Hillary's 'Right' to Continue

Nick Kristof is a brave reporter and a fine writer, but Melissa McEwen grabs him by his tin political ear and shakes him good and plenty:

Shorter Nicholas Kristof: Hillary's a bitch, and she only has a right to stay in the campaign if she behaves like a good girl. Also, the Clintons are an amorphous two-headed beast who are barely Democrats.

There is a fair argument to be made about the wisdom of a protracted primary battle if it continues to be as bloody as it has been (though I'm not sure how many people outside the blogosphere and punditry actually view it as all that bloody). But that argument can be made without pretending the Clinton campaign is the only one playing hardball, and it can be made without talking about the Clintons—who, despite one's opinion of them, have raised shitloads of cash and garnered lots of international goodwill on behalf of the Democratic Party—like they're unwelcome interlopers in the party, and it can most certainly be made without comments like: "If Mrs. Clinton can run a high-minded, civil campaign and rein in her proxies, then she has every right to continue through the next few primaries."

Why is it that Obama supporters in the media - even the ones we deeply admire - are so determined to ensure that Clinton supporters will never like their candidate, so determined to guarantee that many will stay home or defect in November? Lately, it seems almost like a mission.

Comments

[Bluegrass Poet]

It's almost like a "middle-class riot" or something, isn't it?

[vb]

I just read John Whitesides' article at Reuters.com describing how the Obama camp and its media groupies have been pressuring Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race. I hastened to Hillary's Web site and made a donation, and I'm urging all of her supporters to do the same. Hopefully, we can level the playing field for Hillary and also teach the Obamaphiles a much needed lesson in humility.

[vb]

I just read John Whitesides' article at Reuters.com describing how the Obama camp and its media groupies have been pressuring Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race. I hastened to Hillary's Web site and made a donation, and I'm urging all of her supporters to do the same. Hopefully, we can level the playing field for Hillary and also teach the Obamaphiles a much needed lesson in humility.

[zeke]

"Why is it that Obama supporters in the media - even the ones we deeply admire - are so determined to ensure that Clinton supporters will never like their candidate, so determined to guarantee that many will stay home or defect in November?"

Tom, are you writing this stuff with a straight face? I know you are a smart enough guy to differentiate between the intrinsic merits of a candidate and the extrinsic bullshit that emanates from his or her supporters, and I'm sure that you will cast your vote accordingly.

But in the meantime it seems that you are intent on glossing over Clinton's heavy-handed tactics, and accusing anyone with the temerity to point them out of being divisive.

Of course you fail to mention that recent polls (for what they're worth) show that many more Clinton voters than Obama voters are unlikely to support the other candidate should he/she be the eventual nominee. I don't think you can blame that on the press, or on the tenor of Obama's campaign. The fact is that Clinton is not only touting her superiority to Obama, but also incessantly and insidiously implying that McCain is more qualified to be president than Obama. Talk about divisiveness!

That said, I was glad to hear her state unequivocally today that despite the small differences between her and Obama, the differences between the two of them and McCain are large and crucial ones. I'm hoping this signals an end to the Tonya Harding phase of her campaign, but we'll see.

Finally, I get the sense that what makes Clinton supporters so angry about Obama is that he is ahead and likely to win the nomination, not that he is meanspirited or smug or inexperienced or infected by his pastor with the deadly Black Rage.

But the fact remains - he is ahead and likely to win the nomination. That being the case, it seems pointless to expend so much anger and energy berating the man and his supporters, and it is certainly counterproductive to our chances of taking the White House in November.

[Judith]

the only fact that remains is that a lot of people cant freakin add. *rolls eyes*

[bruce b.]

Tom, Kristof is a pompous pontificating ass who every now and then alights on an important human rights issue. Most of the time he is unbearable, unreadable, and often off the mark. He has little respect for the rest of the world: he thinks his own upper middle class American value system is the only one that applies.

I have enjoyed Joe Scarborough's frequent recent evisceration of Kristof on "Morning Joe." Scarborough is a conservative, but Kristof bugs me just as much as he bugs Scarborough.

On the other hand, Gail Collins is a welcome breath of fresh air on the Times Op-Ed page.

[TomC]

Zeke,

Didn't Obama say in Nevada that he will get Hillary's supporters but his supporters won't vote for her? And you think he is the unity candidate.

He explicitly appeals to Republicans to be a Democrat for a day to vote against Hillary. His campaign sends out a memo last fall attacking Indian Americans for being staunch Hillary supporters. One of his campaign aides sidles up to Marc Ambinder (again last fall) and asks him to look into Bill Clinton's private life. His campaign is attacking Hillary daily in unusually personal and demeaning terms. Obama has attacked Hillary's character, her electability, and Bill Clinton's presidency. This is from a guy who has zip, nada accomplishments in his state senate career. Last October in the Philadelphia debate who went negative first. It was Obama who went negative first. He attacked her for her answer on driver licenses to illegal immigrants yet gave the same answer in the next debate in Nevada. His campaign took an innocuous remark by Bill Clinton and twisted it to attack him as a 'McCarthyite' just last week. Obama stood on the stage saying nothing while his surrogate was doing the attacking. Did you listen to the conference call of David Plouffe his campiagn manager in which Plouffe was frothing in his mouth while attacking Hillary. Did you listen to the language and tone of that call? And according to you, Obama is running the most positive campaign.

