Sunday, February 10, 2008

Obama-Clinton divide

It's widening. And not in the direction Hillary would like it to widen. I'm not talking about the last 4 primaries, I'm talking about the rejection of the political gamesmanship. If you didn't check out the 20 minute video by Larry Lessig that I posted last week, check out Frank Rich's column in today's NYTimes:

Less than two weeks ago she was airlifted into her own, less effective version of “Mission Accomplished.” Instead of declaring faux victory in Iraq, she starred in a made-for-television rally declaring faux victory in a Florida primary that was held in defiance of party rules, involved no campaigning and awarded no delegates. As Andrea Mitchell of NBC News said, it was “the Potemkin village of victory celebrations.”

snip

The question now is how much more racial friction the Clinton campaign will gin up if its Hispanic support starts to erode in Texas, whose March 4 vote it sees as its latest firewall. Clearly it will stop at little. That’s why you now hear Clinton operatives talk ever more brazenly about trying to reverse party rulings so that they can hijack 366 ghost delegates from Florida and the other rogue primary, Michigan, where Mr. Obama wasn’t even on the ballot. So much for Mrs. Clinton’s assurance on New Hampshire Public Radio last fall that it didn’t matter if she alone kept her name on the Michigan ballot because the vote “is not going to count for anything.”
Sorry Hillary, but taking pages from Karl Rove's playbook is exactly why you'll never get my vote.

As an aside, this column is very nifty in that the online version links to about 2 dozen different sources right in the article...blog-style, but still legible without direct need for the links. Great for referencing and not allowing detractors to make up their own facts.

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