So Hillary eeked out a narrow TX primary victory, a solid Ohio and RI victory and lost in Vermont (not RI, as I said earlier).
Not only will this contest now continue with both Democratic candidates, but these results validate things that worry me.
First, they validate that running on fear, lies and innuendo generates wins. The 3 a.m. phone call commercial and the lies about Clinton’s NAFTA support are disgusting examples of running a negative campaign. The lack of refusing the premise about the Obama picture and his religious beliefs was simply wrong. Imagine if the tables were turned and Obama didn’t actively deny that Hillary wasn’t a Muslim plant.
Which leads to an underlying problem that I see: Democrats can be darned hypocritical. Democrats have complained for years now about how Bush and Rove used the exact same tactics to smear their opponents and transfer the media coverage from issues to imagery. Democrats weren’t okay with it then, but they’re okay with it once Hillary runs? That’s not cool.
Hillary Clinton is not running her campaign from a (d)emocratic standpoint. Certain states and rules don’t matter to her as long as she gets elected. How is that standing up for the least among us? I think it’s highly likely Obama will eventually be the nominee. What will happen then? There is no credible way that Hillary could help him campaign, at least in my mind. Forget healing rifts and coming together: she’s already advocated to throw that out the window. How can she support his candidacy after she’s told America for months that he doesn’t have the qualifications to be President?
And mark my words: if by some ridiculous set of circumstances she gets the nomination, she’ll continue to campaign like this and run her administration like this. No quarter, no diplomacy. Just more of ‘my way or the highway’ type politics. I thought Democrats didn’t want that in a president. At least, that’s what they’ve been whining about for seven years now.
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Here’s one big difference between the candidates and their campaigns: during Clinton’s speech, her supporters started chanting “Yes, She Will,” clearly challenging Obama’s campaign slogan of “Yes, We Can”. Notice the important difference between these two: “She” vs “We”. That’s the way they’ll govern: Hillary wants the presidency for herself and no one else and Obama wants the presidency to be an extension of the people. We already have a president who governs for only himself. Some people apparently think the same mentality is alright as long as a Democrat has it.
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Update:
Chris Bowers has a different but important take on something I said above: “This is a bit of a mess. One thing I will say is if Clinton wants to imply that she will pick Obama to be Vice-President, she should stop implying that Obama couldn’t handle a national emergency. That is just disingenuous, since usually vice-Presidents become presidents in the case of a national emergency. If Clinton really wants Obama to be her VP, then she stop offering reasons why he would not be a good VP.”
Hillary likes having things both ways, but in this case is greatly hurting her own efforts to reach out to Obama supporters. If he’s not ready to be President, he’s not ready to be Vice President either. She needs to stop insulting him one minute and sucking up to him the next minute.
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