Hope Killer

Bill Clinton was so angry because it got ugly at the end in Nevada. [Whose fault was that?] Democrats may have cooled down their flash war over race and gender earlier this week, but by the time the vote took place Saturday, each of the two top campaigns was flinging some very ugly charges about the other. Bill Clinton accused the powerful Nevada culinary union of suppressing voters, claiming he'd witnessed it first hand. [If you follow the link, you will see that Clinton's accusations are somewhat ridiculous.] Obama's campaign manager in turn threw out some very charged coded language about efforts by the Clinton campaign to suppress the vote. "It is a sad day when Democrats start trying to suppress the vote of other Democrats," he said of push polls, robo-calls, and what he called "old-style say anything or do anything to win" Clinton politics. [1. What part of that is "coded"? And was it coded two sentences ago when it was Bill Clinton accusing Obama supporters of "suppression"? 2. Look at the first sentence of this paragraph -- Bill got angry. Why? Because he threw out dubious and in one instance demonstrably false claims and Obama responded with actual evidence of Clinton chicanery. Yeah, it sucks getting beat at your own game! I'd be mad too!]

Commence the hand-wringing. How do you put a party back together when Obama claims that Clinton wins only by winning ugly? [Well, you can start by not supporting the candidate who has an ex-president lying on the campaign trail for her and who is sending out her surrogates to slam Obama as a drug-dealing Islamist? And doesn't this beg the question of whether Obama's claims are true?] Historically, political parties find ways to put themselves back together, but Clinton risks looking like a hope killer if Obama's charges that she's succeeded unfairly start to stick. [This is pretty pathetic. First of all, it begs another question: has she? And why are Obama's accusation tearing the party apart? Isn't Bill Clinton slandering unions and lying about Obama's radio ads doing as much?] In addition to charges by Obama aides, the candidate himself was accusing Clinton of distorting his record [Question begged: Did she?] and saying anything to get elected in the final hours of campaigning. [Question begged: Is she?] Clinton's negatives are already high enough [High enough for what? Is there some ceiling on how much people should dislike an awful candidate?] This prospect of Clinton commanding a party stitched together like Frankenstein may at some point cause people to resist supporting her even if their doubts about Obama increase. [This is total BS. The Clinton's can say and do whatever they want, but when Obama calls them on it with evidence, he's endangering the party in an unprecedented way.]