The amount of sanctimony and hypocrisy that comes from Obama supporters is a bit much to take.

Has Obama ever said that he would campaign unreservedly for whomever the nominee is? No he hasn't but Hillary has.

Has Obama ever said that he wants to voters in Michigan and Florida to count and have a voice? No he hasn't but Hillary has.

Has Obama ever said to his supporters that they should not vote for McCain if he is not the nominee? No he hasn't but Hillary has.

[zeke]

Judith,

We'll see whose math skills are lacking soon enough.

[zeke]

Tom C.,

thanks for making my point for me. I had to go get a towel after reading your spittle-inflected screed.

My message to you is: go ahead and vent now if you must. I only hope your bile level has receded sufficiently by November that you can bring yourself to vote for Barack Obama instead of John McCain or Ralph Nader...

[TomC]

Charming Zeke! With such a charming invitation, how could I resist your kind offer to let me vote for Obama?
I can't wait to join such a classy group of supporters.

The other charming thing about you Zeke and your buddies is how you engage in ad hominem personal attacks just like your candidate and never engage the issues and answer the questions.

I say keep it up, you guys have done for Obama not even millions of dollars in negative ads against him could have done. Make sure to bring all your buddies to all the pro-Hillary blogs. That really ought to help Obama.

Here is some news for you: Obama isn't going to be the nominee. So get off your high horse and get ready to vote for Hillary in the fall.

[zeke]

Tom C.,

Sorry if you somehow construed my post as an ad hominem attack. Your writing style is, indeed, somewhat screed-like. And your breathless list of perceived Obama sins was, to my sensitive ear, spittle-inflected. I think most objective English teachers would agree with me, at least on the former point.

For your edification, I am willing to categorically state, as I have many times in the past, that I will vote for Clinton if she is the nominee. Will you pledge to vote for Obama in the fall if he is the nominee? Because if you won't, then you really don't deserve a place at the Democratic table.

Best, etc.

[TomC]

zeke,

I thank you for your English lesson and for deigning to 'edify' me. Your intellectual brilliance is simply dazzling and overpowering. Trust me, I haven't seen the likes of it in my entire life (thank god).

I pledge to you categorically that in the unlikely event Obama is the nominee that I will not vote for him. Why? Because he is simply unqualified to be president.

Now, the table is not yours to begin with. So it is not up to you to decide who is at the table, is it?

Try humility for a change, you might even like it. That might be hard being the supporter of a candidate who declared grandly that 'we are the change we are waiting for.'

I am still waiting to hear your answers to my questions on who went negative first.

[Andre]

Zeke said: "Clinton voters than Obama voters are unlikely to support the other candidate should he/she be the eventual nominee. I don't think you can blame that on the press, or on the tenor of Obama's campaign." Clearly, there are a variety of reasons Clinton supporters will not support an Obama nomination, however I feel quite comfortable in offering that the tenor of the character attacks against Hillary by Obama supporters, in conjunction with the media bias (against Hillary and for Obama...simply google the names and interestingly images for some startling results), peppered with the history of Republican attacks against Hillary, perhaps have created a perfect storm, so to speak, in the sense that those of us who support Hillary feel passionately united behind her campaign and feel a disturbing similarity among those factions attacking her.

Tom C, you nailed it. Obama is not qualified to be President. Well perhaps he is, if one considers the American history of preferring an endearing "Feel Good" speaker" to represent them. Clearly Obama is intelligent and I don't doubt liberal. He has charisma. Hillary is passionate, intelligent, intellectual, spent 8 years on the periphery in the White House, and I personally believe her nomination could inspire women all over the world to help alter the sexist stereotyping afflicting the world.

[Slappy]

TomC: Even if Obama is everything you say he is and Clinton is god's gift to the human race, you lose all respectability, authority, and you expose your self-righteousness with this singular statement: "I pledge to you categorically that in the unlikely event Obama is the nominee that I will not vote for him." Your non-vote is a vote for McCain. Period. I take your opinion about as seriously as a McCain supporter because that is EXACTL:Y what you become the moment if/when Obama wins nomination.

Arguing over who is more qualified or who went negative first. Un-fucking-believable. Pick your side if you wish. Just dont take down the ship with you because you don't like the captain. We are all in the same boat and I detest those punching holes in the hull out of spite. Four years of McCain is a FAR worse fate than Obama or Clinton, even if everything you say about the two is 100% true.

