE times at three different times and venues and on video, we are supposed to accept that she “misspoke” due to fatigue. Once is misspeaking. Three times is lying.

Maybe she really did dodge sniper fire? Maybe she did help bring peace to Northern Ireland? Maybe she really was against NAFTA all the time despite working for its passage? Maybe she really did bring those 100,000 jobs to upstate New York? Maybe Norman Hsu, Johnny Chung and Peter Paul never crossed her path?

Her supporters blame Obama for negativity, accuse him of corruption with Rezko (despite the fact that the Chicago Tribune completely vetted him and gave him high marks for full disclosure and despite the fact that the Clintons have enough associations with dubious folks to fill a small telephone book), accuse him of being inexperienced or accuse him of being weak and incapable to respond to attacks. What is it about these otherwise intelligent people who put their blinders on and see no wrong doing on her part? Apparently the ethical bar is so low for Clinton supporters that it is now ok to lie openly, play the race card and in general distort or trash your opponent if the end result is your candidate gets elected President.

In the course of this campaign, we have learned that the racial divide in this country is still broad, so much so that it will still not allow for a black man to aggressively attack a white woman even in a political campaign, thereby putting a huge burden on Obama. But for the most part he has behaved like a gentlemen for the entire campaign, excepting perhaps a few moments in Pennsylvania. And when he was challenged by the highly partisan but intellectually dishonest Rev. Wright critics (how many of them actually read or saw his sermons?), he responded with one of the most remarkable speeches in our life time, proving Clinton to be wrong again: words do matter.

The 2008 campaign is as much about character as anything. Obama has it; Hillary and Bill Clinton have none.

To really understand the difference between the two candidates, one only has to look at several moments in the campaign. For example, in one of the last debates, Russert and Williams challenged HRC for mocking Obama in Rhode Island and then turned to Obama to pile on, He refused and took the high road. He laughed and said he found it funny.

Similarly when Stephanopolous and Gibson went after Obama for his very tenuous connection to William Ayers (a Weather Underground member whose colleagues were in fact pardoned by Bill Clinton), she took full advantage to jump on. In doing so, she revealed herself to be the opportunist and cheap shot artist that she is.

Hillary talks about her experience and being tested but Obama is the one who has been challenged in this campaign. When the Rev. Wright affair first surfaced, Obama made the seminal speech in Philadelphia. When has Senator Clinton ever been so tested? And when has she responded so eloquently?

And perhaps most importantly, when has Obama used her gender against Hillary Clinton the way she has used race to batter him? Pennsylvania was the apotheosis of a campaign gone wrong with Clinton appealing to the worst instincts of those one the wrong side of the racial divide.

HRC can't win the argument of ideas. She has failed there miserably. So she gone completely and utterly scorched earth with the idea that maybe she can get Obama to implode. Congratulations, what a strategy. HRC has assembled a coalition of racists, bigots, feminists, the uneducated working class, gun owners, the fearful and career politicians of the ruling class. Her supporters must be really proud but that is not a group of which I want to be part.

This campaign is also about new politics versus old politics. Obama represents the new; Clinton represents the old. One only had to watch her campaign and her supporter's righteous indignation on being called out on behaving badly. For them, it is politics, get used to it. Or, as HRC likes to say, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." The problem with this of course is it does not serve the public welfare, that is presupposes the playing field is level and the contest is over the battle of ideas. It isn't. HRC is following the Karl Rove playbook. And her supporters who more than likely blanched at the hateful campaigns of George Bush among others are now embracing this cynical, manipulative strategy. Or, at the very least, turning a blind eye while her opponent is unfairly vilified. Hypocrisy? Yes I think so but for them the ends justifies the means, confirming that politics is an American blood sport, mostly played by cheap shot artists.

One more thing: feminists supporters claim it is her time, as if she is somehow entitled. Why? Because her name is Clinton?

If her name was anything other than Clinton, she would not be where she is. Her experience and her achievements are almost laughable. If the message here is that you have to depend on your husband's name and career to break through the glass ceiling, well then that is a pyrrhic victory indeed.

Do understand, I was an Edwards supporter who looked at both Obama and Clinton before deciding on the former. My reasons were over her Iraq vote and the fact that I do not want to relive the 1990s with the neo cons out in full force. I also recognized that she will have no coattails and that any Democratic candidate in a contestable seat will NOT be helped by her.

After watching her ignominious campaign over the last few months, I know I made the right decision. The Bin Laden advertisement that drew the ire of even the New York Times was the final straw.

I'm not surprised that the Republicans have joined the Clintons and the media to prolong this nomination process. They fear an Obama candidacy and are taking preemptive measures to help HRC become the nominee. If nothing else confirms Obama's strength, it is the strange bedfellows who have banded together to line up against him.


My father insisted on voting for third parties in the last few elections of his life. I never understood that until now. If she secures the nomination I will vote for every Democrat on the ballot save her. I see no reason to reward someone for behaving so atrociously.