February 20, 2008

Hillary Will Take the Party Down With Her

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This from NYMag on Hillary's scorched earth campaign against Obama:

Over the past few days, her operation has begun to sharpen the "contrasts" between HRC and BHO. Rightly or wrongly, her people simply do not believe they can do much now to change her fundamental message on the positive side: that she's readier than Obama to assume the presidency on day one; that she's a fighter for kids and families and for the beleaguered middle class; that she's someone with a deep knowledge of public policy and that she can deliver. Instead, her people see their main chance as driving home a series of negative messages about Obama: the accusations of rhetorical plagiarism, of his inconsistency between talk and action, of his vacuousness and hypocrisy. One way of looking at Wisconsin, where these messages failed to move the needle much, is that they fell flat. Another way to see things is that the Clintonites started hammering too late and too soft.

Trust me when I tell you that the latter is the view in Clintonland. That they have more arrows in their quiver to fire at Obama, charges they believe will cast doubt on the hopemonger, raising the specter (terrifying to many Democrats) that John McCain and the Republican machine will make mincemeat of him. Trust me when I tell you that you ain't seen nothing yet.

Party elders needs to step in and say enough is enough, or this is going to get so ugly that Obama will quickly lose his general election advantage.

Even if Hillary gets the nomination now, I will never vote for her.

Posted by Paul Hina at 10:33 AM