[blue girl]

Tom, I have no idea why the Obama supporters in the media are acting like such pompous brats. Joe Scarborough's really been giving it to them lately because of it. All this week, he's really been calling them out. It's been incredibly hard for me to keep a level head during all of this, that's for sure. And obviously for them, too. But, it's it's not *my* job to be a professional like it is theirs. They have been so disappointing and aggravating.

[tdraicer]

No one owns the Democratic nomination (or the White House). It isn't Hillary's fault that Obama has repeatedly failed to seal the deal, and Obama can't automatically count on Hillary voters in the fall: he has to actually win them over. So far, he isn't doing a very impressive job of it, and most of his online supporters aren't helping matters.

[zeke]

Tom C.,

Thank you for showing your true colors. No one who is serious about changing the course that Bush has steered us on for the last seven years need any longer pay you any mind.

But before I begin my own personal "Tom C. Ritual Shunning," I can't resist one more English lesson:

"We" is a collective pronoun. Therefore when Obama says "WE are the change WE are waiting for," he is making a profoundly inclusive statement. Only a paranoid and/or disingenuous person would construe such a statement to be self-aggrandizing.

As to your question as to who went negative first: I suppose in your bizarro world, Obama (or Dodd, or Biden, etc.) went negative as soon as they showed the temerity to challenge Clinton's ascendancy to the White House. Back here on Earth, the question really has next to zero relevance.

[Judith]

I am with you blue girl -

these obama boys ere are really silly and pompous. I think they believe that the guys in the media who are catering to their boyband rage actually care about them - they are being played for ratings. The media boys spin on a dime for ratings and the cash and they will leave our poor friends here in a puddle of tears renting their clothes and wondering how they got screwed...again.

The math is, my dear little d student zeke - Nobody goes anywhere without the superdelegates. And no matter how much you whine, stamp your tootsie wootsies and slam doors, they dont have to do anything but what THEY believe is right.

[Andre]

I just contributed again to Hillary's campaign. I was going to contribute over the next couple days, but I just heard Patrick Leahy suggests Hillary should drop out. I'm really stunned that in a race so close, these folks continue to try to force her out. Isn't it time Obama takes one for the team and drop out? Sound ridiculous..?

[zeke]

Judith,

I've really got nothing to whine about, have I? My candidates ahead, and I'll be fine if by some miracle his opponent ends up being the candidate. And by the way, can one actually stamp one's tootsie wootsies? Whatever.

Finally, I'm not slamming any doors, either. The nomination is not sewn up, and certainly the so-called super delegates will have their say. But they, too, seem to be breaking Obama's way. Bob Casey and Patrick Leahy being the latest two examples.

Now that Carville has designated Richardson as Judas, what role do you think he will come up with for Casey and Leahy? Perhaps they can portray Pilate and Herod in his little passion play.

[Judith]

skippy - are you skippy the bush kangeroo?

[Judith]

zeke - keep flinging dude...maybe you will run out of energy and poop out on the couch.

[zeke]

Judith,

As I used to tell my students when I was teaching - "that's MR. Dude to you."

It really doesn't take much energy to keep up my end of the argument when you and your compadres don't make any substantive or defensible points in your posts. But by all means, you keep flinging too...

[Tom K]

You always here that it's "Munich 1938" again, but if fact, it's usually Catalonia 1936 -- It all comes back to the Spanish Civil War.

1. HRC = Communist Party

2. BHO = anarchist/Poum

3. JMcC = Franco/falange

Infighting between 1 & 2 may well = victory for 3. But before we get there, and even more certainly, 1 will grind 2 down.

A plan generally beats a hope, however pedestrian the plan or exalted the hope. (In using those loaded adjectives, I mean only to say that, even assuming you see it that way, Obama loses.)

HRC is entitled to fight this out to the end -- if Obama wanted her out of the race, he should have knocked her out by winning Texas or Ohio. Maybe he could knock her out by winning PA, but he won't win it (and I'm not sure that would get her out anyway.)

The lady can take a punch, while Obama still seems a little put off by the fact that the victory train hasn't pulled into the station (HRC is annoyed that her inevitability got derailed, but seems to have moved past it better.)

Plus, this Wright stuff hurts Obama much, much more than, I think, is generally appreciated. (And much more than it should, in my view, but that's neither here nor there.)

[Ralph]

People! Calm the %*@# down!

Any Democrat who will not vote for the Democratic nominee in the Fall because they supported the other candidate, is NOT a true Democrat, and is SHOULD NOT be welcome in this or any other liberal, Democratic blog. Anyone who thinks another four years of Bush policies is better than either Democratic candidate is the ENEMY. Period. Please, leave this arena and go to some pro-GOP blog. I'm sure you will find enough Obama and Clinton bashing to soothe your soul.

Pathetic. Really, pathetic. If we don't stop this in-fighting, and McCain gets elected, I'm getting the *&$% out of this country for a while.